Ranking the Scariest ‘American Horror Stories’ So Far
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2 of American Horror Stories.]
American Horror Stories has delivered some truly spooky tales. But which of its 10 episodes is the scariest?
Currently airing its second season, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk brought the American Horror Story spinoff to the small screen in July 2021. The anthology series provides some origin stories to characters and plots from the flagship show, but it primarily shares all-new twisted tales. And yes, many of the American Horror Story cast members appear through the first and second season, some in roles from previous seasons.
American Horror Stories Season 1 boasts seven episodes, and Season 2 of the FX on Hulu show has released three new installments so far (new episodes drop Thursdays). Below, we’ve listed all of the American Horror Stories episodes so far, ranked from least scary to the most terrifying.
American Horror Stories, Thursdays, Hulu
10. "Game Over" (Season 1 Episode 7)
American Horror Story exists as a show in this episode’s world (they even name-drop Sarah Paulson), and the Murder House is real. Noah Cyrus and Adam Hagenbuch‘s Connie and Dylan are superfans of the show, prompting them to rent the haunted house for a night as part of an “Escape From the Murder House” experience set up by the new owners. The couple is eventually murdered by the Pigman, Rubberman, Twisty, and Bloody Face, but they’re all revealed to be characters in a video game being designed by the house’s soon-to-be new owner, Michelle, and being tested out by her son, Rudy.
Michelle becomes obsessed with Murder House — both the show and the home — and her obsession eventually leads to her death. In the end, Rudy burns the house to the ground to free all of the ghosts, his mother included. Jump forward to three years later, and Scarlett (Sierra McCormick) and Ruby (Kaia Gerber) from “Rubber (Wo)man Parts One and Two” reunite in the condo built where Murder House once stood. The episode is hardly scary. Rather, it’s meta and surprising at best.
9. "The Rubber (Wo)man Part Two" (Season 1 Episode 2)
Part Two of the series premiere throws Scarlett into the romance with Ruby viewers saw in “Game Over.” Like the finale, “Rubber (Wo)man” is more surprising than it is scary.
8. "The Rubber (Wo)man Part One" (Season 1 Episode 1)
The series kicked off with a return to Murder House in a two-part story that drew some ire from American Horror Story: Murder House lovers, namely for the way it changed the lore of the gimp suit. In Murder House, the gimp suit emboldened the evil already within the wearer. In “Rubber (Wo)man,” Scarlett’s eyes turn black whenever she dons the suit to play some pranks, implying that the suit gives her special abilities.
We’re ranking this above its follow-up episode simply because it was the first of the series, introducing fans to Murphy’s newest world of horror.
7. "Drive" (Season 2 Episode 3)
The most recent episode of the series puts a twist on the urban legend in which a woman fearfully drives away from a truck flashing its headlights at her repeatedly, only to be murdered by a man hiding in her back seat — exactly what the truck driver was trying to warn her about. “Drive” stars Bella Thorne as party girl Marci who won’t stop hooking up with men in the back of her car after long nights of clubbing despite there being a serial killer targeting those spaces.
She’s in an open marriage with her husband, Chaz (Anthony De La Torre), who keeps trying to warn her to be safe. The episode flips the legend on its head when it’s revealed that she is, in fact, the serial killer, and the men in the back of her car are her latest victims. She tortures and kills them in her desire to punish pretty and popular people — a projection of the childhood bullying she experienced. The episode is rather violent, with Marci killing one of the men by whacking a machete into his head.
6. "The Naughty List" (Season 1 Episode 4)
Death to influencers, says “The Naughty List.” Starring Danny Trejo as a mall Santa, the episode centers around four vlogger bros (Nico Greetham, Charles Melton, Dyllón Burnside, and Kevin McHale) who start the episode off by trying to catch people committing suicide on camera. Real stand-up guys. The video tanks their popularity (shocker!), and they try to rebuild their fanbase by sticking to humor. It should come as no surprise that these men aren’t funny.
That’s when they end up at a mall to harass the employees at the Santa stand and tell all the kids jolly old St. Nick isn’t real. As Trejo’s Santa tells them, “You’ll get what you deserve.” After that video is another failure, the guys learn the Santa they angered was actually a killer on the loose. Trejo’s Mr. Clause then arrives at their house setting up cameras to live-stream their deaths, and he does exactly that. Weirdly enough, there’s no real good guy or bad guy in this episode, which earns its ranking based on the sheer publicity of the violence. Really, it’s more a horrific example of our society than it is a spooky tale.
5. "Aura" (Season 2 Episode 2)
Holy freaking jump scares! “Aura” stars Gabourey Sidibe and Max Greenfield as married couple Jaslyn and Bryce. It makes a horror story out of Ring doorbells, called the “Aura” here. Jaslyn lives in constant anxiety for her safety because of a traumatic experience two decades prior. Bryce, like Matt (Ronen Rubinstein) from “BA’AL,” writes off much of her fears and is overly controlling at home and at work.
One day, Jaslyn sees a threatening man appear in her Aura camera. But the Aura didn’t record the moment like it was supposed to, neither did the neighbor’s camera with a direct view of their house. Bryce dismisses it as a prank, convinced a hacker is messing with their WiFi. He encourages her to look up similar prank videos on YouTube. She does and discovers someone else who experienced something eerily similar to her own Aura mystery. And what’s more, the man in the video bears a strong resemblance to the man who traumatized her when she was young, a janitor named Dayle Hendricks (Joel Swetow).
Through many twists and turns, Jaslyn is able to heal a bit and Dayle, a ghost, is able to move on. Another ghost arrives on the Aura cam in need of closure, and she turns out to be Bryce’s ex-fiancé, Mary Jeane, whom he killed when she became pregnant with their child. Bryce tries to kill Jaslyn with a fireplace poker once she learns the truth, but Mary Jeane kills him instead. Three months later, Jaslyn has moved into a new apartment in which Aura is automatically built in. And then, she hears a knock on the door. Uh oh.
4. "BA'AL" (Season 1 Episode 5)
Liv (Billie Lourd) and her husband, Matt, have done five rounds of IVF to no avail. Desperate to be a mother, Liv places a small statue of Ba’al, a fertility god gifted to her by the fertility clinic’s receptionist, Bernadette (Virginia Gardner), under her bed while she and Matt have sex to try and conceive a child. Eventually, Liv does get pregnant, but then she feels like a terrible mother and that her baby hates her.
Liv begins to see the demonic Ba’al throughout her house, but Matt doesn’t believe her time and time again. Eventually, the fearful Liv attacks Matt thinking it was Ba’al, landing her in a mental hospital. It’s later revealed that Matt had been orchestrating the Ba’al appearances the entire time, switching her medications to produce hallucinations and more, in order to drive Liv mad, lock her up in an asylum, and take her money. Bernadette and their friends were all in on the nefarious plot, set up because Matt didn’t want to be a parent and then didn’t want Liv.
Upon returning to the house, Matt finds the real Ba’al, who murders all of his friends. Matt is framed for the killings, and then we learn Liv sent Ba’al to the house through a ritual completed in the hospital. The episode ends with Liv having sex with Ba’al in order to have another baby — a condition of her releasing Ba’al from their deal. Matt’s gaslighting and plotting is a terrifying plot twist, making for one of the scariest and most captivating episodes of Season 1.
3. "Drive-In" (Season 1 Episode 3)
“Drive-In” satisfies the slasher fans of the world. In it, a drive-in movie theater hosts a showing of a fictional banned film called Rabbit Rabbit. The last time it was in theaters in 1986, the crowd went mad and attacked each other in a bloody, gory display, killing six. What could possibly go wrong this time?! A lot.
When the movie begins, viewers’ eyes go bloodshot, their pupils expand, veins start throbbing out of their necks, and everyone sets off on a killing spree. That is, except for Chad (Rhenzy Feliz) and Kelly (Madison Bailey), who are too busy making out to actually look at the screen. From the people who brought you “don’t have sex or you will get chlamydia and die,” it’s “have sex or else an ’80s movie will send you on an involuntarily murderous rampage.”
After the horrific violence ended, Kelly and Chad go searching for the film’s director, Larry Bitterman (John Carroll Lynch) to make him destroy the other copy of the movie. They shoot him and leave him for dead in his burning trailer with the second copy inside. Before he dies, he warns, “You think this is the end of the movie? This is only Act I!” He wasn’t lying. Kelly and Chad’s next Netflix and chill session ends up saving their lives again, as their hookup stops them from seeing that Rabbit Rabbit just dropped on Netflix, and chaos reigns throughout the city.
2. "Dollhouse" (Season 2 Episode 1)
The description for this episode is “a job interview goes horribly wrong,” and that buries the lede, to say the absolute least. And for those who fear loss of bodily autonomy (hello, it’s me), this episode is a doozy.
Denis O’Hare plays a creepy as all get out doll maker named Mr. Van Wirt in “Dollhouse,” set in 1961 Mississippi. When Coby Dellum (Kristine Froseth) applies for a job at Van Wirt’s company, she’s soon kidnapped by his lackey, Eustace (Matt Lasky). Coby (who has magic powers) awakes in a life-size dollhouse occupied by other kidnapped women. The women are forced to act like mothers to Van Wirt’s son, Otis (Houston Jax Towe), while dressed up as dolls. If they fail at their tasks, they’re tossed into a well where Otis’s mother also met her fate for having an affair.
Van Wirt has set up this demented contest to find a new mother for his son. When only three women are left, they try to escape and nearly make it out. Coby goes back for Otis and is caught by Van Wirt, who has Eustace murder the other two women before declaring Coby the winner. Her prize: He covers her body head-to-toe in hot plastic, turning her into a literal doll. Luckily, Coby doesn’t have to spend much time in this horrific fate. Two witches liberate her and Otis the next day and take them to Miss Robichaux’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies in New Orleans, Louisiana from American Horror Story: Coven.
While there, they meet a child Myrtle Snow and Coby suggests Otis take on a new name: Spalding. Yup, the terrifying episode was an origin story for the Coven house’s butler with the affinity for dolls. O’Hare played the father of his Coven character.
1. "Feral" (Season 1 Episode 6)
“Feral” is based on the conspiracy theory that cannibals live in America’s national parks. In it, everything goes horribly wrong when Jay (Aaron Tveit) takes his wife, Addie (Tiffany Dupont), and their 3-year-old son, Jacob, on a camping trip. Jay takes Jacob fishing while Addie stays back at camp and notices blood on the ground. She follows its trail, which leads to a dead deer lodged up in a tree. Jacob then goes missing during a game of hide and seek with his dad, never to be found.
That is, until 10 years later, when the estranged Jay and Addie return to the woods with a hunter (Blake Shields) who has a lead on Jacob’s whereabouts. They meet Ranger Stan Vogel (Cody Fern), who recognizes the parents and tells them what he saw of Jacob that fateful day. Later on, Birch’s true nefarious intentions are revealed, but he’s quickly killed by a cannibalistic creature that springs up out of the ground. Vogel later reveals that the American national parks system was created to house and conceal these cannibals.
In the end, the parents do find their son. Jacob has become the leader of these creatures. And rather than leave with his parents, the young teen tells the cannibals his parents are dinner. He watches as they’re eaten. Quite the family vacation.
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