American Horror Story, created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, is a critically acclaimed anthology series that has captivated audiences since its debut in 2011. Known for its unique storytelling and chilling characters, the show often draws inspiration from real-life events and people to create its terrifying narratives. Throughout its many seasons, American Horror Story has introduced viewers to a plethora of characters based on real individuals, adding an extra layer of intrigue to the already haunting tales.
1 – Dr. Oliver Thredson from Season 2: Asylum and Ed Gein
Dr. Oliver Thredson made his appearance in season 2: Asylum, as the resident psychiatrist of the asylum Briarcliff Manor. He originally gave the impression of being Lana Winter’s saviour from the brutal place, but it turned out he was the notorious serial killer, ‘Bloody Face’ and is ‘clearly insane’. Thredson had serious maternal abandonment issues and would take this out on other women, kidnapping them, skinning them, and turning parts of them into furniture and masks.
Thredson appears to have been based on the Butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gein. Gein infamously murdered two women, Mary Hogan, and Bernice Worden, as well as stole numerous corpses from, what should have been, their final resting place. When police realised it was Ed Gein who was responsible for the murders, they raided his farmhouse and were greeted with unbelievable sights. Bernice Worden’s body was hanging upside down, her torso ‘dressed out like a deer’. Mary Hogan’s face was found in a paper bag, having been used as a mask. There were bowls made from human skulls, a wastepaper bin made from human skin, and even a corset made from a skinned torso. Gein has been working on a ‘woman suit’ so ‘he could become his mother – literally crawl into her skin’. You can read more here.
2 – Lana Winters from Season 2: Asylum and Nellie Bly
Lana Winters was a journalist who tried to expose the atrocities of Briarcliffe Manor as well as the real identity of Bloody Face in season 2: Asylum. After her original plan was uncovered, Lana returned during the night to sneak into the grounds. Whilst inside, she was knocked unconscious and woke to find herself locked up and officially a patient of Briarcliffe. Lana was a lesbian; something considered a mental illness during this period and was subjected to the horrors of electric shock therapy and conversion therapy. She believed she had finally escaped with the help of Dr. Oliver Thredson, but he was serial killer, Bloody Face, all along. Bloody Face had murdered Lana’s partner, using her teeth on the ‘human mask’ he was creating. When Lana eventually escaped, she exposed the goings on in Briarcliffe, entering the building with a camera crew, very similar to the exposure of Willowbrook.
Nellie Bly was a 23-year-old reporter, in 1887, when she committed herself to a New York City asylum on Blackwell’s Island. Wanting to write an undercover piece about what happened in asylums, Nellie checked herself in, under a pseudonym, to a boarding house and started ‘acting insane’. She would howl and scream, ranting nonsense at the top of her voice and wandering the halls all hours of the night. Police were called and Nellie told them she was a Cuban immigrant suffering from amnesia. She was sent to Bellevue Hospital, where she was diagnosed with dementia, and sent to Blackwell’s Island. The asylum had been built for 1,000 patients but was housing at least 1,600, with just 16 doctors between them. Nellie spoke to her fellow inmates to find out what happened to them, and she was shocked. Patients were regularly subjected to violence and threats of sexual abuse. They were forced into ice-cold baths and then made to sit for hours in freezing wet clothes. There was no real sanitation, the water wasn’t clean, and the food served was rotten. Most inmates weren’t ‘insane’; some were immigrants who simply couldn’t speak the language and others were poor with no family to help them. Unfortunately, the terrible treatment they had received had caused obvious psychological trauma. After 10 days, Nellie’s editor arranged for her to be released and, within days, the first of her articles had been published. The hospital was tipped off about an upcoming inspection and cleaned the place, releasing previous inmates and making sure clean water and fresh food were available but, despite this, officials believed Nellie. The asylum received more funding, the abusive staff were fired, and translators were hired.
3 - Dr Arthur Arden from Season 2: Asylum and Josef Mengele
Dr Arden made his first appearance in season 2: Asylum and a brief appearance in season 4: Freakshow when he viciously amputated Elsa Mars’ legs as part of a snuff film. Originally known as Hans Gruber, he was a doctor for the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s, eventually ruling over concentration camps. After Hitler was defeated, Hans changed his name to Arthur Arden, moved to the US and started working at Briarcliffe Manor as a physician. He performed terrible surgeries, leaving victims deformed, mutilated or dead and would leave his ‘mistakes’ in the woods surrounding the asylum.
Josef Mengele was an SS officer, and doctor, known as the ‘Angel of Death’ due to his work at Auschwitz II, Birkenau concentration camp during World War II. Birkenau was a labour camp that soon became an extermination camp; those considered, by Mengele, not to be fit and healthy at first glance were murdered. This included pregnant women, children, women with young children and the elderly. Far from being a caring physician, Mengele was pure evil. He was obsessed with identical twins and experimenting on them, once even throwing a newborn baby into a fire when he realised they weren’t a twin. He would amputate victims' limbs for no reason. He even tried to surgically attach children to try and recreate conjoined twins, then left them to die in agony. He never faced his punishment, instead running away and hiding like a coward. You can read more about human experiments here.
4 - Twisty from Season 4: Freakshow and John Wayne Gacy
Twisty made his appearance in season 4: Freakshow, as a terrifying clown that plays into many a person’s nightmare. His grotesque, grinning mask loomed over people as he either kidnapped them or killed them outright, although, in his own twisted way, he believed he was ‘saving’ the children he kidnapped. Originally, Twisty was a well-loved clown in the circus, adored by children, until some of the ‘freaks’ started a rumour that he was a paedophile. Still wearing his clown outfit, he returned to his mother’s home to find she had died. With no one wanting to employ him as a clown, or anyone wanting to buy the ‘whirligigs’ he was creating from literal rubbish, depression got the better of him and he attempted suicide. The gunshot didn’t kill him but took off his lower jaw, hence the mask covering his real mouth.
John Wayne Gacy was one of America’s most notorious serial killers, raping, torturing, and killing at least 33 men and boys. He lived through a childhood where he was terrorised by his bullying, abusive father to grow into a successful businessman and ‘family man’. In 1975, Gacy joined a local ‘Jolly Joker’ clown club, dressing as ‘Pogo the Clown’, a happy clown, and ‘Patches’, a more serious clown. He performed at many parties, charity events and even children’s hospitals as Pogo, bringing joy and laughter. But behind closed doors he was murderous, luring young men and boys to his house with alcohol and drugs. Once there, he would bring out a pair of handcuffs to show his victim a ‘magic trick’; once they were incapacitated, he would rape, torture, and kill them. You can read more about Gacy here.
5 - The Black Dahlia from Season 1: Murder House and Elizabeth Short
The Black Dahlia showed up in the debut season, Murder House. She visited dentist David Curran who was living in the Murder House in 1947 and they agreed he would fix her teeth in exchange for sexual favours. Curran used nitrous oxide to put her to sleep and took the opportunity to rape her. As if this wasn’t bad enough, he gave her too much nitrous oxide and she never woke up. Surgeon, Charles Montogomery, the ghost of a previous occupant of the house, offered to help Curran dispose of the body. Horrifically, he cut the body in half at the waist and cut her mouth at the sides. The body was found by a passerby in a vacant lot.
Before her death, The Black Dahlia was known as Elizabeth Short, as an aspiring actress living in LA. Her body was found on 15th January 1947 in a vacant lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park area. Her body had been cut in half at the waist and drained of blood and her mouth had been cut to her ears in a ‘Glasgow Smile’. Her body had been washed before being placed on the ground, her upper body a foot away from the lower body, her hands posed over her head and her legs spread and intestines tucked neatly behind her. Elizabeth’s killer was never found. You can read more about Elizabeth here.
6 - James Patrick March from Season 5: Hotel and HH Holmes
James March is the designer of The Hotel Cortez in season 5: Hotel. He had been a serial killer before deciding, in 1925, to build the hotel to his exact specifications so he could continue his violent ways. The hotel had secret corridors, bricked-up rooms and even a chute, leading to the basement, to dispose of the bodies. March considered murder to be an art, having great fun in devising ways to kill people, including decapitation and walling people up and leaving them to die. Even in death, he continued haunting The Hotel Cortez and hosting Devil’s Night for the spirits of other serial killers including Dahmer and the Zodiac. The hotel itself is believed to also be based on The Cecil Hotel.
Herman Mudgett was an American crook and, considered by some, America’s first known serial killer. As a child, he would perform ‘surgery’ on animals he had trapped and there are even suggestions that he killed another child. He attended medical school (where he was considered a mediocre student), later moved to Chicago, and changed his name to HH Holmes. Like March, he built himself a place now known as The Murder Castle, full of trapdoors, soundproof rooms, and secret passages. Victims were placed in rooms that were then filled with gas, horrifically suffocating them. Others would be bricked up in rooms and left to die in agony from starvation and dehydration. Holmes murdered men, women, and children before eventually being caught and admitting to killing anywhere between 27 – 130 people.
7 - Tate Langdon from Season 1: Murder House and Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold
Tate appeared in season 1: Murder House, as the love interest of Violet Harman. He had a complicated upbringing; his mother, Constance, was controlling and neglectful. His father was absent, although he was unaware that this was because his mother had shot him dead. His deformed sibling, Beauregard, had been left chained in the attic until Constance’s partner murdered him. These circumstances, compounded by the house's negative influence on him, came to a head in 1994 at Westfield High, a school Tate attended. His face painted with a disturbing skull design, he walked confidently into the school and shot dead 15 students, many in the school library, before he was shot dead by a S.W.A.T team.
On the 20th of April 1999, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School and murdered 12 students and one teacher. Many of them were shot in the library where they were desperately trying to hide. They also shot and injured an additional 21 people before turning the guns on themselves. It is still the deadliest mass shooting to occur in Colorado. Dwayne Fuselier, the supervisor in charge of the investigation later said, ‘I believe Eric went to the school to kill and didn’t care if he died, while Dylan wanted to die and didn’t care if others died as well’.
8 - Kai Anderson from Season 7: Cult and Charles Manson/Jim Jones
Kai made his appearance in season 7: Cult, the first season with no supernatural influence, relying completely on the horrors of human nature. He grew up watching his father abuse his mother, until she finally had enough, shooting dead her husband and turning the gun on herself, all in front of Kai. He spent a large amount of time on the dark web, acting out an alt-right persona and trolling others; he also mastered the art of manipulation, even persuading one man to cut off his hand so he could go and vote. That is just the start. It wasn’t long before Kai was running a cult, with an army of followers that blindly followed anything and everything he said.
Charles Manson was an American cult leader, the head of ‘The Manson Family’. He looked for emotionally vulnerable people and those who were on the outskirts of society. Some of his most famous followers included Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, and Charles ‘Tex’ Watson. The cult is infamous to this day for the murders that Manson sent his followers to commit. Leno LaBianaca and his wife, Rosemary, were viciously stabbed numerous times by the cult, with many wounds inflicted even after death. Actress Sharon Tate, who was 8 months pregnant by her husband, controversial film director Roman Polanski, and her friends were also victims of the crazed members. Tex Watson told them ‘I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business’.
Jim Jones started as a Methodist minister in the 1950s and was quite forward-thinking, believing there should be no racial segregation and raising funds for the homeless. However, by 1977 Jones was calling himself the ‘Prophet’ and had gathered many followers into his cult, the ‘People’s Temple’, even moving them to a commune known as Jonestown. In 1978 Jones ordered his followers to drink a punch spiked with cyanide; those who didn’t obey him were forcibly injected. 913 people died, including 304 children. Jones himself did not swallow the cyanide, choosing to shoot himself instead.
9 - Harry Gardner from Season 10: Double Feature and Antone Charles Costa
Harry appears in season 10: Double Feature as a struggling writer who moved to Provincetown with his pregnant wife and his young daughter. Whilst in the quiet beach town he met other creative artists who offered him a pill to pull him from his writing slump. If you have a natural talent, the pill will utilise this beyond your wildest dreams. However, if you are not, you are turned into a Flesh Phantom/Pale Creature, a zombie-like creature. There was a catch though (there always is); the pill made you reliant on human blood for survival.
Antone Charles Costa was a serial killer in a town called Truro (not far from the real Provincetown) and although he was only convicted of 2 murders, it is thought he killed a total of 5 women. Costa claimed that his alter ego ‘Carl’ was responsible and that he was unaware of the murders until after they had taken place. The bodies of the victims were cut up into small pieces and the hearts were removed. There were claims that there were bite marks over the bodies (although this was later disproved), giving the impression of ‘vampiric’ killings, leading to his nickname ‘The Cape Cod Vampire’. Costa committed suicide in his cell, (although some claim it was murder), 4 years into his life sentence.
10 - Madame Delphine LaLaurie from Season 3: Coven
Delphine LaLaurie appeared in season 3: Coven, portrayed by the wonderful Kathy Bates, as the nemesis of Marie Laveau. To her peers, she was a polite, welcoming, well-to-do socialite known for her luxurious parties. But the truth was much darker. She was a terrible racist with a deadly sadistic streak that she inflicted on her black slaves. In flashbacks, we saw just how grotesque LaLaurie was. She tortured her slave, Bastien, turning him into the ‘minotaur’ with a real bull's head. Slaves would have their mouths filled with excrement and sewn shut. Others had limbs broken and severed. One of the most horrifying scenes is when she realised her husband had impregnated a slave girl and she killed the newborn baby. LaLaurie, because of her wicked ways, ends up in Hell at the mercy of Papa Legba.
The real LaLaurie was a 3 times married woman, her first 2 husbands leaving her a widow. She lived in New Orleans with her physician husband, Leonard LaLaurie and 2 of her daughters, and was considered an upstanding member of society. On 10th April 1834, a fire broke out in the LaLaurie mansion. When officials arrived, they found a 70-year-old woman chained to the oven; she claimed she had started the fire as a suicide attempt, telling them she feared being taken to the top room as slaves taken there never returned. The doors of the top room were broken down and there they found ‘seven slaves, more or less horribly mutilated…suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other’. LaLaurie fled before the angry mob, who had witnessed the exposure of the atrocities, could get hold of her. You can read more of her story here.
American Horror Story has masterfully crafted characters based on real people throughout its various seasons. By drawing inspiration from notorious figures such as John Wayne Gacy, Josef Mengele, and H.H. Holmes, the show adds an extra layer of terror to its narratives. These characters not only captivate audiences with their haunting performances but also serve as a reminder of the horrors that can exist within our society. As always, thanks for reading, take care of yourselves and I will see you next time.
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