'Horror Story' following familiar path

"You're missing the point. The point is in this whole wide wicked world the only thing you have to be afraid of is me." — Fiona, "American Horror Story: Coven"

It seemed like a good idea on paper. A horror anthology show that could delve into all the different types and tropes of horror in American cinema. And, at first, it seemed like a good idea when "American Horror Story" made it on screen in October 2011. Tonight marks the end of the third season and it's hard to escape the feeling the show is now suffering the same effects of horror movies at theaters.

It's become common among cable shows for the penultimate episode to be the most jaw-dropping. That might be the case with "Coven," the third iteration of "American Horror Story." In its penultimate episode, things turned into a dark, violent, bloody mess that left the three prestige actresses in the cast — Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Angela Bassett — seemingly dispatched. It was a gross, violent hour that was all too reminiscent of the short-comings of modern horror films.

I like horror movies, I always have. I watched hundreds in college and even wrote a communications paper on them. But in recent years, the genre has changed. Familiar stories have been trotted out and "enhanced." Not the story or scares mind you, just the body count, gore, and blood. Some may find that chilling, but I find it banal and nauseating.

There is a difference between being sickened and being scared. Most fans of the genre know the difference, but any more it seems like the filmmakers don't care. Scary films and shows can be violent, but violence along doesn't make something scary.

I think the most terrifying screen character of all time was Hannibal Lecter, as played by Anthony Hopkins in "Silence of the Lambs." Lecter was calm, and most of the film he was in a cell, but he was terrifying. You didn't see a lot of grizzly work from him, only a few shots of the aftermath and a few oral accounts of his savagery, but your mind filled in the rest. And it was haunting.

I can't help but wonder what it would be like if they re-made the movie today. We probably would have gotten graphic flashbacks of his deeds, and the screen would have been drenched in blood. But would it have been frightening, or just disturbing?

"Halloween," created by John Carpenter in the late 1970s, is considered the original slasher film. It chilled audiences. It had some violence and gore, but that wasn't it's only purpose. When the film was re-made by Rob Zombie in 2007 there was an attempt to psychologically explain Michael Myers, while ramping up the body count and blood. It wasn't scary, but it was disturbing. And that's the way horror films have gone the last 10 years — with the exception of the hidden camera ghost stories like "Paranormal Activity" — horror films have tended to go for gore over suspense, to the detriment of the experience.

With last Wednesday's episode — and really this whole season — "American Horror Story" has gone the same route. In that sense, it is perfectly capturing where horror movies are going in America. But that isn't a good thing.