Teens who pretend not to be afraid of anything.

Suppressed sexual desires and thirst for revenge, being an outsider and humiliation, control addiction, shame and anger - all these were topics that Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk negotiated in the first season of their anthology series "American Horror Story".

Sometimes it turned out better and sometimes worse: “Murder House” and “Asylum” in particular impressed with their unforgettable characters and outstanding actors.

Occasionally a promising template resulted in a massacre ("1984") or did not get beyond stylistically intoxicating eye candy that was screwed up in terms of content ("Hotel").

Nevertheless, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, after their groundbreaking series “Nip / Tuck” and “Glee”, once again proved themselves to be visionary border crossers of pop culture with great pleasure in kitsch and a close look at the American psyche. “People tell stories in order to come to terms with their fears,” said Dylan McDermott as Ben Harmon in “American Horror Story: Murder House”: “Art and mythology are nothing but creations designed to give us a sense of control over what we are facing to fear."

Now, with “American Horror Stories”, a series offshoot follows in the form of snacks - closed horror short stories instead of novels. "It's shame, not fear, that keeps us from being who we really are," says Scarlett (Sierra McCormick) in a scene from "Rubber (wo) Man," the opening double episode. The fact that Murphy and Falchuk exploit their own reputation here cannot be denied. Of the seven of the sixteen episodes published so far, only three play in the eponymous “Murder House” of the first season (the Alfred Rosenheim Villa in Los Angeles has long since become a tourist attraction, from which the opening episodes make narrative capital).

The short form has advantages - the films are stringent. "Rubber (wo) Man", for example, is a condensed and unfortunately overstretched new edition of "Murder House": Parents in a marital crisis arrive with a morose teenage daughter and have to deal with the ghosts (and the latex suit) of the house steeped in history. Fans may like that because the universe of "American Horror Story" has always been crammed full of self-deprecating pop cultural references. Otherwise, however, the episodes that deal with death, sex, shame and pain are characterized by the lack of any inspiration. Some episodes are worth watching, including "Drive-In", a story about a mysterious film that supposedly turns its viewers into bloodthirsty monsters. Among other things, a film role becomes a murder instrument here.And the episode “The Naughty List” plays with the cynicism of the influencer generation and reminds in parts of “Black Mirror” and the considerations made there, whether the omnipresent screens make us monsters.

Murphy and Falchuk always ask the direct question: What scares you? With their approach, they have left a lasting mark on contemporary American television culture. In the stories of "American Horror Story" they mixed frivolous things with a fascination for the depths of the human soul, and that was mostly great fun. But "American Horror Stories" works like the original on the back burner. What broke a taboo ten years ago sometimes seems merely gimmicky and obscene here. When it's just about the gruesome, detailed bloodbath, Murphy and Falchuk fall into the same trap that they set their influencer protagonists in "The Naughty List": It can't go well if you deal with pure shock effects and pretend to deliver high art of entertainment .

American Horror Stories

, starting today at Disney +.