This week on American Horror Story the Harmon’s fall victim to some twisted tourists fascinated with their home’s murderous history. As someone who drove to Amityville, Long Island in Friday afternoon traffic just to snap a pic of the world’s most famous haunted house I can sort of understand these people. I say sort of because, well as you will see these folks take it a bit far.

Home Invasion kicks off with a flashback to a murder that took place in the house in 1968 when the place was being used as a dormitory at a nursing school. On a night when most of the house is at a Doors concert a man shows up pretending to need help and winds up torturing and murdering the two students left at home. The murder was pretty famous in the neighborhood and led to the house being included on the local Murder House Tour, a fact Ben discovers after being told by a new patient who seems more interested in the house than her fear of being cut in half. Ben sends her on her way when he gets a call from the student he was caught cheating with back in Boston. Turns out the girl is pregnant and wants his support to “deal with it”. Let’s not forget Ben’s wife Viv is also pregnant, possibly carrying the demon love child of the Rubber Man who hangs out in the attic. Babies everywhere!

Whether the kid growing in her belly is demonic or not Viv (Connie Britton) is worried based on the fact she hasn’t had any morning sickness. When Constance (Jessica Lange) drops by with some poisoned cup cakes for Violet (Taissa Farmiga) and says she can smell Viv’s developing fetus Viv asks if she “smells” anything else weird about it. This was quite possibly the weirdest conversation I’ve ever heard. Constance assures her that the kid is normal, whatever that means in this world, and we also learn Constance has four other children. I know I’m intrigued. So why was Constance trying to poison Violet? Yeah I don’t know either.

Ben (Dylan McDermott) heads to Boston to support his old girlfriend during her abortion leaving Viv and Violet home alone. He lies to Viv about where he’s going of course, based on some sage advice from Larry the Burn Guy (Denis O’Hare). To make matters worse the girl freaks out when Ben tries to take a call from his wife so he turns his phone off, a decision he will undoubtedly live to regret given what happens next.

Later that night a woman shows up at the front door seeking help from an invisible assailant. It’s the same scenario from 1968 all over again, only this time two other intruders are already in the house with creepy black masks on. They round up Viv and Violet and tie them to chairs in the foyer. The whole scene reminded me a lot of that Liv Tyler flick The Strangers. Thankfully this scenario played out a bit differently.

These intruders, one of whom is the weird patient Ben was talking to earlier in the episode, are there on the anniversary of the 1968 murders to recreate the event. The whole scenario plays out beautifully with both women cleverly manipulating their captors so that they gain the upper hand. Violet had some help from Tate (Evan Peters) who was mysteriously in the house for no reason again. Viv managed to get Adelaide (also randomly wandering the house again) to seek help from Constance but when that doesn’t work she knocks her captor unconscious. In the end the intruders die at the hands of the crazy basement baby and the girls get out.

So what else did we learn this week? We learned that Adelaide and Tate can get into the house even if the doors are locked which leads me to believe that either they both have keys, are both expert lock pickers or are both possibly ghosts. The ghost scenario seems likely but I honestly don’t know what to think. I don’t believe Tate is a ghost based solely on the fact that Ben had a conversation with his case worker about ending his treatment after Tate gets all graphic about his sex fantasies concerning Violet.

That Violet is a piece of work isn’t she? Her resentment of her Mom’s pregnancy seemed to come from nowhere. And I don’t know what to make of this sudden friendship with the crazy girl who terrorized her in the pilot. Why is she hanging around with her trying to console her after what Tate (or was it Crazy Basement Baby) did to her last week? At least her attitude towards Viv seemed to change a bit after she saw how she handled the intruders. If this had been a show on the CW a meaningful ballad by The Click Five would have been playing over that scene.

We also learned that Tate, Moira and Constance all know each other. Constance revealed that Moira used to work for her but where does Tate fit in? Constance did mention the only child of hers not affected by Down Syndrome was the “picture of physical perfection” so could Tate be that child? He is attractive enough I think. And his being the spawn of Constance fits in with the yet to be revealed agenda she seems to have involving Violet. And what about her boy toy Travis? Dumb as a box of yo yos. Speaking of Moira, if anyone is a good candidate to be a ghost it’s Moira. She’s been “with the house” for a very long time and appears to people differently. There was also that bit in the preview from last week where Constance looks at Moira (Frances Conroy) and says “Don’t make me kill you…again.” Maybe she was unhappy with her dusting?

With any haunted house story the burning question on most people’s minds is “why don’t they just move out?” Well Viv apparently feels the same way because after Ben gets home from Boston she tells him they are selling the house…pronto. I have a feeling escaping won’t be quite that easy.

There is something not right about American Horror Story and I can’t put my finger on it. The story is certainly interesting and I look forward to finding out what exactly is going on in this house, but it just isn’t really all that scary to me. The events plaguing the Harmons are horrible but so far each incident seems to be an effort to shock the viewer instead of scaring them. That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy it. There were a few moments in Home Invasion that had me teetering very close to the edge of my seat but I never quite got there.

I think I went into this show expecting one thing and it turned out to be something else entirely. I do prefer a slow burn to my horror rather than a series of shocks. Being weird and shocking just for the sake of doing it gets old very fast. The flow of each episode feels a little jerky and disjointed to me and the jumps in time take a little getting used to. My own weird preferences aside, this week was pretty darn good. American Horror Story returns to FX next Wednesday with “Murder House”.