Sam Raimi's Underseen '90s Horror Series Should Have Never Been Canceled

Pop culture might be a little muddled, as there have been two high-profile CBS horror TV shows titled "American Gothic," each of which lasted only one season. The 2016 series starred Juliet Rylance and was about a Bostonian family who found that their deceased father might have been a serial killer. This article, however, will focus on the 1995 series, which was created by Shaun Cassidy (of "The Partridge Family" fame) and executive-produced by Sam Raimi and Rob Tappert. "American Gothic" starred notable actors such as Gary Cole, a young Lucas Black, Brenda Bakke, and Sarah Paulsen in an early role. 

Even when he served only as an executive producer, Raimi's projects tended to be large, melodramatic, and marked by an undercurrent of humor. "American Gothic," in contrast, was much darker, harder-edged, and scarier than usual, skewing toward violence and moral decay and away from spookshow excitement. It's a show about the corrupting influence of evil parents and breaking cycles of abuse.

The series is set in a fictional South Carolina town called Trinity, and follows the evil actions of the wicked Sheriff Buck (Cole), who loves to kill and commit sexual assault with impunity. He always gets away with his crimes, however, because he has eerie supernatural powers that he uses to manipulate minds and compel people to commit evil acts. At the start of the series, the young Caleb (Black) discovers he is the illegitimate son of Sheriff Buck, born of one of Buck's assaults. Caleb's mom took her own life after giving birth, and Caleb's older half-sister, Merlyn (Paulsen), witnessed the assault. The pilot episode features Buck murdering Merlyn and trying to claim the impressionable Caleb as his evil protege. 

Yeah, this is not a fun series.

Merlyn continued to appear on "American Gothic" as a ghost. The struggle of the series is to sway Caleb either toward evil or toward good. His father, naturally, has the evil taken care of, but the good is being covered by Caleb's cousin Gail (Paige Turco from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II") and an itinerant doctor named Matt Crower (Jake Weber) who agrees to care for Caleb after his parents' deaths. Merlyn's ghost is also there to offer Caleb supernatural advice when his evil father's influence seems to assert itself. 

Unusually for primetime TV shows in the 1990s, "American Gothic" was more generally serialized, following Caleb as he sauntered morally in one direction or another. Caleb begins to connect more emotionally with Merlyn and finds that she requires a funeral in one episode and can take possession of babies in another. 

The series was also a widespread soap opera about the small town of Trinity, and each episode often revealed the dark past of one of its locals. Sheriff Buck, of course, is behind a lot of the corruption, and "American Gothic" explores the consequences of the corruption he has wrought. He's a complete sociopath who loves blackening people's souls. One episode involves a crime wave in Trinity. Another sees the outbreak of a plague. Buck encourages alcoholics to keep drinking. In the show's final episode, they call upon the ghost of the Boston Strangler. 

"American Gothic" was nothing if not ambitious. It was also moody and downbeat, with the general sense that Buck was going to win out in the end. Things look especially dire when Gail finds that she's carrying another one of Buck's potentially evil children. 

"American Gothic" was able to complete a full 22-episode season, so there's plenty to take in. It's just a pity that it didn't last longer. I can picture a parallel universe wherein "American Gothic" lasted for 10 to 12 seasons, and just got crazier and crazier as it went along. This show wasn't afraid of making big swings or telling over-the-top tales, borrowing its setup and characters from Stephen King, but its sensibilities from old "Tales from the Crypt" comics. It's not available to stream anywhere, but one can purchase it on digital through services like Prime Video and Apple TV. 

"American Gothic" was kind of obscure when it was on the air, and it kind of vanished from the consciousness after that. Anything as ambitious as this, though, will find its audience, and cultists have been writing about the series for the past 30 years. There is no shortage of personal 'blog essays about the show, and professional horror outlets like Bloody Disgusting have penned retrospectives. Indeed, the Bloody Disgusting review noted that "American Gothic" might have been overlooked in its day because it was just one of many horror shows that emerged in the wake of "The X-Files" in 1993. "American Gothic" also clearly took some cues from "Twin Peaks," allowing it to be a little more erratic and bizarre than many horror shows of a more modern vintage. 

Gary Cole certainly recalls the series with fondness, and has said in interviews that Sheriff Lucas Buck is one of his favorite roles. Cole pointed out that "American Gothic" was ahead of its time in that audiences were expected to follow and maybe even support an evil character. In the post-"Breaking Bad"-era, that is all too common.