How to watch American Horror Story in the UK, US and abroad: Stream the cult series anywhere in the world
With ten seasons of delightfully camp horror, American Horror Story is a top pick for weeknight screaming. Here’s how to watch it anywhere
Last year was an exciting time for fans of the long-running horror hit American Horror Story, with the tenth season airing as well as the arrival of a new spin-off show.
With so many episodes to dive into there has never been a better time to hop on board the American Horror Story hype train. All ten seasons, including the latest installment American Horror Story: Double Feature, are available to stream on Disney Plus UK. The series is also available to buy digitally from Amazon and iTunes. For US fans, the entire series is streaming on both Hulu and Prime Video.
If these services aren’t available in your region, you can view episodes from anywhere in the world using a good VPN service, such as ExpressVPN or NordVPN.
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What is it about?
The beauty of American Horror Story is its anthology format. Each season is a self-contained miniseries with a horror-themed focus and its own full plot and cast of characters. Seasons of the show take place across a range of time periods and feature everything from haunted houses, vicious cults and covens of witches to mental asylums and slasher-ridden lakeside camps. One thing that links the seasons is that plot elements from each are inspired by true events.
While each new season is a fresh start, some members of the cast appear across different seasons, often in new roles. Fans of Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett can expect to see these actors pop up more than a few times throughout the different seasons.
What do fans and critics think of the show?
The show has had consistently high viewership and solid critical ratings throughout its decade plus run, with each season scoring in the high-seventies to eighties on Rotten Tomatoes. It has also won a slew of awards over the years, including acting Golden Globes for Lady Gaga and Jessica Lange. Lady Gaga die-hards should check out her starring role in season five, American Horror Story: Hotel.
The show has been praised for delivering consistent scares, tightly-structured mysteries and having a kitsch, off-beat tone. It has been praised in particular for its use of LGBT+ themes and for giving queer creators space in primetime television. Co-creator Ryan Murphy is known for creating a string of hit shows with loyal fanbases – so any fans of Glee, American Crime Story, Scream Queens or Pose should put American Horror Story at the top of their watchlist.
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How to watch American Horror Story in the UK: Stream on Disney Plus
The simplest way to binge all ten seasons of American Horror Story is to sign up for Disney Plus. Every season from the original Murder House straight through to recently released Double Feature are now available for your viewing pleasure on Disney’s streaming service.
Disney Plus costs £7.99/mth for UK subscribers, but if you intend to keep your Disney Plus subscription for the forseeable future, it might be worth you while signing up for a full year off the bat. This costs £79.90 and saves you 15% on the cost of paying monthly for a full year.
How to watch American Horror Story in the UK: Purchase digitally from Amazon or iTunes
For those of you who don’t have a Disney Plus subscription, or those who want to purchase episodes and seasons rather than stream them, there are some decent options available.
Physical media fans can get the the first six seasons of American Horror Story as a DVD box set from HMV. Each of the first nine seasons are also available to purchase digitally from Amazon, streaming in HD and priced between £15 and £18 per season. Similarly, Apple users can purchase seasons and episodes via iTunes, with the same quality and price range – or you can buy Seasons 1-8 as a bundle for £59.99.
How to watch American Horror Story in the US: Stream on Hulu or Amazon Prime
US fans have some options when it comes to streaming American Horror Story. All 113 episodes of the show are available to stream on Hulu. The most basic Hulu subscription costs $6.99 per month, with an ad-free version costing $12.99. Fans of live sports can sign up to a $69.99 package that includes ESPN+, a selection of live tv channels, as well as access to Disney Plus on top of the regular Hulu library and features.
The first nine seasons are also available to those subscribed to Amazon’s Prime US, streaming on Prime Video. Currently, Prime Video membership is $8.99 per month, with a full Amazon Prime subscription coming in at $14.99 per month, or $139 per year. Students and those on select government assistance can get a Prime subscription at a reduced rate.
How to watch anywhere in the world: Use a VPN
While on holidays or travelling, catching up on a good show can help to pass the time. However, things can get tricky when trying to stream from abroad, as media companies often geo-block content based on your location. Or, as is the case in the UK, there might not be a clear and easy place to stream something like American Horror Story. The solution to these streaming woes? Use a good VPN service.
VPN stands for ‘Virtual Private Network,’ and this creates a secure, private connection between your device and the web. This prevents anyone from viewing your online activity or location – including your ISP as well as malicious entities such as scammers and hackers.
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A key feature of a VPN is that it lets you change your device’s apparent location. This means you can connect to a server back home from abroad and enjoy all the content on your streaming services, wherever you might be.
Disney Plus is streaming American Horror Story in a number of different countries, including the UK, US, Canada and Australia, so if you have a subscription you should be able to stream the show by connecting to a server in any of these countries via VPN.
Our top two VPN picks are summarised below. Both offer plenty of customisation options, robust security and good speeds.
ExpressVPN: This is our top choice for helping you bypass the geo-blocking restrictions of streaming services. ExpressVPN has 3,000 servers spread across 94 countries, so you’ll easily be able to stream American Horror Story – and on up to 5 devices to boot. Sign up using the link below, where you can access the 12-month plan at half price with an added 3 months free on top of that. ExpressVPN has a 30-day money-back guarantee should you find yourself unhappy with the service.
Read our full ExpressVPN review for more details
NordVPN: While ExpressVPN is our top pick for streaming, NordVPN is a more feature-packed alternative and our favourite overall. It comes with ad and malware blocking as standard, is securely based in Panama beyond the reach of any authorities, and has impressive download speeds – in testing we hit speeds of up to 182Mbits/sec (using a 200Mbits/sec fibre line) from Nord’s US servers
Read our full NordVPN review for more details