I had 'The Murmuring' playing on the laptop while I was finishing off some work and still I was bored. . I also almost figured out the entire story as soon as that guy said to Andrew Lincoln "what a year you've had", which certainly didn't help. But yeh, not the best episode to end on. It also suffers from Del Toro's writing and his penchant for uninteresting ghosts.

As to the gore or gruesomeness of something, I don't think either has to included in a horror yarn by default. But the worst sin any story can commit is that of boring your audience and in that respect 'The Murmuring' is as guilty as hell. Which is where 'The Viewing' tops it easily, and while I wasn't blown away by it and nearly all the characters are reprehensible pricks, I had no idea where it was going. But, in general, ghost stories can suffer from being pretty bland over all, especially when the ghosts aren't malevolent. However, that doesn't mean they can't be done well. 'The Changeling' or 'The Others' show that, in the right hands, a good ghost story can be quite chilling.

In any case the series seems to have been well received by most, so the prospect of an S02 is probably on the cards.