American Horror Story (AHS) once again submerges its viewers in an ambiance that is all too familiar, creating a nightmare out of what most of us once thought of as everyday life. For avid horror junkies, American Horror Story Hotel serves a more than sufficient helping of all that is gory.
Unfortunately, the previous season of AHS, Freakshow, had its viewers screaming out of disappointment due to the season’s overall lack of explanation, unnecessary deaths, and messy plot line. Luckily AHS Hotel has done extremely well at redeeming the series and reestablishing the show’s chilling reputation.
American Horror Story is a television series, created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, that incorporates the commonplace drama of shows like Grey’s Anatomy with a bloody and gruesome twist. AHS does not follow a single story line for multiple seasons but instead each season follows a different plot line and members of the cast return to play a separate character.
AHS Hotel takes place present-day in the extravagant, yet run-down, Hotel Cortez built in the 1930s by James March, a rich man who is addicted to, along with smoking his pipe, the screams of his dying victims. The hotel houses folks such as March and his wife, a supernatural countess played by Lady Gaga, lonely drug addicts, and heartbroken detectives.
By the end of the pilot episode, AHS Hotel has managed to successfully spook its
viewers while also offering an intricate and detailed plot, along with an abundance of well- developed characters.
Viewers are quickly
introduced to Countess Elizabeth and her boyfriend Donovan, a dying cocaine addict whom she saved with her vampire-esque abilities. Viewers learn that the secretary of the hotel is Donovan’s mother, played by Kathy Bates, from her oppressive personality Donovan has spent his life trying to escape. The premiere also focuses on homicide detective John Lowe, whose son’s recent disappearance drives a rift through his marriage. Lowe is kicked out by his wife, forced to find his new inhabitance at the Hotel Cortez. Lowe sees his lost child one night when he is awoken by strange music from his alarm clock, and fans soon realize that the son has become the vampire child of Countess Elizabeth.
Throughout this single episode, the creators seamlessly explain the connections between many of the characters, and clearly reveal the relationships between the characters.
AHS tends to be crowded with plot lines, characters and ideas, but that’s the essence of the show. The creators do an impeccable job of pulling off the nearly impossible task of sewing together hundreds of different elements within the plot of the show, while still being able to dish out a surfeit of monsters, screams and organs. The pilot of AHS Hotel is easy to follow and concise, even with its profuse detail and story lines:
Within minutes of the first episode, viewers get up close and personal with flesh-eating demon children and a melted-skin covered monster that co-creator Murphy coined as the Addiction Demon, while also getting a fair dosage of every kind of relationship drama one could imagine. AHS Hotel is starting off as well-rounded, enticing and just the right amount of unsettling, earning itself a 5/5 stars personally for its multi-faceted realm of horror. So if you like anything from detached limbs to marital drama, turn the lights off, crawl under your covers, and let the nightmares in a rundown hotel guide you through the night. Well, more like chase you through it.