“American Horror Story” has become one of the most watched horror shows in America. With its twisted story lines, the show has gotten a reputation for being totally unpredictable , and its newest season, “Hotel,” is proving to be the most terrifying of them all.
Each season has a different plot and different characters all played by the same actors, which surprisingly attracts a lot of people to it. Its one season stories are also spin-offs of actual historical events. The seasons seem to have no similarities or connections to the next, but in a recent interview with co-creator Ryan Murphy, he discussed that even though the seasons are drastically different in themes, in the end they will all connect to each other.
“Hotel”‘s premiere episode aired on Wednesday, October 8, 2015 and brought a new horizon to the phrase “fantastically disturbing”.
“It made me cringe a whole bunch, but it’s the type of cringe that makes you want more and more,” says senior Annie Chipchase.
The episode opens with a grumpy Kathy Bates as the Hotel Cortez’s receptionist and two Swedish girls visiting California for the first time. After a haunting event in their hotel room, they request a new one and are moved to the only room that is always vacant, the terrifying room 64. Their experience is ended by the Hotel’s owner, known only by the name “The Countess” (Lady Gaga) when she kills them for trying to escape.
Room 64 holds many mysteries within its walls, which soon sparks the interest of homicide detective John Lowe (Wes Bently). We learn that Lowe has the reputation for being one of the best cops in the business because of his ability to really step into the shoes of each brutal murder. In the episode, he gets a call regarding a recent murder he investigated. The voice tells him that they committed the murder, that they are going to do it again, and that they are staying in Room 64 at the Hotel Cortez.
Lowe goes to investigate and is welcomed with the sinister smile of Bate’s character Iris, the receptionist. She tells him Room 64 is completely vacant, as it always is, and that he may stay and investigate all he wants. While there, Lowe sees what he thinks is a hallucination of his missing, and supposedly dead, son Holden running up and down the halls.
After an incident with his daughter, Lowe moves into the hotel to investigate the strange happenings and how they all relate to the recent crimes he has encountered.
But what makes the Hotel Cortez so strange and haunted? Most of all, why does Room 64 have so much significance and why does it seem to be the most haunted room out of them all?
Our questions are partially answered in the second episode when we meet Mr. March, a business man who resides at the hotel, who is later revealed to be its original builder and owner.
When detective Lowe asks Iris about why the hotel is the way it is, she begins by saying, “If you wanna know about this hotel, you’re gonna have to learn about the man who built it first.”
She goes on to tell the story of Mr. James March (Evan Peters), a millionaire oil man from the 1920s who created the hotel specifically for his favorite hobby: murder. He created hallways with no end, secret passage ways within the walls, and shoots to dump his victim’s bodies to a cellar that does not exist. His office, located in room 64, is where most of the torturing and killing occurred, which explains why the room has a twisted mind of its own.
Mr. March brings the historical themes of the show into play, considering his character is based off the notorious serial killer H.H. Holmes. Holmes was a business man in the 1800s who built “The World’s Fair Hotel” in Chicago to pursue a life long career of murder. To this day, there is no certain number of how many people were killed there. The building from the outside seemed like a huge, glamorous hotel, but what lay on the inside was a diabolical death trap. Just like the Hotel Cortez, once you checked in, you never checked out.
“Seeing Evan Peters as a villain is definitely going to make the show even more better… Mr. March’s backstory actually brought some sense into [the Hotel Cortez’s] strange atmosphere,” says senior Matthew Skibniewski.
“American Horror Story: Hotel,” in just two short episodes, has already proved itself to be one hell of a season, literally. With an all-star cast and a thrilling new plot, “Hotel” is sure to make your blood run cold. Catch “AHS: Hotel” every Wednesday night at 10 pm on FOX and be prepared to have nightmares.
What do you think about this season of “AHS” so far?