American Horror Story

[folklore 1,528]

Evan will finally make his debut in Roanoke tonight  

[cheaptrailertrashglm 3,528]

Evan will finally make his debut in Roanoke tonight

shitttttt

i'm gonna go watch last weeks episode rn

[cheaptrailertrashglm 3,528]

Just watched it.

wow Lady Gaga's character couldn't "tell her story" to what's his face without having sex?

yay Ryan Murphy for not being creative.

[HoneymoonSwan 3,106]

Evan is probably going to be Gaga's son. Bookmark me! 

 

Don't 

[cheaptrailertrashglm 3,528]

Evan is probably going to be Gaga's son. Bookmark me! 

 

Don't 

god i hope not.

[National Anthem 9,904]

omg this episode everything is coming to a close and episode 6 is next week where the switch is supposed to happen. so excited.

[cheaptrailertrashglm 3,528]

omg this episode everything is coming to a close and episode 6 is next week where the switch is supposed to happen. so excited.

the preview has me nervous

[Amadeus 11,334]

what do you all think about the "it's gonna get a whole new theme" theory? 

 

 

[Honeybear 2,047]

I think it's confirmed the theme is in fact Roanoke. If you watch the promo for E06, it's the first time they call it 'American Horror Story: Roanoke' and not 'My Roanoke Nightmare: A True American Horror Story'. So I guess the twist has to do something with the format change and tying in the actors and the real people with what we know so far. There's this somewhat legit leak account on twitter that had mentioned something about hidden cameras and the Saturn Award. We'll see, I guess.

 

 

P.S. I loved the Freak Show connection.

[National Anthem 9,904]

i really hope with the end of the "My Roanoke Nightmare" portion, we will finally get an opening credit sequence for this season. I miss that.

 

@Honeybear freak show connection???

[Honeybear 2,047]

@Honeybear freak show connection???

They talked about Edward Philippe Mott's successors and the last one (Dandy) dying in (Jupiter,)Florida in 1952.

[drewby 9,246]

i really hope with the end of the "My Roanoke Nightmare" portion, we will finally get an opening credit sequence for this season. I miss that.

 

@Honeybear freak show connection???

 

Evan Peters played one of the Motts

 

The historian at the beginning said the last known member of the Mott family died in South Florida in 1952 -- Dandy

I think it's confirmed the theme is in fact Roanoke. If you watch the promo for E06, it's the first time they call it 'American Horror Story: Roanoke' and not 'My Roanoke Nightmare: A True American Horror Story'. So I guess the twist has to do something with the format change and tying in the actors and the real people with what we know so far. There's this somewhat legit leak account on twitter that had mentioned something about hidden cameras and the Saturn Award. We'll see, I guess.

 

 

P.S. I loved the Freak Show connection.

 

They've been calling it AHS Roanoke since the first episode in the previews for the next week

[Honeybear 2,047]

They've been calling it AHS Roanoke since the first episode in the previews for the next week

Call me deaf, but I rewatched them all and it's the first time they show the Roanoke logo and don't call it 'MRN: A True American Horror Story'. Doesn't really matter tho, the twist is coming

[cheaptrailertrashglm 3,528]

I think it's confirmed the theme is in fact Roanoke. If you watch the promo for E06, it's the first time they call it 'American Horror Story: Roanoke' and not 'My Roanoke Nightmare: A True American Horror Story'. So I guess the twist has to do something with the format change and tying in the actors and the real people with what we know so far. There's this somewhat legit leak account on twitter that had mentioned something about hidden cameras and the Saturn Award. We'll see, I guess.

 

 

P.S. I loved the Freak Show connection.

the promo is stupid and shows nothing? i hope the "twist" doesn't ruin the show

 

Call me deaf, but I rewatched them all and it's the first time they show the Roanoke logo and don't call it 'MRN: A True American Horror Story'. Doesn't really matter tho, the twist is coming

no you're right it's been saying "my Roanoke nightmare"

[drewby 9,246]

the promo is stupid and shows nothing? i hope the "twist" doesn't ruin the show

 

no you're right it's been saying "my Roanoke nightmare"

 

no I'm talking about when it goes 'see a preview of next week's all new American Horror Story Roanoke'

[cheaptrailertrashglm 3,528]

no I'm talking about when it goes 'see a preview of next week's all new American Horror Story Roanoke'

oh well i haven't been able to watch it live so whatever.

i don't think it matters much? lol

[FrankNotOcean 1,146]

lmao what if they move into Murder House 

[HoneymoonSwan 3,106]

lmao what if they move into Murder House 

Imagine that lmao 

[cheaptrailertrashglm 3,528]

lmao what if they move into Murder House 

i'd lose the rest of the respect i have for Ryan tbh

[DouglasReese 500]

I said I was going to do a write-up on Hotel. Don't say I didn't warn you. It's pretty lengthy. 

 

American Horror Story: Hotel is a bloated miniseries. In the same way that some of the most ambitious projects almost always are. One of my favorite contemporary films is the over-cooked Southland Tales from Richard Kelly. Does it feel jumbled and overtly self-absorbed? In a way, yes. It’s still understandable, though, why the film can still thematically work in its own case. I feel similarly about American Horror Story: Hotel. Many fans of the anthology series have expressed heated hate for this miniseries, in particular. There’s no way to refute that. It’s understandable why it would be seen as a big, messy bore. 

 

But I have to respectfully say I'm on the other side of the fence, here - with nothing but praise for the miniseries (if it makes it a bit more understandable on my end, I love the mundane, slow-paced as much as camp cattiness). Just shuffling through my Letterboxd account, I realized something I never thought about. It’s the highest rated miniseries/TV movie in the nearly 10,000 titles I’ve logged. So, this caused me to feel the need to discuss the miniseries for its merits, for its flaws, and for the sake of, once again, being on the opposite side of the consensus on an individual project.

 

There’s one shot in the first episode of Hotel that I would like to use as proof for the thoughtfulness within the art direction. The art deco architecture of the hotel is so gorgeous on the surface, but this set, also, isn’t messing around. There are little details in the decor: one involves a bathtub, the back of Matt Bomer’s head, and a window dead-center in the frame that has panes shaped built into it like Count Orlok from F.W. Murnau’s classic Nosferatu. When Bomer stands up in the tub, his naked body covers the image of Orlok; thus setting us up for a scene minutes later where he (along with Lady Gaga’s character) strut into a park like they’re walking a runway - the park filled with people sitting on their blankets, watching a projection of the Murnau film.

 

 

Before we are introduced a few minutes later in this montage, we can already process that these two characters are creatures of the night - and we can see where this miniseries is heading when it comes to paralleling sex with violence, and violence with vampirism; vampirism as addiction - and it's all under a hyper-stylized queer sensibility. We also get a sense of how its going to be a story about the excessive. People who embrace their materialistic and hedonistic wants. They want the drugs, they want to present themselves as eternally beautiful, they want to live forever, they have no qualms with killing people, and they embrace a hotel that represents a supernatural - and past-driven a la The Shining - variation of hell. The vampires equal sex equal addiction equal violence is nothing new, having dated back all the way to Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel. But Hotel presents vampires in a sense that’s non-traditional; and not in a way to where they are imitation (like the title character of George A. Romero’s Martin). In Hotel, creator Ryan Murphy has characters refer to their vampirism as a “virus”. That choice from a pretty large word bank of ideas isn’t any mistake - especially when noting American Horror Story’s strong embrace of queerness. 

 

The biggest issue with Hotel comes from the Wes Bentley character - whose plot-line isn’t the most surprising, and is almost plagiarized from David Fincher’s Se7en. Every single time the series cuts away from those who inhabit the hotel, and focuses on him, the momentum is lost. I can understand the hate (Bentley being the technical lead character), but I’m not phased by it. I’m too distracted. I’m too hypnotized. I’m too invested in the hotel. Lady Gaga. Matt Bomer. The camp (“I can still smell him,” Gaga delivers with sincerity. “Like copper.”)

 

It’s the fashion and blood-splattered orgies within a miniseries focused on addiction that completely sweeps the floor with Bentley’s character arc (even though, I can’t discredit the amazing use of the name Holden for the son disappearing on the carousel - a nod to The Catcher in the Rye). It’s a portrayal of being addicted to sex, and being addicted to some animal impulse. How that ties into any addiction. There’s a literal addiction monster with a razor-sharp metal dildo strapped to its pelvis. But the biggest thing is the heartbreak and the long-history during immortality which leads to an incapacity to express emotions quite like those who are aging at their own vice toward death. Gaga’s character - “The Countess” - is presented as a woman who once had the ability to express grief, love, and sadness. When you look at what the century has done to her, however, you realize she’s become a shell. But what makes Hotel it’s most fascinating? Watching as The Countess starts to redevelop that emotional core - and watching the bipolar shifts of herself and the Matt Bomer character - both so strong in their campy performances, they morph every episode into something dazzling in its horror-meets-hedonist take on the vampire tropes. 

 

 

The first two miniseries in the American Horror Story anthology were sincere and flawed - but they took themselves seriously to such a degree that it was enjoyable - and had moments of genuine camp because of it. The third miniseries, called Coven, was a try-hard. It was doing everything in its power to be comedy, but it clashed and was messy; the writing seemingly done on the spot. It was like it was trying to tap into the camp of the first two, but instead opted for straight laughs. It faltered because of it, although it had its moments. (It reminds me of how Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead was organically campy, because they were kids so sincere at delivering all that gore - while Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness were trying to recreate it under the guise of a comedy film). Coven was followed through with the fourth miniseries, Freak Show, which subtracted the comedy and continued on with the “write-as-you-go” inconsistencies. 

 

Hotel is different than all of them, and it’s because the writing is as fractured as the rest, but because it actually embraces the camp on the plateau of a soap opera, and opts out of having actual comedic pathos destroy that aura. The horror and the comedy are blended here completely - where something as terrifying as a double suicide can come off equally funny and disturbing. It never clashes. It’s a return to Murder House and Asylum without abandoning its neon-drenched, 80s New Wave soundtracked, fluidly sexualized presentation of its themes. It embraces it to such a degree, that the miniseries lingers on too long; seeming to linger on the hotel’s interiors, and on its inhabitants, with an obsession for capturing them at their most mundane. No wonder so many people (and casual fans of the anthology) have hated it. 

 

 

More than anything, I want to applaud Hotel for visually and aurally making the metaphor of art itself being a form of "vampirism" (throughout the series, there’s references to the architectural creation of the Hotel Cortez, as well as people in the past working in the movies there in Los Angeles).  The descriptive attention to “art” (and meshing them, as I mentioned with the Nosferatu sequence - and the music choices, getting the most obvious Eagles song out of the way first and foremost) as not simply expressive through certain traits (such as the inanimate film, music, fashion, decor), but through a darker shade whereas some have made killing - and the status of hedonistic immortality - as their own fucked-up, and morally corrupt, artform.

 

 Sorry for any spelling/grammar errors; of which I'll fix when I return to read some replies.