American Horror Story

[Say Yes to Heaven 27,515]

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 minute slater where he (along with Lady Gaga’s Countess 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 film 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 queer sensibilities. 

 

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 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. 

you really went OFF. wow im 

[DouglasReese 500]

Like I said, I don't just think it's the best of the American Horror Story miniseries, so far - but it's probably my favorite singular miniseries ever (that isn't Mike Nichols' Angels in America, or Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage). 

[BeautifulAnywhere 5,417]

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/10/american-horror-story-twist-lady-gaga-original-supreme

 

I'm ... I ... Read it for yourselves

[National Anthem 9,904]

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/10/american-horror-story-twist-lady-gaga-original-supreme

 

I'm ... I ... Read it for yourselves

 

 

probably an unpopular opinion but I LOVE THIS

[guardian 3,558]

omg I'm so hyped, the biggest twist this show has ever had is something huge to say, please Ryan don't fuck up this TIME. Gaga being the original supreme doesn't bother me tbh, Taissa meh, she's okay, YAY Finn tho, KING

probably an unpopular opinion but I LOVE THIS

same!!!!

[queenbitchpro 1,406]

Literally shook. "Return to Coven"    oh bring it daddy murphy. I can't wait for tomorrow's episode 

[Say Yes to Heaven 27,515]

WHY DID I SPOIL IT FOR MYSLEF THAT TWIST WOULDVE MADE MY PUSSY SO WET UGH

[drewby 9,246]

That didn't give away much if anything at all -- it was pretty much known that it would be a 'what you saw wasn't actually what happened' type deal

 

As for the Gaga thing, that would explain the similarities to spirits being bound to where they died like in Murder House and Hotel. ha impact

[Say Yes to Heaven 27,515]

That didn't give away much if anything at all -- it was pretty much known that it would be a 'what you saw wasn't actually what happened' type deal

 

As for the Gaga thing, that would explain the similarities to spirits being bound to where they died like in Murder House and Hotel. ha impact

He also said Season 7 would explore Freak Show characters and they won't be doing the secrecy thing again (he said they'd release the theme in Spring)

[Sucker 7,912]

probably an unpopular opinion but I LOVE THIS

 

saaaMEEEE MEE TOOOO

[HEARTCORE 18,971]

Ugh why is Taissa coming back...no offence but there's more personality in a bucket of paint

[Say Yes to Heaven 27,515]

HOMY FUCKING SHIT THAT WAS SO FUCKING WILD IM SHOOK SO BAD

[folklore 1,528]

THAT WAS SO **GOOD** I think Roanoke might be my new favorite season

[cheaptrailertrashglm 3,536]

I'm actually REALLY surprised by tonight's episode.

like i was literally waiting to be so disappointed but that was actually really good!

i think this might be my new fav season as well.

 

let's hope it doesn't take a turn for the worst.

 

and again.....Hi Evan Peters....bye Evan Peters lolol

 

oh and Sarah Paulson is not good at an English accent. The part is the only criticism i have.....which is surprising

[National Anthem 9,904]

THIS KEEPS GETTING BETTER wow. Ryan was really creative with this one.

 

sad because i realized tonight that i thought reading that Gaga's character being the original supreme meant Gaga would enivitably have to be back in another season, but Gaga isn't actually the witch... she only played the actress who PLAYED the witch. We haven't seen the real witch yet. this is all so weird to think about.

[Say Yes to Heaven 27,515]

im heatedt Gaga didnt come back to the house... but really i dont want ha to die tbh....

[drewby 9,246]

ok but the real kii here would be if Gaga is acting as Scathach, but she's legitimately a witch and it sets off some retcon in which the original Supreme never actually died -- thus establishing a link to a later season where Coven is revisited like Ryan suggested

[Say Yes to Heaven 27,515]

Evan Peters looks like @Degenerate this season

[graham4anything 2,859]

to those that watched tonights episode, did you see the trailer (around 25 minutes in) commercial for "A cure for Wellness"?  Who was the singer of the slow, creepy version of the Ramones "I wanna be sedated"?

[HEARTCORE 18,971]

great episode! this season has been very very clever so far and i love the whole element of it being a tv show within a tv show...the dynamic between everyone works very well. and having the actors/real people there is rather clever. as an English person, I must also say that Sarah Paulson's English accent is absolutely superb. there's only a few words that are slightly off - "haunting" for example - but the rest of it was near-perfect. looking forward to the rest of the season, hope Ryan doesn't make it go balls up.