Creator/writer/director Ryan Murphy is back with the fifth installment of “American
Horror Story,” premiering this Wednesday, October 7th under the
banner of “American Horror Story: Hotel.” The first installment in 2011 felt like
a breakthrough, a new way to examine horror on cable television, with a
fantastic supporting performance from Jessica Lange and subtle commentary on
the way a city like Los Angeles has been built on a bedrock of ghosts. In that
sense, “Hotel” sees Murphy and co-creator Brad Falchuk going back to the
beginning, although they’ve brought in the increasingly insane style that has
made each installment of “AHS”—“Asylum,” “Coven,” and “Freak Show” preceded
this one with diminishing returns—a little less satisfying. With each “American
Horror Story,” Murphy & Falchuk seem to feel a pressure to top themselves,
valuing gore and shock value over character, plot, sanity, etc. At times, the
season premiere of “Hotel” nearly feels like a parody of “AHS.” It’s the most
insane premiere episode to date. However, that aesthetic approach has some
value of its own. You’ve certainly never seen anything like some of the things
you’ll witness in the first episode of “Hotel.” And that’s what Murphy and team
want. They’re pushing boundaries. Screw your need for normalcy. You can get
that anywhere. And, on that level, “Hotel” works. The question of quality comes
down to the tolerance you have for style over substance.
“American Horror Story: Hotel” pays homage to “The Shining”
almost instantly as two new guests at the creepy, “Barton Fink”-esque Hotel
Cortez even encounter a pair of creepy kids in a long, fish-eyed-lensed
hallway. That’s after they see a maid (Mare Winningham) cleaning bloody sheets,
and before they smell something awful in their mattress. They cut it open to
reveal something even more terrifying than the urban legend of the odorous bed
to which Murphy is clearly paying homage. Before he even gets to the credits,
Murphy is pushing reason and expectations aside. And he certainly doesn’t stop
from there.
We then meet Detective John Lowe (Wes Bentley), the man who
it seems will be our primary eyes into this crazy world (although you can never
take anything like that for granted in “AHS”…he could be dead in a week). Lowe
is called into a case in which a man’s tongue and eyes have been removed while
he was having sex, and the corpse of the woman with whom he was procreating is
still on top of him, and he’s still, well, inside her. We then cut back to the
hotel, in which it’s revealed that not only are our two guests from the
pre-credits sequence basically prisoners of the hotel manager Iris (Kathy
Bates), but that there’s even crazier shit going down at the Cortez. How crazy?
A junkie (Max Greenfield) checks in to get a room for a fix, shoots up, and is
quickly beset upon by a gimp-like creature from a closet who proceeds to
violently rape him. Time runs backwards on a clock and Sarah Paulson enters in
a leopard-skin jacket, saying things like “The
more you scream, the more he likes it.” See what I was saying about it
being virtually an “AHS” parody? It’s kind of like watching someone try to turn
a Lady Gaga video into a narrative.
And so it makes perfect sense that Murphy and company hired
Mama Monster herself to play The Countess Elizabeth, the mysterious woman in charge of
the Cortez, aided by her partner Donovan (Matt Bomer). The second act consists
almost entirely of Gaga and Bomer picking up a couple, taking them back to the
hotel for a graphic foursome, and, well, I won’t spoil it, but the whole thing
is set to “Tear You Apart” by She Wants Revenge for a reason. No dialogue, pure
imagery and music—and it’s the best thing about the premiere. “AHS” regulars
Evan Peters and Angela Bassett will appear in later episodes, while Chloe
Sevigny co-stars as the cop’s wife and Denis O’Hare plays a man in a dress
named Liz Taylor. Not like “AHS” fans need a lot of convincing to watch a new
installment, but those last few words probably did it.
Will there be any room at all for normalcy
within this heaping helping of style that is “American Horror Story: Hotel”?
Probably not. And yet Murphy knows you still can’t turn away. When he finally
includes “Hotel California” by The Eagles, it’s both brazen in its obviousness
and the kind of thing you’d be disappointed if he didn’t do. “American Horror
Story: Hotel” is cluttered, unfocused, ridiculous, and silly, but it is very
self-aware and stunningly confident at the same time. Murphy and Falchuk almost
dare you not to join in the chaos, and it certainly feels more assured than the
inconsistent “Freak Show.” Only time will tell if “Hotel” is worth visiting, but it’s
certainly a unique offering on the Fall TV block. And that seems to be goal number one for Murphy: be different. That’s accomplished in the first few minutes of “Hotel.” The jury is still out on whether or not this type of different is also good.
