American Horror Story Hotel premiere: a critical analysis

Warning: contains spoilers!

The latest episode of American Horror Story was a lot of things. Surprising, scary, and very, very disturbing. I have been a fan of AHS since the beginning, but to me the first season has been and remains to be the best. I keep waiting for it to top itself, but with no real avail. With Asylum it felt like the scariness could really work, but the story just fell apart halfway through. Coven started to become my favorite but then again, about halfway through, it felt like it didn’t know what else to do and completely lost its charm and story, not to mention the awkward random singing with Stevie Nicks. Last season, Freakshow, was more disappointing. It felt like AHS was relying much more on shock and body horror; it was not actually scary. Hotel feels like my last hope for AHS, and although I was deeply disturbed by this first episode a piece of me believes that this season might actually be the scare I was waiting for. Maybe.

Relation to Fincher’s Seven

So to start, as I have read in another review found here, there seems to be a lot of similarities to David Fincher’s Seven. Almost too much to be okay in my eyes. We see the Ten Commandments in the opening credits, and then there are several disturbing crimes that occur with sins in mind.  

I’m hoping that the whole season is not going to be based off of this, because then why not just watch Seven instead, rather than 13 hours it’s about 2. Unfortunately for viewers, AHS does not hold back and rather than Fincher’s angle with the lust crime, it goes full throttle with an unnecessary violent rape scene. We all know AHS likes to push the limits of comfort, but this seemed too far and could have been done in a much less triggering manner, like in Seven which did not need to show the act in order to have an impact.  Plus it does not make the show any more scary – it really doesn’t add anything other than extreme discomfort and wanting it to end/feeling ill in the pit of your stomach. To me, the unseen and unknown is typically more scary than blatant shock horror – something modern day horror seems to ignore. If the entire premise of the show is going to be “copying” Seven I will be disappointed. Although basing a lot of the character problems on sin can prove to be interesting and is a widely known horror theme, they need to create more original content off these ideas to make it exciting and refreshing.

Hotel setting

Why do hotels prove time and time again to be some of the creepiest, dirtiest settings in films? Look at The Shining, Psycho, Barton Fink, Identity just to name a few.  Sure there are films that depict hotels as beautiful and luxurious as well, but I want to talk about why hotels are repeatedly used for horror and psychological themed media.

There is a plethora of reasons why hotels can be considered scary, many being fear of the unknown. Who is in the room next door? Who was in the room before you? Have crimes been committed here? There’s the strange, uniform decoration, long sometimes winding hallways, awful, fluorescent lighting, bizarre wallpapering and carpeting not seen in any other type of buildings. Sure, I don’t find staying at a Holiday Inn for one night inherently creepy, but for some reason we as humans have created this fear of hotels, why else would we keep seeing these reoccurring themes? You don’t see many horror movies that take place in a grocery store or library, though I’m sure they exist somewhere. Human consciousness has deemed hotels to be an environment that could be considered scary for some reason, otherwise we wouldn’t keep seeing these reoccurring themes.

We see the tributes to The Shining – the patterned carpet, children in the halls, reoccurring room number. Unlike the “copycatting” of Seven, I appreciated these more subtle references; AHS has always referred to horror genre cliches as well as paying homage to what came before. It’s exciting for horror fans to know what something is supposed to be related to.

Vampire Element?

I also like that it seems to be incorporating vampires, which although not entirely confirmed I suppose yet… But why else would Lady Gaga and Matt Bomer go to a screening of Noseferatu to lure an unsuspecting couple back to the hotel and then slit their throats and drink their blood? I’m a huge fan of True Blood so I’m very excited to see where it goes. AHS is a very sexualized show so vampires should be child’s play for them. Vampires can prove to be an extremely scary element: dark, sexy, and mysterious!

We will see where this season goes! 

Until next time… 💀💀💀