American Horror Story: Hotel- Page 10

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 3:57am

An over analytical but interesting piece on AHS (and slightly Scream Queens) and how Murphy's storytelling has changed from trying to be one of the cool kids to now being a scolding parent.  I think it's a fair point actually...  http://www.vox.com/2015/10/18/9564239/american-horror-story-hotel-recap-scream-queens

Some relevant bits: Since he's shifted from identifying with the kids to identifying with the parents, however, Murphy's didactic style has turned him into something he's never been before: a bit of a scold.

 

But that parental paranoia infects other portions of the series as well, in less enjoyable ways. In particular, the scenes featuring the deathless kidnapped children suggest a Parents.com contributed piece about how much time kids spend looking at screens nowadays. (When the vampire kids aren't chasing guests around the hotel, they're eating candy and playing Space Invaders, because sure.)

Meanwhile, there's a whole scene in "Chutes and Ladders" devoted to a doctor discovering that one of her patients (whom we may never see again, knowing this show) has the measles, because anti-vaccination rhetoric is strong in the southern California world she lives in. The show keeps setting aside its usual adventures in horror pastiche for earnest considerations of the dangers kids face today, and it's just weird.

 

n many ways, American Horror Story: Hotel is a chance for Murphy and co-creator Brad Falchuk to take another crack at Murder House, the first season of the show and one of the most influential TV seasons in recent memory. At the time, the show's wild mashup of horror movie influences, music video style, and completely bizarre plot twists felt like nothing else on TV. It didn't make sense, and it was often actively terrible, but it was always trying something.

Hotel is at once more disciplined and somehow less coherent. The series' visual aesthetic cribs heavily from the music videos of this season's star, Lady Gaga, and the story rehashes season one's idea that the titular structure is haunted by seemingly thousands of ghosts, then adds vampires, who are quick to assure they aren't vampires — they just have "the virus," because Murphy said earlier he'd never do vampires on the show.

Yet amid the co-mingling of sex and death, a constant on the show, there are frequent parental freakouts.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 11:22pm

Just saw last week's episode.  I kinda liked it.  I agree with the Vulture recapper, Brian Moylan writing about Gaga: "She’s so calm when dispatching her foes, which is why I think she’s so much better than Jessica Lange."

I know, heresy!  I just think Jessica kept spinning her wheels after season one, by the time of Freak Show she had spun her way until her bumpers were in the mud.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/19/15 at 8:46am

I thought this episode was... not horrible.  The stuff about Wes Bentley and his wig was dull but I did mostly like Gaga's backstory.  She's still mediocre with the word-saying, but this was the most interesting she's been since it started.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/3/15 at 3:41pm

Anyone still in this?  Last night's episode was one of the seasons briefest and it felt like it was never going to end!

 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/3/15 at 5:13pm

The previous episode was at least kinda stupid fun with all the Valentino stuff and the Murnau rip off camera tricks. This was awful. No surprise given the dialogue that it was scripted by Murphy.  This show already suffers from a character plopping down and telling their life story for no reason in flashbacks but they never formed the full episode and honestly I have to admit they have some of the few highlights. 

 

This is was just plodding. It's like Murphy smartened up and realized everyone knew John was the killer so, despite not wanting he boringly goes thru every single detail. As soon as the episode nearly instantly started with that set up I knew it would be a long watch. 

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/3/15 at 6:40pm

I can't even remember the previous episode.  And I feel like there are some characters who haven't been seen in a month now. 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/3/15 at 7:36pm

It was Gaga s back story episode though I can't remember what the impetus to tell it was and led to the vamps feeding and leaving the hotel probably to be forgotten just like all those vampire kids running around until maybe the finale

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/3/15 at 11:22pm

Them and Rudolph Valentino!

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 12/10/15 at 11:42am

Gaga got a Golden Globe nod. The only for the show. WTF?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/10/15 at 12:06pm

They want RATINGS. Having her there helps ensure that. That's the only explanation I can think of. 

[DAME]

Posted: 12/10/15 at 12:10pm

HD is not Cheyenne Jacksons friend.  He looked so unattractive in last nights episode.  

[darreyl102]

Posted: 12/11/15 at 5:01am

DAME said: "HD is not Cheyenne Jacksons friend.  He looked so unattractive in last nights episode.  

He has really aged and slimmed down too- Aww, what happened to the good old days for him and those thighs of his.

"

 

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/11/15 at 9:30am

I thought he looked really thin, too.

 

Gaga made some real doozies of faces last night.  I bet she wins the Golden Globe!

[MrSweetNAwful]

Posted: 12/18/15 at 1:07am

Three episodes left and things have officially gone off the deep end. There's just too much going on for it all to be wrapped up without a hitch. And characters are still making wild turnabout decisions (So the marriage is back on, Alex? God you're the most unlikable idiot character this season. And Donovan, what the hell are you doing man? Whose side are you on? What is your endgame? Are you just winging this?)

 

The only things that still work are Evan Peters having the time of his life scenery-chewing as March, Mare Winningham close on his heels as the ghost maid, and Dennis O'Hare as Liz, the heart of this season. That reunion scene with her estranged son was the most honest, grounded, earnest and beautiful stuff this show has ever accomplished.

 

So, show of hands, are they going to explain why Tristan hasn't been spoken of or seen as a ghost? It can't be because he was a (not)vampire, Liz just told Iris she'd become one. And it can't be because of a lack of unfinished business if he finally found peace with Liz. If that's what keeps you in the hotel, then what's Sally's excuse? What would Iris' be? She repeatedly cries about having nothing left to live for.

Updated On: 12/18/15 at 01:07 AM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 12:43am

Mare's character really grates on me, but she's very good at it.  And I do marvel at Evan Peters, because he is such an incredibly versatile actor, and he really does elevate the show every time he comes haunting in, even though I find his whole deal a little stupid and confusing. 

 

The only season this show didn't completely squander Angela Bassett was Coven. I still laugh every time I think of her saying "What the head said!"  Did she eat the measle vampire kids?  Maybe measle blood kills vampires who aren't vampires but are vampires?

 

The rules of what happens after you die in that hotel are pretty gooey, right?

 

Remember when Lady "she paid for a semester a Tisch" Gaga said sunlight saps them of their vitality, but they always seem vital when they go out in the day?  Although "saps them of their vitality" is so stupid and vague that it's meaningless anyway  

 

For a show that likes to take long breaks between episodes, I still find it insulting that they can't be arsed to give us a previously at us once in a while. I'll contribute to the problem and watch this garbage, but you can't expect to throw all these characters and plots (and plot holes) at the audience every other week and except them to keep up with it.   

 

Gaga continues to act very hard, but that doesn't mean she acts very well.   She alternates between the ersatz Dracula accent and stilted Valley Girl.  She made three really great ridiculous faces that I would have giffed if I didn't have such ennui. 

Updated On: 12/19/15 at 12:43 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 11:10am

Although "saps them of their vitality" is so stupid and vague that it's meaningless anyway  

 

It's used a lot on boner pill commercials.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 7:15pm

I've only watched the first two episodes and therefore, haven't read through this entire thread, but I get exhausted just from THINKING about watching another episode.  The first two seemed like they were about 4 hours long each and none of the hundreds of stories introduced have been compelling.  Gaga plays a sexy vampire.  Yeah, well.  Huh. Something something sexbloodgore.  Menacing ghosts of the past.  Throw in a nod to another season.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Just be honest with me...does it improve in any way after episode two?  Coven and Freak Show were pretty bad, and as unlikely as I could have imagined, this one feels even more laborious to watch.  Even more than The Affair and that's saying A LOT.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 7:20pm

No, it never improves. Get out now!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 8:19pm

Actually I think it improved until two episodes ago. Which one was two episodes ago, you ask?  I have no idea.  The one before the Halloween break?  The Thanksgiving break?  The Xbas break?

[MrSweetNAwful]

Posted: 12/19/15 at 9:41pm

I find this season to be an improvement over Coven and Freak Show because it's atleast entertaining and anything but boring (save for the detective's storyline). The last two seasons seemed so drab, took everything so seriously; this one is kinda fun if you surrender to the ridiculousness and watch it as a comedy. Hell, after the last episode I'm wondering if this is supposed to be a comedy.

 

From best to worst, I'd rank them as Asylum, Hotel, Murder House, Freak Show, Coven (with the caveat that Asylum is the only one I've actually finished).

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 12:01am

I think I liked Coven the best, but I never thought it was good. Most of the time I just found it fun. Until it stopped being fun. Murder House is still riddled with bs,  but I did do a re-watch a couple years ago, over the course of a week or so.  When you watch the episodes that close together the storyline is more compelling than the plot holes.  I still have flashbacks to Zachary Quinto saying "unprotected blow job."

I couldn't get through Asylum, because it was just too gross and awful for me. I think I checked out around the time Chloe Sevigney's legs were cut off or whatever.  Although the the first appearance of Twisty terrified me in a way the show had never done before or since, I found Freak Show to mostly be a slog to get through. 

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/20/15 at 12:26pm

When ranking American Horror Story seasons, I just give it the Gilligan's Island treatment.  There's Asylum and Murder House...and the rest.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 12/26/15 at 4:06pm

I have tried to start episode nine at least four times and just can't. Angela Basset showed up and I had forgotten she had ever been on the show. Matt Bomer and Kathy Bates started talking about their plan and I was like, "What plan?" They let way too many episodes go by without mentioning key plot points. I think this will prove the first season I can't finish. Maybe I need those boner pills Namo is advertising.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/26/15 at 4:34pm

All that is needed is for Tony Bennett to check in and have Lady Gaga go to his room for a nightcap. Would they do a duet together before she goes into her slice and dice routine?

 

My track record with AHS

Asylum - Not bad. Gore is gratuitous-Still trying to get past Vampires OK in the sunlight

Coven - Entertaining but not great

Freak Show - Could not get past episode 2

Murder House - Never saw it and currently waiting for it via Netflix

 

Updated On: 12/26/15 at 04:34 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 1/9/16 at 6:56pm

Mr Roxy--there were vampires in Asylum?

 

Has everyone just given up on this?  HuffPost has a piece that pretty much says, in a lot of words, what everyone knows about this show.  But I did like this bit:  "With writing that comes across like Sesame Street for horror fans, O'Hare explains to Kathy Bates, who must be kicking herself for taking on such a silly role, that he simply knew at a young age he wanted to be a she.

Great, until the next time we see her and she's in love with a man. Every year the AHS writing gets even more unhinged, so it's no real surprise that they switch plotlines like the actors switch roles, but that kind of disregard to detail is an affront to writers, not to mention a blow to anyone trying to understand what being transgender means. "

It's kinda amazing to see how the writers have even a shorter attention span than the Millennials they mock for having a short attention span. Every moment of the show exists in its own weird universe with no relation to the next moment.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-toussaint/american-horror-storys-bl_b_8912210.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000050