8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
The plot centers around the enigmatic Hotel Cortez in Los Angeles, California, that catches the eye of an intrepid homicide detective (Bentley). The Cortez is host to the strange and bizarre, spearheaded by its owner, The Countess (Gaga), who is a bloodsucking fashionista.
Starring: Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Denis O'Hare, Jessica Lange, Frances ConroyHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 26% |
Psychological thriller | 20% |
Erotic | 18% |
Period | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
German: DTS 5.1
French: DTS 5.1
English SDH, French, German, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
American Horror Story creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk are on record as stating that the show’s fifth season, bearing the
soubriquet
Hotel, is based at least in part on spooky hotels found in the downtown Los Angeles core, though I have yet to find any mention of an
old
L.A. hotel called the Normandie Wilshire in the pair’s press junkets about the show. In my "final words" below, I'll relate a brief anecdote about my
own experience in what was several decades ago a less than deluxe downtown Los Angeles abode. Much like the old Normandie
Wilshire, American Horror Story: Hotel’s titular structure, the Hotel Cortez, is an Art Deco monstrosity plopped down somewhere in Los
Angeles that’s never fully detailed, though in an early sequence involving two hapless Swedish tourists, it sounds like it’s not near anything a
tourist
might want to go see. This season of American Horror Story calls back to American Horror Story: The Complete First Season, if only fleetingly with regard to
one of
this season’s character’s pasts, but it also references in spirit (no pun intended, considering the ghost angle) entries like The Shining, with shots of spectral children in long otherwise abandoned hallways
obviously paying homage to the Kubrick film. Just for good measure, a simultaneously unfolding investigation into a serial
killer who models his murders on the Ten Commandments will no doubt remind some viewers of Seven. And the fact that one "very special room" seems to be a portal to the Id of anyone who enters it may
recall
the Jim Carrey horror enterprise The Number 23.
Through
it all the show utilizes its repertory company of players in fun ways, with alums Kathy Bates, Sarah
Paulson, Denis O’Hare, Evan Peters and Chloë Sevigny (among several others) joined by this season’s marquee attraction, Lady Gaga. The
results are
typically unsettling, and you’ll probably never check into a Los Angeles hotel again (be it the Normandie Wilshire or some other institution)
without
checking the mattress for signs of having been sown up with something (somebody?) inside.
Though this anthology series doesn't have huge linking aspects other than creepy locations, lots of backstory and its fabulous repertory cast, our
reviews of previous seasons can be accessed by clicking on the following links:
American Horror Story: The
Complete First Season Blu-ray review
American Horror Story: Asylum Blu-ray
review
American Horror Story: Coven Blu-ray
review
American Horror Story: Freak Show Blu-
ray review
American Horror Story: Hotel is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Once again this series flaunts a whole array of stylistic excesses, including tweaking the image in all sorts of ways from distressing to desaturation to intense color grading and a number of other techniques. The overall look of this season is a bit softer and gauzier than in at least some previous seasons, perhaps an intentional homage to "soft focus" tactics in the Hollywood of yore. Shadow detail is generally pretty convincing in the drab and dingy hallways of the Hotel Cortez, but a couple of the sets utilized, including what might be termed a torture room, don't offer a wealth of detail levels due to low lighting conditions. This season glories in some extreme close-ups, and here detail and fine detail levels are often excellent. The palette is generally fairly burnished looking, with lots of deep browns in elements like the walls of the hotel contrasting quite nicely with the lush fabrics of the costumes and upholstery. What appear to be different formats have been utilized, leading to a fairly wide disparity in levels of sharpness and clarity, and therefore detail levels.
American Horror Story: Hotel's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track follows in the excellent footsteps of the show's previous Blu-ray releases, with neatly subliminal discrete channelization adding quite effectively to the creepiness factor, even when nothing overtly scary is happening on screen. The show has always offered a glut of cool sound effects, and that continues in this season, with a whirling panoply of things that go bump in the night offering something a bit more subtle than traditional startle effects (though there are some of those, too). Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, and the track has no problems of any kind to address in this review.
Disc One
One of my strongest childhood memories was spending one solitary night in what was then the completely decrepit Normandie Wilshire Hotel in downtown Los Angeles when I was on a family vacation. The "adventure" started when the bag attendant, a tiny Filipino man who spoke no English, got his tie stuck in my Dad's trunk after removing our luggage and then closing the lid, and who was then briefly yanked along the road as the valet started to park the car, unaware there was a human attached at the back. Things only got worse inside, where we met a number of odd permanent residents of the hotel, including a guy I'll never forget with a dog named Earl he insisted could speak English (I only heard barking, I swear). The room was horrifying enough (including bloody Kleenex one of my sisters found in one of the beds) that my Dad quickly cancelled our reservation and moved us to some better place at the beach, so parts of American Horror Story: Hotel had a certain shall we say "documentarian" feel for me (of course this is said jokingly, in case that's not clear). That said, this season failed to hang together as organically for me as some previous seasons of the show did. This seems at least a little odd, since the series' template is by now so well formulated, but perhaps that's the very problem--the show needs to find some new way to get to the horror, rather than simply recycle old ideas and, in this case, cinematic referents. There's still a ton to "enjoy" (if that's the right word) here, with a really gorgeous physical production and some wonderfully odd and affecting performances. Once again supplementary material is on the slight side, but technical merits continue to be strong. Recommended.
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