Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

American Horror Story: Hotel Blu-ray Movie Review

Worth checking out?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 5, 2016

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

Like many of the previous seasons of American Horror Story, there are actually an abundance of stories at play, including some which unfold in various eras. In “contemporary” time, there’s a lot going on at the Hotel Cortez, even if most of it is hidden in the labyrinthine excesses of the edifices. The hotel’s manager and front desk clerk (when she bothers to show up, that is) is the no nonsense Iris (Kathy Bates), an irascible sort who isn’t exactly going to win any awards from the hospitality industry. Her comrade in arms, so to speak, is a transvestite (or pre-op transgender) cheekily named Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare), who unapologetically flounces about the hotel in a swirling robe. A slinky woman named Sally McKenna (Sarah Paulson) is also a resident, but seems temporally misplaced, something that’s later clarified. Heading up the hotel’s odd collection of denizens is Elizabeth (Lady Gaga), a superbly dressed and coiffed bombshell (you expected anything less?) who seems to have a thirst for human blood.

The hotel turns out to actually be under new ownership however, having been purchased by a New York society type and fashionista named Will Drake (Cheyenne Jackson). Drake has big ideas to renovate and/or resuscitate the moribund hotel, something that is seen with amusement and perhaps a bit of trepidation by the hotel’s longtime residents (living and/or otherwise). There’s a recurrent plot point centering on illicit drug use that spills into the storyline, with several addicted folks floating in and out of various arcs. Speaking of “addicted”, this season’s unforgettable character, one perhaps modeled slightly on the “latex bandit” of the show’s first season, is a seemingly Saran wrapped entity known as the Addiction Demon, one whose use of various accoutrements (including a sex toy which will not be further described in this review) leads to some of American Horror Story: Hotel’s most gasp inducing moments.

The flashback material corresponds rather strongly to previous seasons of the show, where dastardly folks do horrible things and end up paying the price for it. In this case, it’s the hotel’s original builder, James Patrick Marsh (Evan Peters), and one of his first employees, Hazel Evers (Mare Winningham), who are shown to have not always had their guests’ health and well being in mind (to put it mildly). All of this ripples out into the contemporary timeframe, both in terms of hauntings, but also in terms of various character interrelationships, again much as the show has tended to do in its previous years. But despite the fact that this season hews to a by now fairly well established template, things just don’t hang together organically as well as in some previous seasons, and in fact a lot of the plot contrivances, especially the connections between times past and times current, seem, well, contrived.

The show still has mood to spare, though, and it continues to deliver regular jolts throughout this season. There are some fairly cheeky elements as well, and I personally had to laugh a bit at the predicament of Dr. Lowe (Chloë Sevigny), who develops an addiction in a medical environment that would put Nurse Jackie to shame. Some of the overly florid writing, especially in some scenes between erstwhile glamour queen Ramona Royale (Angela Bassett) and Donovan (Matt Bomer) played like some kind of gonzo alternative universe version of an old Douglas Sirk movie. This season benefits from the same brilliant production design efforts that elevated previous years of the show, and the Hotel Cortez becomes a character in its own right, a creepy, crawly maze of hallways and decrepitude that in some ways is the most unforgettable thing about this year’s entry.

American Horror Story: Hotel Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

American Horror Story: Hotel Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• An Invitation to Devil's Night (1080p; 11:39) covers this season's Halloween episode(s).

Disc Three

• The Cortez: An Era of Elegance Gone By (1080p; 7:35) features several interviews focusing on the production design of the series.

(There are no supplements on Disc Two.)

American Horror Story: Hotel Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.