What cliches will American Horror Story: Hotel put a spin on this season?
With each new season, American Horror Story has taken on a new theme, which is what has helped the anhtology series remain interesting and relevant since its inception. Not crazy about ghosts? Come back next season for Asylum stuff. Don’t like that? Take a breather and try out witches next year!
The fifth season will carry the subtitle Hotel. Certainly hotels are prime real estate for horror–some of the most iconic horror movies have used them as their settings–but the noun itself doesn’t conjure the same ideas about what can be done quite like Asylum, Coven, or even Freak Show.
In addition, every time American Horror Story hits the reset button, they try and tackle the various tropes and cliches of a type of story and setting in horror by putting their own spin on it. With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of 20 horror hotel tropes that we want to see appear in some capacity in the series. Check out the full slideshow and sound off with your thoughts below!
American Horror Story: Hotel stars Lady Gaga, Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Wes Bentley, Matt Bomer, Chloë Sevigny, Denis OHare, Cheyenne Jackson, Evan Peters and Finn Wittrock. The 13-episode fifth installment of the Emmy and Golden Globe winning franchise premieres on FX on October 7th.
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AHS: Hotel FEATURE
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Creepy Paintings – 1408 (2007)
As in Stephen King's terrific short story, John Cusack's supernatural debunker checks in to supposedly haunted room only to face dire consequences. One of those includes daring to think an eerie painting of a ship in a storm on the wall won't explode in a torrent of oceanic spray and gale force winds. Whether it's a velvet Elvis or dogs playing poker, hotel room paintings are definitely to be avoided, or turned around altogether. - Max Evry
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Roaches - A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
Perhaps the only memorable moment from “The Dream Master" is the kill scene where Freddy turns Brooke Theiss' Debbie into a roach and promptly crushes her in a roach motel. Of course that may not be your traditional hotel definition, but bugs are ever present in the dingy ones and an insectoid transformation would be new territory for the series. - Spencer Perry
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Eccentric Desk Clerks – Barton Fink (1991)
"My name is Chet. Although we do provide privacy for the residential guests, we are also a full-service hotel including complementary shoeshine. My name is Chet." And with these words so too did Steve Buscemi enter the ranks of one of the cinema's greatest screwballs. His clerk Chet runs the Hotel Earle with OCD precision, but you can tell from the Coen Brothers' script that there's something in the thousand-yard stare and monotone voice that's just waiting to snap. - Max Evry
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One guest's dark secret - Basket Case (1982)
Truly wacky and the grotesque are not off limits in "American Horror Story," and those descriptors perfectly label Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case. In the film, Kevin Van Hentenryck's Duane Bradley, a seemingly innocent man, checks into a hotel carrying a little basket whose contents we later learn are his murderous Siamese twin. If there's one way to connect this season to “Freak Show,” here it is. - Spencer Perry
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The government did it! - Bug (2007)
William Friedkin's film is divisive for a few reasons, but it's Michael Shannon's performance as the conspiracy-obsessed Peter Evans that makes it. What starts as a seemingly simple delusion turns the entire room he's occupying into a tin foil-wrapped nightmare. - Spencer Perry
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Uninvited Guests - The Devil's Rejects (2005)
When the Banjo and Sullivan band take a rest at a hotel in Rob Zombie's film, they have no idea the hell they've walked into. Baby and Otis Firefly descend on the group as a means for escape, but not before they have some fun with the band in their room first. - Spencer Perry
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Strange Pets - Eaten Alive (1977)
It wouldn't be a creepy motel if the owner didn't keep some kind of zoological oddity on the premises. Case-in-point: Neville Brand's disturbed Judd keeps a whole menagerie (well, two anyway) including a monkey (who dies) and a dog/human-eating alligator. The fact that everyone in this movie acts like they survived the whole shoot on mescaline, white powder and 2 hours of sleep only adds to the ambiance. - Max Evry
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Nothing to see here! - Ghostbusters (1984)
I'm going to venture a guess that bad things are going to happen in the titular hotel on "American Horror Story," and like the hotel manager in "Ghostbusters," we imagine that they won't all of their guests to find out about what's going on on the 12th floor. That however won't stop it from crashing into a midnight buffet and making its presence known. - Spencer Perry
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Fog – Horror Hotel/a.k.a. The City of the Dead (1960)
A dark and foggy night is always a harbinger of bad things to come in the horror genre. Having a little atmosphere to set the mood for a chilling night shuttered inside the confines of a creep-tastic place of lodging is the perfect aperitif to murder, as in this 1960 British cult curio where a lovely female student (Venetia Stevenson) is sent by Christopher Lee to a small Massachusetts towns where she is to be the virgin sacrifice for an immortal witch. - Max Evry
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Everyone is in on it - Hostel: Part II (2007)
One of the many genius things about Eli Roth's "Hostel: Part II" is the retcon/reveal that everyone at the titular hostel is in on the torture scheme. From the desk clerk down to the other patrons, there's a web of conspiracy that stretches across the hotel and can't be seen until you've already walked into it. - Spencer Perry
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Ghosts - The Innkeepers (2011)
The spirit of a jilted bride famously haunts the grounds of the historic Yankee Pedlar Inn in Ti West's spooktacular old-fashioned haunt jaunt. Sara Paxton and Pat Healy are brilliant as the lone hotel employees/ghost hunting enthusiasts who run the place during its last week in business, and while it starts as fun and games they eventually discover that ghosts are not to be meddled with. - Max Evry
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That one peculiar guest - The Invisible Man (1933)
There will be no shortage of strange characters in "American Horror Story: Hotel," but there will probably be one that everyone else thinks is the weird one. James Whale's adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel cemented this particular cliché in movie history thanks to Claude Rains' portrayal as the twisted Dr. Griffin and his bandaged apperance. - Spencer Perry
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Neon Signs – Motel Hell (1980)
No horrific hotel/motel is complete without a neon sign out front advertising "vacancy/no vacany," preferably with a flickering blink to it. In this cult flick the lodge in question is actually called the "Motel Hello" except that darned "o" is on the fritz. Dagnabbit. That's not the only thing that's wrong with the place, the owners (Rory Calhoun, Nancy Parsons) are actually serial killers, but that blinking "o" is the big deal breaker as far as we're concerned. - Max Evry
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Extended stay – Oldboy (2003)
Many people remember Park Chan-wook's 2003 film for its jaw-dropping ending and it's easy to forget the messed up events leading up to the conclusion, like how Oh Dae-su spent 15 years locked inside a hotel room. - Spencer Perry
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Electrical Outages – Prom Night (2008)
With 13 episodes to burn through, we would be shocked if at some point the Hotel Cortez of "American Horror Story: Hotel" doesn't sustain some kind of across-the-board power failure. Such an outage leaves ample opportunity for a lunatic with the right inclination to go on all manner of killing spree, as one such sick individual does in this remake of a far-superior Jamie Lee Curtis vehicle. - Max Evry
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Gratuitous Undressing – Psycho (1960)
Janet Leigh was not afraid to be ogled by every hound in the audience. As in "Touch of Evil," another film where Leigh spends the majority of her screen time in a hotel room clad in nighties, she takes several opportunities in "Psycho" to strip down to bra and panties for the pleasure of noted sadist Alfred Hitchcock. Expect "American Horror Story" to take things as far as basic cable will allow in this department. - Max Evry
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Fresh coat of paint - Saw IV (2007)
Out of all the locations that a "Saw" trap was set up, it's easy to forget there was a hotel setting. In true "Saw" fashion though, the poor slob in the machine doesn't make it out and gives the walls a fresh coat of paint with his own blood. - Spencer Perry
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Giant killer in the basement - See No Evil (2006)
Though the hotel in AHS will still be operational, there's likely an “employees only” space on the lower floors and there is probably a big secret sitting down there. "American Horror Story" has dealt with sinister killers lurking in basements before, so it's not out of the realm of possibility for another. - Spencer Perry
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Sexual Fetishes – The Shining (1980)
In Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, he keeps the ball in the air that all the supernatural goings-on in the Overlook Hotel might all be in the mind of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson)… right up until the end, that is, when his wife Wendy (Shelly Duvall) witnesses an variety pack of ghostly sights, including some 1920's-style furry sex. "American Horror Story" hasn't exactly shied away from deviant sexuality in past seasons, so expect a host of kinkiness to abound. - Max Evry
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Hidden Cameras – Vacancy (2007)
Voyeurism plays a big part in this genre (see Psycho") and what's amazing about these scenes of people being unknowingly watched is, if they’re done right, they make the audience feel complicit in that invasion of privacy. In "Vacancy," the married couple played by Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale find themselves in a seedy motel where the proprietor leaves the tapes of previous occupants/victims in the room as lubricant for the terror to come. - Max Evry
