Say what you want about Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story, but the series always has the best opening credits sequences of any modern television show, and it also has the best teaser trailers as well. They’re almost always more creepy and disturbing than anything that turns up in the final product. This year’s series, titled American Horror Story: Hotel, looks to be no different, as these teaser trailers for the currently still-filming season look just as disturbing as any of those super terrifying ones with the creepy clowns in them from American Horror Story: Freak Show last year.
The premise for this season centers around a hotel in Los Angeles called the Hotel Cortez, owned by Lady Gaga’s character, a woman called “The Countess.” This season of the show is said to be more heavily connected to the previous seasons, and characters from years past are said to be checking into the hotel. At San Diego Comic-Con, creator Ryan Murphy revealed that the show was partially based on the case of Elisa Lam, a very creepy true-life story that took place in the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles in 2013, a hotel already known for a long history of disturbing stories.
This year’s iteration of FX’s anthology series, the fifth overall, finds the show at a crossroads; it’s the first year without acting powerhouse Jessica Lange carrying the series mostly on her shoulders. No matter how cheesy and over-the-top the show got, Lange always managed to find the proper balance between the show’s campy aesthetic and actual serious pathos. We’ll see if new lead Lady Gaga has the chops to replace Lange, but fortunately she’ll be surrounded by a returning cast of amazing actors like Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Sarah Paulson, Matt Bomer, Wes Bentley, Evan Peters, Denis O’Hare, and many others (and possibly Jessica Lange herself, who is rumored to be coming back for a single episode one-off as a character from previous seasons. Allegedly.)
American Horror Story: Hotel premieres on Wednesday, October 7th on FX.
