American Horror Story, Season 5, Episode 1

American Horror Story:Hotel is the fifth season of the show. I wasn't too impressed when I heard that Lady Gaga was in it. I am no fan of hers and I think that that was putting me off watching it, but I did anyway as I enjoyed the other seasons.

The first episode begins with two young women checking into the Hotel Cortez. They are greeted by a strange looking woman called Iris(Kathy Bates) who is at reception. They look around the hotel and realise that it is very old fashioned and strange. She shows them to their room and they settle in. They see visions in the hallways of a maid covered in blood and strange children(Does anyone think that the hotel looks strangely like the Overlook from The Shining? The carpet looks strangely similar and the children standing in the hallways-come on!!) They smell something rotten in the room. It seems to be coming from the mattress so they decide to cut it open. There is some weird being inside it. They run down to reception and they call the cops. Iris puts them into another room where strange things happen.   

Enter John Lowe(Wes Bentley), a homicide detective. His son disappeared years ago and his relationship with his wife, Alex(Chloe Sevigny) is not good. He hears about the hotel from an anonymous call and he goes over there to see what is up,meets a strange cross dresser called Liz Taylor(Denis O'Hare) and is taken to room 64 where the two girls were killed. For some reason, he falls asleep and sees a child in his dreams and he thinks that it is his missing son.The owner of the hotel is called Elizabeth(Gaga) and she and Iris's son Donovan(Matt Bomer) bring people back to the hotel for sex and then they slit their throats and take their blood. A man checks into room 64 and he meets some sort of demon who sodomises him with a sharpened dildo. A woman called Sally(Sarah Paulson) appears to him and asks him to tell her that he loves her. The two young women are in cages and they are being given some sort of drink by Iris. Sally arrives and lets one go, but the girl is caught by Elizabeth who kills her.

The rest of the episode is about John's son who is at the hotel for some reason. Then it cuts to Iris who followed her son and Sally to the hotel years ago and saw that Sally wanted him to take drugs. Iris got mad and pushed her out of the window and killed her. Then Iris met Elizabeth who took a fancy to Donovan. John ends his marriage and moves into room 64 of the hotel.

The first episode of this was OK. I wasn't enthralled or repulsed. It was a bit confusing and, as I said, it looked like the hotel from The Shining and there were more references to that hotel in the episode too like the children standing in the corridors and the 'room 64', which reminded me of room 237 in the film. Anyway, I will wait and see how the rest of the series develops...