We already know that ‘American Horror Story: Hotel’ is based out of an LA establishment known as the Hotel Cortez and will showcase a menagerie of mysterious show biz types coming and going through its possibly haunted halls. Several La La Land guesthouses have been the site of shady criminal goings-on. But is there one in particular that inspired this season of the hit anthology?
It appears so. Creator Ryan Murphy previously stated that he was captivated by a disturbing surveillance video, saying “There was a surveillance video that went around two years ago that showed a girl getting into an elevator in a hotel that was said to be haunted and she was never seen again.”
This creepy event took place at the Cecil Hotel and the young woman in question was 21 year-old Canadian Elisa Lam, whose dead body was found in the establishment’s water tank. Though unconventional, Lam’s death was ruled an accident. However, the security footage in question showed Lam acting erratically in the elevator before her disappearance, raising questions among many that viewed it.
That isn’t the Cecil Hotel’s only brush with the macabre. In 1947, it was one of the last places in which Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. The Black Dahlia , was seen before her murder. (Mena Suvari played Short in Season One of ‘AHS’.)
In 1984-85, the inn served as the residence of Richard Ramirez, better known as the Nightstalker, who murdered 13 women during this period. Then in 1991, history repeated itself when reporter Jack Unterweger checked in, before slaying three prostitutes in a Ramirez-copycat killing spree.
In addition, the abode has been the site of several suicides.
It has since been renamed Stay on Main. So if you’re headed to LA for a visit, see if Hotwire has any openings there. Or don’t. Don’t!
Can the fiction of ‘AHS’ compete with the morbid reality of the Cecil Hotel? Does knowing this twisted history make you even more excited to see what Murphy and company cook up?
‘American Horror Story: Hotel’ opens its doors on October 7th on FX.
Source: New Now Next
