We’re extremely excited to welcome horror-anthology podcast, The Hotel to our podcast network! The Hotel is unlike any other show on our network, so to properly introduce it, we asked creator Travis McMaster to create a guide to The Hotel for first time listeners!
Checking in to The Hotel…
It’s not haunted, it’s not Hell, it’s…The Hotel! What started simply enough—each night a guest checks in to a Hotel that looks like anything from a roadside motel to grand 5-star resorts and dies a fantastic and terrible death under the watchful eye of a nameless Manager, Lobby Boy, Owner, and even the Hotel herself—has spiraled out into a bizarre and impossible sprawling timeline of cosmic horror, nightmare logic, and even a burgeoning found family.
For five years a very active and dedicated fanbase has been creating a flood of art, cosplay, fanfic, playlists, short films, OC’s, craft projects, and so much more that we’ve literally made them a part of our show. Dozens of fans submitted their voices as part of a guest countdown for our 2021 New Year’s Eve special (coordinated with the very active, entirely fan-run Hotel discord.), we hire a new community artist each month to design our bonus episode postcards and we even hired fan favorite Izzy ‘filthyguts’ Chavez to be our official full-time artist!
With Season 5 starting and joining Bloody Disgusting FM, we wanted to provide new listeners with a helpful guide. Guest service is paramount at The Hotel.
Season one: Bite sized horror from a new perspective.
Short episodes, stunning deaths, and hearing from the monsters instead of the victims will hook you quickly, and before you know it, you’ll have burned through all 16 nightmarish episodes. The Manager runs the Hotel while the Lobby Boy helps the guests, but the Owner audits their work, and even he has to answer to someone.
Recommended episodes:
1.1 Room 215 – Ted Barrow
1.7 The Owner – I
1.9 Room 222 – Jenny Range
1.16 The Owner – II
Season two: Scare B & B.
Instead of checking guests in to an ever changing Hotel, the staff are forced to assume the roles of monsters, cryptids, and faux urban legends as they’re set loose on guests as they check into rental spaces before they’re pulled away into a nebulous void against their will. Sympathy for the devil? Things get weird when the staff comes face to face with their creator, the Hotel herself, who makes it clear the horror is just beginning.
Recommended episodes: 2.1 Burger Baby
2.2 Cracker Man
2.3 Mr Heavy Bones
2.7 Return
Season three: Experimental deconstruction explores what The Hotel can be.
This time the staff are the guests as we see the Hotel’s beginning while she simultaneously manifests as mind-bending horrors, monsters, and experiences. The nightmare becomes a dream and logic, sanity, and explanation finally shrug and turn the lights off behind them on their way out. This season is unlike any other and a personal favorite.
Recommended episodes: 3.1 Hammering Bones
3.7 The Rooms Are Filled
3.9 Under Old Management
3.10 In Which We Burn
Season four: Back in business!
The staff returns to their roots: Checking guests in. This time though, the Hotel herself returns as a regular character! This season grows and refines the season one template into something fully realized. The staff starts exploring who they are, what they want, and why ultimately none of it matters unless the Hotel says it does. The episodes are longer and feature two characters instead of just one. We’re hitting our stride and just getting started.
Recommended episodes: 4.8 AJ, Taylor, & Wayne – Suite 1003
4.11 The Owner – V
4.12 X – X
4.15 Carl Larpe – Room 306
And for pudding:
If you’re looking for the lighter side of the monstrous and maddening, we have plenty of good old-fashioned Treehouse of Horror-esque fun.
We Found The Hotel (Halloween crossover with Creepy)
The Mall (Bonus episode)
The Hotel of Tomorrow I-IV (Halloween crossover with Theatre of Tomorrow)
There’s plenty of surprises, twists, and screams ahead (not to mention one of the kindest, most supportive, and most passionate fanbases any podcast would be lucky to have). Put down your bags, sign the guestbook, and remember: Hotel policy is no one checks out…
“The Neighborhood” by The Shy Reader
4.14 Alan Landers – Room 1161 – Cover Art by Izzy “filthyguts” Chavez