James Patrick March

"My point being that the appetites of the filthy rich are specific, altered from that of the common man. I feed some of that hunger with this building. My art. But sometimes... if I really want that good, full feeling..."

- James Patrick March, just before stabbing an unsuspecting foreman to death.

James Patrich March is the primary antagonist of American Horror Story: Hotel behind the actions of Countess Elizabeth Johnson and John Lowe. A millionaire and serial killer, he is directly responsible for the creation of the Hotel Cortez during the 1920s, having built it with the specific intention of using it as a venue for his murders - as well as a place to dispose of the bodies.

March is also original Ten Commandments Killer, having committed the first two murders; however, his designs of continuing the murders were cut short when the police learned of the killer's true identity through a tip-off, forcing him to commit suicide in order to escape arrest. However, his spirit lingered on in the hotel after his death, intent on finding a successor to continue his work.

Over the course of his century-long search for a successor, he was responsible for molding several of the Hotel Cortez's guests into some of the most infamous killers in American history, including Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez, Jeffery Dahmer, Aileen Wuornos, John Wayne Gacy and the Zodiac Killer. His newest target is series protagonist John Lowe, who March believes to be the best candidate for the role of the modern day incarnation of the Ten Commandments Killer.

He was portrayed by Evan Peters, who also portrayed Tate Langdon in Murder House and Kai Anderson in Cult.

Appearance
As a product of 1920s new money, James Patrick March is always impeccably dressed in tailored pinstriped suits, often augmented with bowler hats and walking canes - most of which usually conceal a blade of some kind. March's handsome features and immaculate 30's-era attire often lead others to compare him to movie stars like Clark Gable, especially thanks to his pencil mustache and clipped Brahmin accent. Having been dead since the 1930s, March does not age, firmly cementing the sense of timelessness.

The only time he can be seen out of his familiar uniform is during his more labor-intensive murders, during which he wears a heavy apron, a pair of gloves, and an elaborate mask - the latter to prevent any victims from seeing his face, the former to avoid chemical burns while in the process of dissolving bodies in acid.

However, like many ghosts, March's spirit has been marked by the wound that killed him: having killed himself by slitting his own throat, his ghost can be instantly recognized by the gaping wound across his neck, and March generally goes out of his way to hide this distinctive mark with an ascot - particularly while dealing with visitors who aren't aware of the supernatural.

Personality
Glibly charismatic and superficially polite, James Patrick March was able to keep his guests, workers and the general public oblivious to his true nature for many years prior to being unmasked, and even as a ghost, he is still in the habit of charming visitors to his hotel. Much of his mannerisms are only adopted affectations: having been born into poverty and achieved wealth on his own, March was determined to reinvent himself as a gentleman despite his status as a member of the noveau riche. To that end, he attended university, studied literature, architecture, theater, and regularly quoted works like Hamlet in order to show off; he even copied his tutor's Brahmin diction until he adopted it as his own accent.

Ultimately, his image as the perfect host is upheld even during the worst of March's crimes, and throughout his many acts of murder and torture, he can be seen smiling, laughing and chatting jovially with his victims right up until he kills them. Tristan Duffy, John Lowe and at least two unwitting foremen were completely disarmed by his well-mannered facade - to the point that Lowe even considers him a friend for a time. Incidents such as these almost always ended with the target of March's overtures being either corrupted into serving him or killed.

The only thing that can get him to abandon his disguise is anger: if annoyed or incensed, March can drop the well-mannered mask at a moment's notice and begin screaming at the top of his lungs; an easy way of getting on his nerves is to interrupt his monthly meeting with his Elizabeth, though getting him to lose his temper can be a simple matter of refusing to obey him - or even merely taking his lessons lightly.

As a psychopath, March's relationships are shallow at best, and often grounded in abuse and manipulation. Though he apparently considers his serial killers he tutored to be his friends, he's not above menacing, assaulting or psychologically toying with them if it allows him to sculpt them into individuals more to his liking - and shows little qualms about insulting them behind their backs. Similarly, though he claims to love Elizabeth, their marriage is extremely dysfunctional: his rescuer of her is framed more like a kidnapping, and their continued relationship is barely cordial - to the point that March actually refers to her as a "perverted animal." More often that not, Elizabeth is treated as a henchwoman no different than Miss Evers, used and exploited at will in order to further March's designs for the Ten Commandments Killings. And when Elizabeth is killed in the penultimate episode of the season, March reacts with absolute glee when her spirit ends up trapped in the hotel alongside him, overjoyed at the prospect of being able to torment his estranged wife for all eternity.

For good measure, March can be very possessive of things that he considers his, and responds with considerable spite if he believes that his property has been violated. In one case, having selected John Lowe for the task of continuing his work, he erupts with rage when Hypodermic Sally allows John's suicide attempt by hanging, threatening to have Sally fed to the Addiction Demon unless she behaves. This sense of megalomaniacal ownership extends to his marriage to Elizabeth: upon discovering her relationship with Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova, March had the two vampires kidnapped and imprisoned in a sealed-off wing of the hotel with no chance of escape, and takes great delight in observing Elizabeth's horrified reaction when she finally learns of what happened to them almost a century after the fact.

March despises religion, claiming it to be the worst thing in all the world, and even boasting of his intention to kill God at one point; the Ten Commandments Killings were his way of attacking God, and for this reason considered the completed work his magnum opus. He also went as far as to collect all the bibles from his hotel bed stands, and arranged them with a pile of his victims that he had left for the police. It's likely that he developed his hatred of religion as a result of abuse, having described his father as both a true believer and "the meanest son of a bitch" he'd ever seen.

However, March was a prolific serial killer for many years prior to taking up the Ten Commandments as a basis for murder, using a wide variety of methods in order to dispatch his victims: stabbing, lacerating, impalement, bludgeoning, shooting, immolation, and in at least two unfortunate cases, live burial behind brick walls. A sadist by nature, he liked employing both physical and emotional torture against his victims, having outfitted the Cortez with numerous dead-end hallways that would allow him to corner victims and savor their terror as he closed in for the kill. Most often, the murders were committed for no other reason than perverse enjoyment - although he occasionally made exceptions for people who inconvenienced him, as was the case with his accountant. As he later explains, he tried many drugs in his time but none of them ever satisfied him: the only way for him to experience "that good, full feeling" was to murder someone. Even as a ghost, he still occasionally finds time to indulge his addiction.

In keeping with his vicious, sadistic nature, his sexual tastes are extremely sadomasochistic: he took great pleasure in throttling Elizabeth on their wedding night - and also clearly enjoyed being strangled by her in turn. As flashbacks demonstrate, he wasn't above raping his victims, particularly while in the process of murdering them; given that he didn't reach climax until well after one unfortunate woman was quite clearly dead, he also has a penchant for necrophilia.

Because he cannot venture beyond the boundaries of the hotel, the true danger that March poses lies in his ability to persuade, manipulate and corrupt, warping individuals into fellow murderers: upon being introduced to him in a time of grief, both Miss Evers and Elizabeth became his eager partners in crime - the latter going on to become a vampiric serial killer in her own right; over the course of the 20th century, he made contact with people he considered ideal material for his successor, and inspired in them a bloodlust that they might never have discovered on their own. However, his gift for corruption is most effectively displayed in his interaction with John Lowe, in which he not only appealed to John's deeply-buried rage at the injustices of the world, but also went out of his way to break John's family and spirit just so the detective fully committed to the role of a serial killer.

In Life
Born somewhere in the eastern United States in 1895, James Patrick Marsh grew up in humble circumstances. Little is known of his childhood other than what March himself is willing to admit to, and given his propensity for lying and emotional manipulation, most of these anecdotes should be taken with a pinch of salt. According to him, his father was reportedly a very devout Christian but also violently abusive, and it's likely from him that March developed his noted disgust for religion.

March achieved success comparatively early in life, making his fortune in oil and coal as a young man and virtually guaranteeing a luxurious lifestyle for himself. Eager to cast off his lowly origins, he reinvented himself, dressing in tailored suits, studying literature, design and theater, and taking part in grand hunts in which he brought back numerous trophies to hang on his wall; he even attended Exeter college at Oxford University - where he also picked up his distinctive Mid-Atlantic "Brahmin" accent from one of his tutors. But no amount of reinvention could ever make March suitable for the blue-blooded elite of East Coast society, who despised him for being of "New Money." So, March decided to resettle in the West Coast, where breeding meant little compared to wealth, and eventually found a home for himself in Los Angeles.

At some point in the early 1920s, March began killing. Nothing is known of what first inspired him to do so, though he hints that his wealth eventually drove him to seek out more unusual means of assuaging his boredom. Whatever the case, he soon found himself addicted to the sheer pleasure of taking life by any method imaginable. In keeping with his pursuits in the high society of the Roaring Twenties, he indulged heavily in alcohol and cocaine, but no drug quite satisfied quite like murder. However, he soon realized that he would need a venue where he could continue his hobby in private, and he would need a place to hide the bodies.

Thus, in 1925, he began work on the Hotel Cortez. Advertised as "a monument to opulence and excess," a fortune was spent on its Art Deco design and luxurious furnishing, all of it intended to disguise the building's true purpose. Initially, March attempted to hire Julia Morgan to design the hotel, but she refused to accept due to the poor treatment of his workers; as such, March applied his own skills in architecture to the task, and created a blueprint for what would be his masterpiece. At least one foreman made the mistake of asking too many questions about the seemingly illogical plans, and was murdered upstairs before any more unwanted queries could be made.

Unknown to all but himself and a handful of unfortunates, the Cortez had been built specifically to serve as a playground in which March could indulge his grotesque appetites: the walls were lined with asbestos to muffle the screams of victims; several hallways terminated in dead-ends, cutting off potential escape routes; certain rooms were fitted with deathtraps to aid in execution; a network of secret passageways allowed March easy access to unsuspecting guests; concealed chutes ensured that bodies could be easily be dumped in the basements for easy disposal... and of course, numerous hidden rooms and chambers were arranged to store trophies of past kills. Among them was the severed head of March's accountant, murdered for the dual offenses of embezzlement and halitosis. For good measure, March adopted the Cortez as his permanent home, adopting Room 64 as his office and room 78 as his private residence.

Assisting in the overwhelming majority of the murders was Ms Hazel Evers, March's laundress and assistant. Having fallen in with the millionaire some time after the death of her son at the hands of Gordon Northcott, Evers was easily corrupted in her time of grief, and adapted quickly to her employer's peculiar habits. Among other things, she washed the bloodstained linens, disposed of the bodies, and even helped secure fresh victims. In fact, by the end of her time with March, she was personally infatuated with the man and would have done anything to please him.

Marriage
In August 1926, the Hotel Cortez was completed. Soon after, March invited the city's upper crust (along with numerous up-and-coming Hollywood actresses) to a gala opening, with booze provided especially by Al Capone himself in gleeful defiance of the Volstead Act. However, the festivities were somewhat dampened when the news of Rudolf Valentino's death reached the party guests.

In the aftermath of this shocking announcement, a heartbroken Elizabeth Johnson - Valentino's secret lover - crept away from the party and climbed onto one of the corridor windowsill, intent on jumping to her death. At the last minute, though, March grabbed her and pulled her away from the edge, gleefully refusing to ever let her go.

Despite feeling nothing for the man who'd "rescued" her, Elizabeth eventually consented to marry him, having decided that being surrounded by wealth and beauty might offer some consolation in her time of grief. The two were married in the hotel foyer, and enjoyed an extremely violent wedding night involving mutual strangulation. Despite her better judgement, Elizabeth found herself enthralled by March's darker habits, and like Ms Evers before her, she was eventually corrupted by it: when she finally caught her husband in the act of dismembering a homeless man, her only complaint was that murdering a beggar didn't profit either of them; from then on, she recommended that March should target wealthy victims so that they could steal their valuables as well - and allow Elizabeth to watch the murders.

However, Elizabeth still mourned Valentino, and took to visiting his grave in the guise of the legendary Woman In Black. Suspicious, March followed her one day and by chance, witnessed her meeting Valentino and Natacha Rambova, now reborn as vampires. Having faked his death in order to be preserved for all eternity, the movie star wanted to take Elizabeth with him when he and Rambova left Los Angeles; still infatuated with the pair, she agreed to meet the two of them the next day and leave via train - and was made into a vampire right there at the cemetery.

Unfortunately, March had seen and heard everything; consumed by jealousy, he planned revenge.

Before Valentino and Rambova could rendezvous with Elizabeth at the train station the following day, he had them attacked by a gang of hired thugs and brought to the Hotel Cortez. There, while still unconscious, they were sealed inside an entire wing of the hotel: all but one of the rooms had been walled off, as had all the windows, and the only exit from the corridor had been covered by a heavy metal bulkhead - reinforced by another brick wall. Satisfied with allowing his rivals to remain alive but trapped and starving for all eternity, March left the two vampires there. Unaware of what had become of her friends, Elizabeth was forced to return to her husband when Valentino and Rambova failed to appear at the train station.

From then on, Elizabeth had nothing left to do but embrace her darker nature wholeheartedly and accept her role as her husband's accomplice. This she did with shocking enthusiasm, at one point going so far as to remove a victim's gag so she could listen to the unfortunate women's screams as she was slowly immured behind a brick wall. Even March himself was surprised at the extent of his wife's cruelty.

The Ten Commandments
For the next few years, March happily continued on his murder spree within of the Cortez, with Miss Evers dutifully washing the linens and Elizabeth gleefully watching the murders play out. To date, nobody knows how many people were killed by the end of his tenure at the hotel, though popular rumors claim that he averaged at least three victims a week - more if he went on a bender.

However, March's approach to murder changed dramatically in the 1930s, after one devout victim remained defiant in the face of death - and claimed that "as long as there is a god, men like you can kill thousands, millions, but you will never find peace." After clubbing the man to death, March began a new project: a series of killings modeled on the Ten Commandments, intended his ultimate attack on religion and on god.

Beginning with "Thou Shalt Not Steal," March tracked down infamous thief Bobby "Two Guns" McGregor, then proceeded to beat and stab him to death. He then cut off McGregor's hands - taking one of them as a trophy and storing it in a hidden chamber at Room 64.

Next was "Remember The Sabbath To Keep it Holy": here, March found six migrant workers looking for work on a Sunday and brutally dismembered them; their bodies were later found in a field, surrounded by a border of bibles taken from the Cortez's bedroom. Once again, March took trophies - in this case, the teeth of the unfortunate workers.

However, left among the bodies was a handkerchief with March's initials embroidered on it - included as a direct tip-off to the police. The identity of the informant remained unknown, but Elizabeth herself was a popular suspect, given that she was in line to inherit March's fortune following his death; in reality, it was none other than Miss Evers. Having resented Elizabeth for some time as a rival for March's affections, she'd hit upon alerting the police to her employer's proclivities as the perfect means of ensuring that she and March would be together in death - knowing full well that he would never allow himself or his most trusted confidante to be captured alive.

Soon after, the police arrived at the hotel with a warrant for March's arrest. Drawing a gun and a knife from his safe, the millionaire serial killer prepared to commit suicide, but not before offering Evers a means of killing herself as well; instead, the laundress asked for her employer to kill her, requesting the honor of being March's last "meal" - fulfilling her desire to be united with the object of her desires. March obligingly shot her in the head, then slit his own throat, bleeding out before the police could break down the door.

Unexpectedly, March's ghost was preserved inside the hotel. Though he incorrectly suspected Elizabeth to have been responsible for his discovery by the police, he allowed her to inherit both the hotel and his millions and go on living her own life... on the condition that they share at least one night together every month. Though leery of an arrangement that would last for the rest of her eternal life, she reluctantly consented to her husband's terms.

So, the newly-widowed "Countess" Elizabeth took up residence in the Cortez's penthouse suit and continued her increasingly debauched lifestyle in the fashionable society of Los Angeles; she periodically claimed attractive young men and women as lovers, making them into vampires to spend decades at a time with her - and then discarding them once they no longer interested her, a habit her ex-husband tolerated. In the meantime, seemingly content with his arrangement with the Countess, March's ghost retreated into the shadows of the hotel and out of public life; from then on, he only emerged in order to claim one of the guests as material to practice his art upon... or as a possible apprentice.

In Death
Though his inability to leave the hotel had stymied his ability to continue his tenure as the Ten Commandments Killer, March was not discouraged for long. Over the course of the 20th Century, when not seeking out victims, he periodically surveyed the Hotel Cortez's guests for potential successors who could complete his work - and in the process ended up shaping the careers of some of America's most infamous serial killers. It's not known how many aspiring murderers accepted him as their muse, however, for only the most successful and infamous were considered worthy of commemoration by March; as such, only six have been identified - one of the less prominent of them being career criminal and cult leader Charles Manson.

One of the earliest of March's "students" was John Wayne Gacy in 1962. Having been living in Las Vegas at the time, the nineteen year-old ambulance worker had driven up to Los Angeles for the weekend to see the Pacific Ocean - and by chance, he happened to stay at the Hotel Cortez. Taking an interest, March took Gacy under his wing and taught him his secrets; in turn, Gacy responded positively and committed these lessons to memory. Adopting a jovial demeanor and styling himself as a respectable businessman in much the same way as March had, John Wayne Gacy went on to rape, torture and murder over thirty-three young men before being arrested in 1978 and executed by lethal injection in 1994.

At some point prior to 1968, March made contact with an as-yet unknown guest and offered him his tutelage as well, teaching him how to hide from the public. The guest responded with particular flair, and after returning to Northern California soon after his visit, he murdered at least seven people from 1968-1968, though it's suspected he may have killed as many as thirty-seven. Ultimately, the nameless killer truly gained infamous for his habit of sending coded letters to the local newspapers, calling himself "The Zodiac Killer." For good measure, the Zodiac was never caught, and remained undiscovered until his death.

In 1975, a nineteen-year-old prostitute by the name of Aileen Wuornos was unceremoniously stranded in Los Angeles by a trucker client, and stumbled into the Hotel Cortez. Admiring the woman's growing bitterness and rage, March took her in and offered her tutelage; years later, Wournos claimed that March was the first man in her entire life to treat her with respect, and that he taught her that she was "worth something." Eventually, she killed at least seven people before being arrested in 1991 and executed by lethal injection in 2002.

In 1981, shortly after being discharged from the army on grounds of alcohol abuse and sexual assault, Jeffrey Dahmer was on his way to Miami Beach when he happened to take a detour into Los Angeles, where he ended up staying at the Cortez. By this time, he was already a murderer, having strangled a hitchhiker to death not long before he joined the army, and March took it upon himself to tutor him in the finer points of his art in the hopes of molding him into his successor; along with impressing upon the neurotic ex-serviceman the necessity of disposing of human remains, he taught Dahmer that in order to be a truly great killer, he would have to understand people and "get into their minds." Upon leaving, Dahmer raped, murdered and cannibalized seventeen men from 1987 to 1991; for good measure, he took March's advice to a disturbingly literal extent by drilling holes in the heads of some of his victims and applying acid to their exposed brains in an attempt to make them into zombies (though all who were subjected to this treatment ultimately died). In the end, he was arrested in 1991 and sentenced to sixteen life sentences - only to be beaten to death by a fellow prisoner in 1994.

Likely during the early 1980s, a young Richard Ramirez also stayed at the Hotel Cortez for a few nights. After getting the burglar's attention - namely via sneaking into his room and beating Ramirez senseless - March taught him that, in order to be "a volume operation," he would have to be completely indiscriminate and kill without any kind of pattern. From 1984 to 1985, Ramirez committed a crime spree that resulted in the deaths of thirteen people, along with numerous rapes, assaults and mutilations, and earned the nickname "The Night Stalker." Arrested in 1985, he was sentenced to death in the gas chamber in 1989, but ultimately died of cancer in 2013 while still awaiting execution.

In turn, these five renowned killers were venerated by March: once a year, the students and their teacher would gather at the Hotel Cortez for a special party on October 30th, Devil's Night - during which they would celebrate their greatness, drink absinthe, and take part in the murder of an innocent guest. Together, they formed what was to be known as the Mount Rushmore of Murder, an exclusive club that could only be brought together around Halloween time; its members revered March as a genius, calling him "The Master" and singing his praises for teaching them his art and allowing them to go on killing even in death. However, March was still disappointed that none of the killers he'd tutored had ever proved worthy of continuing his masterpiece, and resolved to continue looking for a successor.

Meanwhile, following repeated drug abuse within the supernaturally-polluted hotel, an Addiction Demon was drawn to the Cortez and took to preying on the junkies that regularly stayed there. Sally McKenna was one of its few surviving victims, having first encountered it in 1993 after sewing herself to Nick Harley and Tina Black. However, following her death at the hotel in 1994, March decided to exploit her ghost's inability to leave the grounds: having somehow gained the power to control the Addiction Demon, he offered Sally a year free of the demon's advances, in exchange for an annual tribute of one innocent victim to be offered up to the Devil's Night celebration. After being brutally raped by the demon as punishment for disobeying March's orders, Sally reluctantly complied.

The Heir To The Master
In 2015, March's monthly evening with the Countess was unexpectedly interrupted when Elizabeth's current beau, Donovan, arrived at room 78 with LAPD Detective John Lowe in tow. As it happened, John was fresh from investigating the accidental death of an entire family due to a faulty portable generator and desperately needed a drink before he could return home to his family; as such, he'd been drawn off the streets by the Cortez's offer of martinis served at the hotel bar - only for Donovan to lure him upstairs with the offer of a party (likely intending for him to end up as a meal for him and the Countess).

Though March was instantly enraged by the interruption to his planned dinner, his demeanor quickly changed when he first saw John. Upon noticing the detective's weary nihilism, he called off his night with Elizabeth and gave the unexpected guest his full attention: he served John absinthe to loosen his tongue, then queried him at length about his frustrations with his chosen profession, eventually prompting the detective to give vent to his spleen and claim that he was being held back by regulations and that crime would only drop if he was taken "off the leash." Delighted at having drawn out John's darker side for a moment, March brought out more absinthe, and under its influence, the serial killer and the detective spent the next two days talking: they discussed law, the difference between the law of humans and the law of God, the meaning of true purpose and the meaninglessness of everything else - eventually allowing John to forget his sorrow for a time. The debate ended when, after forty-eight hours on an empty stomach with nothing to drink except absinthe, John finally collapsed into a drunken stupor.

While John slept, March gleefully declared that he'd found his true successor: his other students had shown promise, but they'd ultimately been too handicapped by their own obsessions to ever be worthy of his legacy, much less attempt to continue his work; by contrast, John possessed the willpower and the once-in-a-generation rage that would allow him to become the Ten Commandments Killer. However, as long as he still had a family and hope for the future, John could still maintain a grip on his self-control, and would never embrace the role of a murderer. So, March decided to ask the Countess for help in breaking his successor's spirit - offering John's son Holden as a reward.

Soon after, John awoke in his car with no memory of the last two days.

Trivia

 * March is one of the most depraved and horrid villains in American Horror Story ever, alongside Dandy Mott, Dr. Oliver Thredson, Archie Brener, The Devil, the Addiction Demon and Stanley.
 * March is based on the historical figure of Herman Webster Mudgett, also known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or simply H. H. Holmes, who is infamous of being one of the earliest serial killers in American history.
 * In both season 1 and season 5, Evan Peters's character is a ghost.
 * Coincidentally, both of these characters were known murderers, as Tate was a mass murderer and March is a serial killer.