Creepy or cool? Oyster’s most disturbing hotel art

See recent posts by Jennifer Garfinkel

Guests staying at the Mondrian hotel in Los Angeles may have a spooky surprise waiting for them in their rooms
Guests staying at the Mondrian hotel in Los Angeles may have a spooky surprise waiting for them in their rooms

How scary would it be to enter your hotel room and find a SEVERED HAND waiting for you on the desk?! Terrifying. Until you realize, “Wait! It’s just art. Silly me.”

Sometimes there’s a fine line between creative, unique, artistic expression and downright spookiness. We’ve learned this all too well as we’ve traveled from hotel to hotel. A while back we showed you five pieces of very creepy hotel art. Now we’re back to bring you more.

But we know that one person’s “yuck” is another person’s “yum.” In other words, what we may find creepy, you may find incredibly special and funky and awesome. So dear readers, we ask you this: Which of the below hotel photos are cool, and which are simply creepy? You decide for yourself.

We found this on the back of a door inside our Deluxe Room at Hotel Erwin in Los Angeles. We still don’t quite understand it, but we’re gonna go out on a limb and vote this one as “creepy” in our books:

Deluxe Room at Hotel Erwin in Los Angeles

Deluxe Room at Hotel Erwin in Los Angeles

And as long as we’re on the subject of Hotel Erwin

Don’t like the idea of 30 people staring at you naked while you’re in the shower? Then you may find this shower curtain (which was also in the hotel’s Deluxe Room) to be a bit creepy. But we’ll concede that this one is more cool than creepy:

Deluxe Room at Hotel Erwin in Los Angeles

Deluxe Room at Hotel Erwin in Los Angeles

See more photos of Hotel Erwin or read the full Hotel Erwin review.

Even though we showed you this photo in November when we gathered our Quirky Hotel Art Hall of Fame, it simply is just too creepy not to include again. This photo is downright scary. What IS this thing anyway?

Elevator at Custom Hotel

Elevator at Custom Hotel

See more photos of Custom Hotel or read the full Custom Hotel review.

What are these dudes doing? Praying? A religious pilgrimmage? In a hotel? So many questions, so little time. Creepers:

W Boston

W Boston

See more photos of W Boston or read the full W Boston review.

All of God’s children are beautiful — we get it, and we appreciate the sentiment. But do we really need to decorate a hotel lobby with giant faces peering down at guests? Perhaps it’s not “keep you up at night” creepy, but it’s definitely “this is really bizarre…?” creepy.

Hotel Palomar DC

Hotel Palomar DC

See more photos of Hotel Palomar DC or read the full Hotel Palomar DC review.

We like the Magritte vibe that we get from this piece outside Hotel Helix in Washington, D.C. It’s more cool than spooky, but it’ll send a slight shiver down your spine if you walk by it on a dark, blustery day:

Hotel Helix

Hotel Helix

See more photos of Hotel Helix or read the full Hotel Helix hotel review.

Okay, this one isn’t creepy at all — we’re just throwing it in for good measure. We never get tired of Philippe Starck’s funky design at hotels like Clift and SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills:

Lobby of Clift in San Francisco

Lobby of Clift in San Francisco

See more photos of Clift or read the full Clift hotel review.

All products are independently selected by our writers and editors. If you buy something through our links, Oyster may earn an affiliate commission.