Guests check in to Motel Hell[o] (the "o" on the neon sign is burned out), but they don't check out. Think you've seen it before? just wait: this is the first slasher flick where the point-of-view characters are the slashers. You'll think the victims are idiots, and almost want to root for Vincent and Ida, makers of a meat jerky with a very special ingredient. Their motto: "Meat's meat, and a man's gotta eat!" which Ida gleefully declares in one of the film's creepier scenes. This scene, with one of their young guests inducted into the cannibal hall of fame, is a scene that reminds me of the obligatory moment in vampire movies where the vampire turns an unwitting lover into the undead.
Expect to be horrified, rather than terrified, to be grossed-out, rather than sat on the edge of your seat, and you'll have a great time laughing at Motel Hell.
Compare this to the rest of the horror flicks put out that year ("Friday the 13th," "Humanoids from the Deep," "Maniac," and "Prom") and you can see why "Motel Hell" has a singular reputation. The only film that was close was "Mother's Day," and it is really not that close when it comes to getting you to laugh, groan, and shake your head in dumb wonder. Calhoun and Parsons milk their cannibalistic crazies for everything they are worth and this movie actually suffers when they are not on screen and we are left with the various walking slabs of meat on the menu, the beautiful less than brilliant blonde in danger (future casting director Nina Axelrod) and the loony and love-sick local cop (Paul Linke) who has not been able to connect the dots for the 30 years Farmer Vincent has been in business. However, Wolfman Jack is around for the fun as well, and that counts for something.
The ending of "Motel Hell" is a mixed bag, although applying standards of logic to any splatter flick, let alone this one, is always going to be problematic. But when the aforementioned young blonde actually falls for Vincent we are back to jaw dropping territory. Then we remember that this entire film is filled with scenes jumping off the deep end. Director Kevin Connor lucked out with the casting, because veteran character actor Calhoun makes this film work, both when he is being charming and when he goes crazy. He also gets off some choice one liners, including his last words, which prove once and for all that this film is a tongue in cheek splatter flick that mixes the camp and gory in equal measure. Like Farmer Vincent's smoked meats, "Motel Hell" is not going to be to everyone's tastes, but I happy to like a movie where they intend for you to laugh and groan your way through the festivities.
I'd wanted to see this turkey ever since it got a Dog of the Week review from Siskel and Ebert. (I miss the Dog of the Week. I got a roster of much-loved films from it; if they hated it, I was sure to like it.) It was everything I hoped it would be, and less. It is, oddly, the opposite of "how far the mighty have fallen;" think of it as "how amazing these folks' resumes were able to bury this."
The movie stars former matinee idol Rory Calhoun (Night of the Lepus, The Texan, many many others) and beloved character actor Nancy Parsons (Porky's, Steel Magnolias, etc.) as a brother-and-sister team who run a motel that has a smoked-meats business on the side. (This is a comedy/horror film. You know where they're getting the meats.) Farmer Vincent (Calhoun) drives traffic to the hotel with various traps on the road (your car's incapacitated, you have to spend the night, right?). Unfortunately, one of his traps works too well, killing a biker and knocking his girlfriend Terry (Nina Axelrod of Brainstorm and Critters 3 fame) unconscious. Vincent and his sister take her in, and eventually Vincent falls in love with Terry, leading to tension between him and his sister (who doesn't want things to change) and him and the town's sheriff (veteran TV actor Paul Linke, most recently on the big screen in K-PAX), who's been courting Terry himself. And, of course, the secret ingredient in Farmer Vincent's Smoked Meats threatens to be revealed in the ensuing blow-up...
Yes, it's really as bad as it sounds. The characters are two-dimensional, though engaging, and the script's idea of comedy is... well, it was written by Robert Jaffe, who was also responsible for turning Dean Koontz' novel Demon Seed into the mess of a movie it became, so draw your own conclusions. Director Kevin Connor has done roughly equal amounts of TV and movie work before this, but after this picture, Connor was persona non grata on the film side of Hollywood for twelve years. (During which time James Cameron made Piranha II and still became one of Hollywood's biggest directors.)
But then, you don't go into a film with a name like Motel Hell expecting fine art. This is silliness in its purest form, a stupid teen comedy that just happens to be a horror movie as well. In that regard, it was rather ahead of its time, improving on the quality of such trauma-inducing sixties comedy/horror teen flicks as Horror of Party Beach, but not quite approaching the quality of something like Night of the Creeps. Looked back on a quarter of a century later, we can enjoy this for what it is-Porky's with gore. ** ½
