Motel Hell (1980) - Revisit
I will be including my user comments as they are very vividly detailed from how I felt at the time I watched it last. This is probably the first time I’ve seen “Motel Hell” since I revisited it during TCM’s Underground years back. I noticed this was on the MGM Channel as part of some free moving channel programming offered from my satellite company, and it was probably about 11:45 PM Friday late night, so I was like, “Why not?” And if there is a film suited for this time slot it is “Motel Hell”. I think it is just a bit overlong, but its grisly premise, black humor spirit, and satiric stab at the Texas Chainsaw Massacre genre always wins me over. It does sort of lose me when Terry (Axelrod) falls for Father Vincent (Calhoun), definitely leaves this rather yikes feeling, while sheriff brother, Bruce (Linke), is all out of sorts that she would prefer his much older brother to him. Ida (Parsons), cheerfully complicit in the “art of smoked meats”, couldn’t be better casted than in this film. And the sweet-faced Calhoun, of such a classic western movie vintage, would appear to be the comfortable old coot you’d be at ease with, in his plaid shirts, overalls, and farm hat…he would show up in the 80s in cult films after this. The “secret garden” where Vincent and Ida keep their human “livestock”, buried up to the neck with vocal cords severed, and the “meat factory” where they tend to their “cutting” offer us peeks into a very sick, twisted, demented lifestyle that seems to produce a popular food for many customers who appear to really find the “special meats” to be very tasty! Everyone involved in the making of this film know exactly they were producing…this never gets too dark, and it could have went the very disturbing “Texas Chainsaw” route others were trying in the 70s. Admittedly, its darkest part is at the end: a show-stopping chainsaw duel between brothers where Vincent is maniacally laughing in “pig-face” while Bruce is just trying to keep from being chopped to pieces. There is this jealousy that peeks out when Terry, naked in bed, tries to seduce Vincent with Ida not happy about talk of marriage, including a “tubing” in their manmade lake where Ida tries to drown Terry. Besides the chainsaw duel, one of my favorite scenes involves the “livestock” eventually escaping the “garden” and surrounding Ida, emerging like zombies pursuing their human meal, later revealed to have buried her upside down in the very place they were buried, her legs kicking one last time before silence. The cannibal maniac family theme that does seem to be a grand part of these crazed human meat horror films is quite alive in “Motel Hell”. That damned gurgling and the heads of victims trying to communicate is still so unnerving. And the way Vincent and Ida use multi-color light machines to grab the attention of victims they will be “neck snapping” with rope pulled from tractor is also quite shocking. I might not actually like this one as much as others do (this is very much a cult classic in some parts), but I do recognize it for its bad taste (well, that seems to be challenged since the meat Vincent cooks is popular!) and its warped since of humor. When “dog meat fed to granny” is factored into conversation with siblings just caught in laughter, Ida trying to keep fingers and toes from surfacing in bucket chum so Terry won’t see them, Vincent using fake cows to stop a car so he can subduing the travelers with knockout gas, S&M couple looking for special kinks at the hotel and not realizing the “bondage” results in their joining the garden, and the local reverend (Wolfman Jack!) “confiscating” a Hustler from Bruce so he can “get rid of” the magazine (by placing it in his case!); you sort of realize what you are in for! 3/5
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