I'm pretty sure I saw parts of Motel Hell on TNT or something about 15 years ago. I vaguely remember a pig mask and a chainsaw fight. And when Mr. Burns made that Rory Calhoun joke, I always thought "oh yeah, that guy from Motel Hell!" But I haven't seen it proper until now.
It had sort of been built up in my head as a cult classic of sorts. But honestly Motel Hell didn't really do it for me. Mr. Calhoun gives a good performance, but the horror and comedy aspects just didn't mesh. Motel Hell keeps getting billed as a comedy, but it doesn't hit that way. Yes, some characters are crazy and over the top. But those characters don't constitute comedy in and of themselves - there still needs to be some jokes somewhere. And falling in the mud (which happens to two different characters) doesn't cut it. I guess "religious and proper old man farmer does decidedly unproper things" just isn't that funny for me.
My synopsis: Religious and proper old man farmer Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) does decidedly unproper things. Along with his sister Ida, he runs Motel Hello (not sure how it stays in business - they only get one customer for the whole movie). But he also has a pig farm, and is famous throughout the region for his smoked meats. According to the box art "it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent Fritters." And people are disappearing off the highway that runs by the motel - I'll let you put two and two together.
Elaboate genre: Horror comedy ("you might just die... laughing!" says the same box art.)
Overall: Eh. I dug that they were going for something unique, but other than a couple of scenes I just wasn't into it. The comedy doesn't work and the horror is a little too harsh for the comedy.
My biggest problem with Motel Hell is that the central story is pretty stupid. Vincent rescues a young woman named Terry after a sidehacking accident, where her beau Bo was killed. Vincent basically nurses her back to health, and falls in love with her, I guess. Good thing, she falls for him too! It's gross, because there's (conservatively) a 30 year age difference between the two - plus, didn't she have a life before the crash or something? She just decides that it's worth giving up her whole life to work at this creepy motel/farm, despite the fact that there is ample warning that something is rotten in Denmark. You have to suspend disbelief for just about every movie in some way or another, but this was just too much. And that's not even getting started on the cop character (Vincent's nephew Bruce) who is not only an idiot but also gets a Hilarious Attempted Rape Scene that is basically ignored as soon as it's over.
Also, for my tastes the horror is a little too strong to follow up with comedy. I won't get into specifics, but what they did to their victims is a little too nasty to justify joking around. You know what Martyrs needs? More comedy! (Okay, it's not that bad, but you get the point.) It's a constant tonal shift that never works for me. And it's not like the first half is comedy and the second half is horror - it switches from scene to scene. Plus, it's never fun seeing John Ratzenberger getting fucked up.
Rumor has it that Motel Hell is supposed to be a "satire of modern horror films such as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." (Thanks wikipedia.) But I'm pretty dense, and don't get that at all. Unless your main protagonist being an idiot is satirical. I mean, Psycho was in a motel... and there's chainsaws... that's all I got.
Speaking of chainsaws, the final fight is pretty sweet. Nothing wrong with a good chainsaw battle. And the setting for it - creepy smokehouse, with lots of fog coming out of nowhere and spooky hooks all over the place - is nice. And yeah, the pig's head mask is really cool.
I do have to mention that Rory Calhoun is pretty great as Vincent. I don't necessarily like what he's given to do, but there's no doubt that he's fully committed to the role. I think what little enjoyment I got out of this film is because of him. And the pig's head mask.
Maybe it's because I don't like any of that meat production business. I will give the filmmakers props for not actually putting any animals in harms way, or being too gross about their meat. Yeah, you see some fake looking carcasses or whatever, but nothing too graphic. A lot of these types of films would show a cleaver going into a body or something - all in all Motel Hell is pretty tame in that respect. Overall, it's not a overly gory film - it's just kind of nasty in concept. (I won't spoil it - but look at the box art, I guess.)
I wanted to like Motel Hell a lot more than I did. I appreciate filmmakers trying new things with the horror genre, but to me there just wasn't a heck of a lot to get into here.
I would not recommend this film.
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