261 Days of Horror, Day 2: Motel Hell
Jan. 2nd, 2007 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiMotel Hell. 1980. Directed by Kevin Connor. Written by Robert and Steven-Charles Jaffe. Released by United Artists.
One item that I haven't seen on any of those "horror movie rules*" lists that float around the internet is this: 99% of all jerky, sausage, and other meat products will contain human meat**. Naturally, all the folks who rave about how wonderful the meat is would be appalled to discover that they were committing acts of cannibalism. And often enough, they only discover the truth too late, when the killers*** turn the former gourmands into more tasty treats.
On the surface, you could certainly argue that Motel Hell doesn't break any new ground. Farmer Vincent owns and manages the Motel Hello (whose neon sign occasionally burns out the final letter) along with his sister Ida. He's also known for his smoked meats, which are the tastiest ones anyone's ever tried. We soon see just how Vincent gets his meat.
In the movie's opening scene, Vincent goes out to hunt for his game, and soon spots a motorcycle driving down the road. Neither the rider nor his passenger are wearing helmets****, and when the motorcycle mysteriously crashes, they're both knocked out. Vincent seems entranced with the female, Terry, and takes her back to the motel, where Ida helps nurse her back to health.
We soon meet the third sibling, Bruce. He's the local sheriff, and every bit as incompetent as you'd expect a small-town sheriff in a horror movie to be. However, because he ran away from home sometime early in his teens, he never found out the family secret, and has no clue what's in those smoked meats. Like his brother, he's enchanted by Terry (who, after a brief panic about the apparent death of her boyfriend, has settled into a nice euphoria likely caused by some combination of shock, brain damage, and drugs).
Over the course of the next hour, we watch both brothers court Terry as Vincent and Ida capture and prepare more meat (the process involves burying the live victim***** in the ground up to his or her neck, severing the vocal cords, and force feeding the victim to add the proper texture and flavor to the meat). Eventually, things come to a head as Vincent and Terry get engaged, and Bruce finally realizes what his siblings have been doing for all these years.
This might sound like standard horror movie fare, but Motel Hell is most definitely a horror comedy, and that's what makes it work. After Vincent captures a local meat inspector (who stumbled across the body farm), his next victims are a passing hair metal band called Ivan and the Terribles (which is actually a pretty good name for a band). In the minute or two that we see the band (whose members include John "Cliff Clavin" Raztenberger) driving in their van, they smoke about sixteen pounds of marijuana while practicing their songs. The driver (also stoned) says that he's looking "for a place to crash" right before running over the bear traps that Vincent has set on the road. While the band is dazed (from the crash and/or the pot), Vincent gasses them and knocks 'em out, and he and Ida prep them.
We also get to see Bruce's slick dating technique, which consists of driving to the local make-out spot, using his sirens to scare away all the horny teenagers, and then using binoculars to watch the movie at the drive in. His slick moves fail to charm Terry, however, and their date is soon interrupted by a distress call from a prostitute who has escaped one of Vincent's traps (this one involving fake cows blocking the road). Before the Sheriff can rescue the poor lass, Vincent manages to track her down, and Bruce is eventually convinced that it was just a prank call.
Neither of those scenes, however, compare to the classic scene involving two swingers. Convinced that the Motel Hello is a great place for meeting partners (thanks to a fake ad placed by Vincent), they soon agree to a foursome with Vincent and Ida. While waiting for them, we're treated to one of the silliest moment in screen history, as Edith, the female swinger (played by the current Mrs. Neil Simon, Elayne Joyce), practices using her bullwhip while waiting for Vincent. She spends two minutes whipping everything in the room in a scene straight out of a bad burlesque movie, destroying curtains, sheets, and lamps. Her performance is followed by her husband emerging from the bathroom wearing a plastic miniskirt and searching for lube. It's every bad sex comedy rolled into one short scene, which soon ends when our swingers agree to let their prospective partners tie them up.
But even that (largely visual) humor scene pales compared to the denouement. After Bruce discovers that Vincent and Terry are engaged, he angrily confronts his brother, who attempts to shoot him. This inspires Bruce, for the first time in his tenure as sheriff, to actually investigate a few crime scenes******. He discovers the truth (including the fact that the opening motorcycle crash occurred when Vincent shot the tires out), and is about to whisk Terry away when Ida comes across them, knocks Bruce out, and takes Terry down to the meat-processing shed. Meanwhile, thanks to some loose dirt, the prisoners have escaped, and they shamble en masse looking exactly (and deliberately) like a group of Romero zombies. Most of them confront Ida, who fights bravely, but is eventually buried (this time face-first, unlike the meat-puppets). Bo, meanwhile, breaks into the shed and confronts Vincent, who eventually kills him.
This leads to the scene for which the film is remembered: The Pig Head Chainsaw Fight.
Bruce, after coming to, gets to the shed, and is about to free Terry when Vincent attacks him with a chainsaw. While wearing a giant pig head. We've seen the pig head earlier in the movie (Ida wore it to scare some kids), but there's no reason in the world for Vincent to have put this on, other than the fact that the box and poster showed a guy wearing a pig head, so they felt contractually obligated to have one. Pig-Vincent and Bruce then duel with chainsaws for five minutes, which is every bit as silly as it sounds (chainsaws are heavy, dammit!). Eventually, Bruce and justice prevail, and Vincent is defeated. The voiceless victims have wandered off, no police (other than Bruce) are ever called in, and the FBI never investigates all the missing travelers in one small part of the country. Gotta love low-budget horror.
What makes this campy classic work (aside from the sense of fun that pervades the script) are the performances of the villains. Ida is played by the late Nancy Parsons, best known as Miss Ballbricker in the Porky's movies. She perfect as the mentally unstable (and possibly inbred) sister. And cowboy legend Rory Calhoun******* absolutely drives the movie as Vincent. His smiling, laid-back manner, combined with his folksy rationalizations ("There's too many people in the world and not enough food. Now this takes care of both problems at the same time."), make him almost sympathetic as he goes about his life's work. They also make his few moments of real rage all the more powerful.
This, folks, is what a B-movie is all about. Not much gore (surprisingly), and only a few nude scenes (also unexpected), but a script and a cast that deliver from start to finish. Highly recommended for fans of camp.
* Most of which start out cute and then rapidly progress to annoying and/or just plain wrong.
**The remaining 1% is usually the beloved dog or cat.
*** There's almost always more than one. Cannibalism is hard work!
**** Let that be a lesson for you, kids! Wear a helmet, or you'll be turned into beef jerky!
***** One of whom, needless to say, is Terry's "late" ex, Bo.
****** Of course, as sheriff, you'd think he'd just, you know, arrest the guy who shot at him.
******* Burns: Look at him, Smithers. That's the most adorable thing I've ever seen, you know who he reminds me of?
Smithers: Snoopy?
Burns: No.
Smithers: Snoop Doggy Dog!
Burns: No. You know that fellow, who's always standing and walking?
Smithers: Rory Calhoun?
Burns: Yes, Rory Calhoun. Look at him standing there on his hind legs, like Rory Calhoun.
One item that I haven't seen on any of those "horror movie rules*" lists that float around the internet is this: 99% of all jerky, sausage, and other meat products will contain human meat**. Naturally, all the folks who rave about how wonderful the meat is would be appalled to discover that they were committing acts of cannibalism. And often enough, they only discover the truth too late, when the killers*** turn the former gourmands into more tasty treats.
On the surface, you could certainly argue that Motel Hell doesn't break any new ground. Farmer Vincent owns and manages the Motel Hello (whose neon sign occasionally burns out the final letter) along with his sister Ida. He's also known for his smoked meats, which are the tastiest ones anyone's ever tried. We soon see just how Vincent gets his meat.
In the movie's opening scene, Vincent goes out to hunt for his game, and soon spots a motorcycle driving down the road. Neither the rider nor his passenger are wearing helmets****, and when the motorcycle mysteriously crashes, they're both knocked out. Vincent seems entranced with the female, Terry, and takes her back to the motel, where Ida helps nurse her back to health.
We soon meet the third sibling, Bruce. He's the local sheriff, and every bit as incompetent as you'd expect a small-town sheriff in a horror movie to be. However, because he ran away from home sometime early in his teens, he never found out the family secret, and has no clue what's in those smoked meats. Like his brother, he's enchanted by Terry (who, after a brief panic about the apparent death of her boyfriend, has settled into a nice euphoria likely caused by some combination of shock, brain damage, and drugs).
Over the course of the next hour, we watch both brothers court Terry as Vincent and Ida capture and prepare more meat (the process involves burying the live victim***** in the ground up to his or her neck, severing the vocal cords, and force feeding the victim to add the proper texture and flavor to the meat). Eventually, things come to a head as Vincent and Terry get engaged, and Bruce finally realizes what his siblings have been doing for all these years.
This might sound like standard horror movie fare, but Motel Hell is most definitely a horror comedy, and that's what makes it work. After Vincent captures a local meat inspector (who stumbled across the body farm), his next victims are a passing hair metal band called Ivan and the Terribles (which is actually a pretty good name for a band). In the minute or two that we see the band (whose members include John "Cliff Clavin" Raztenberger) driving in their van, they smoke about sixteen pounds of marijuana while practicing their songs. The driver (also stoned) says that he's looking "for a place to crash" right before running over the bear traps that Vincent has set on the road. While the band is dazed (from the crash and/or the pot), Vincent gasses them and knocks 'em out, and he and Ida prep them.
We also get to see Bruce's slick dating technique, which consists of driving to the local make-out spot, using his sirens to scare away all the horny teenagers, and then using binoculars to watch the movie at the drive in. His slick moves fail to charm Terry, however, and their date is soon interrupted by a distress call from a prostitute who has escaped one of Vincent's traps (this one involving fake cows blocking the road). Before the Sheriff can rescue the poor lass, Vincent manages to track her down, and Bruce is eventually convinced that it was just a prank call.
Neither of those scenes, however, compare to the classic scene involving two swingers. Convinced that the Motel Hello is a great place for meeting partners (thanks to a fake ad placed by Vincent), they soon agree to a foursome with Vincent and Ida. While waiting for them, we're treated to one of the silliest moment in screen history, as Edith, the female swinger (played by the current Mrs. Neil Simon, Elayne Joyce), practices using her bullwhip while waiting for Vincent. She spends two minutes whipping everything in the room in a scene straight out of a bad burlesque movie, destroying curtains, sheets, and lamps. Her performance is followed by her husband emerging from the bathroom wearing a plastic miniskirt and searching for lube. It's every bad sex comedy rolled into one short scene, which soon ends when our swingers agree to let their prospective partners tie them up.
But even that (largely visual) humor scene pales compared to the denouement. After Bruce discovers that Vincent and Terry are engaged, he angrily confronts his brother, who attempts to shoot him. This inspires Bruce, for the first time in his tenure as sheriff, to actually investigate a few crime scenes******. He discovers the truth (including the fact that the opening motorcycle crash occurred when Vincent shot the tires out), and is about to whisk Terry away when Ida comes across them, knocks Bruce out, and takes Terry down to the meat-processing shed. Meanwhile, thanks to some loose dirt, the prisoners have escaped, and they shamble en masse looking exactly (and deliberately) like a group of Romero zombies. Most of them confront Ida, who fights bravely, but is eventually buried (this time face-first, unlike the meat-puppets). Bo, meanwhile, breaks into the shed and confronts Vincent, who eventually kills him.
This leads to the scene for which the film is remembered: The Pig Head Chainsaw Fight.
Bruce, after coming to, gets to the shed, and is about to free Terry when Vincent attacks him with a chainsaw. While wearing a giant pig head. We've seen the pig head earlier in the movie (Ida wore it to scare some kids), but there's no reason in the world for Vincent to have put this on, other than the fact that the box and poster showed a guy wearing a pig head, so they felt contractually obligated to have one. Pig-Vincent and Bruce then duel with chainsaws for five minutes, which is every bit as silly as it sounds (chainsaws are heavy, dammit!). Eventually, Bruce and justice prevail, and Vincent is defeated. The voiceless victims have wandered off, no police (other than Bruce) are ever called in, and the FBI never investigates all the missing travelers in one small part of the country. Gotta love low-budget horror.
What makes this campy classic work (aside from the sense of fun that pervades the script) are the performances of the villains. Ida is played by the late Nancy Parsons, best known as Miss Ballbricker in the Porky's movies. She perfect as the mentally unstable (and possibly inbred) sister. And cowboy legend Rory Calhoun******* absolutely drives the movie as Vincent. His smiling, laid-back manner, combined with his folksy rationalizations ("There's too many people in the world and not enough food. Now this takes care of both problems at the same time."), make him almost sympathetic as he goes about his life's work. They also make his few moments of real rage all the more powerful.
This, folks, is what a B-movie is all about. Not much gore (surprisingly), and only a few nude scenes (also unexpected), but a script and a cast that deliver from start to finish. Highly recommended for fans of camp.
* Most of which start out cute and then rapidly progress to annoying and/or just plain wrong.
**The remaining 1% is usually the beloved dog or cat.
*** There's almost always more than one. Cannibalism is hard work!
**** Let that be a lesson for you, kids! Wear a helmet, or you'll be turned into beef jerky!
***** One of whom, needless to say, is Terry's "late" ex, Bo.
****** Of course, as sheriff, you'd think he'd just, you know, arrest the guy who shot at him.
******* Burns: Look at him, Smithers. That's the most adorable thing I've ever seen, you know who he reminds me of?
Smithers: Snoopy?
Burns: No.
Smithers: Snoop Doggy Dog!
Burns: No. You know that fellow, who's always standing and walking?
Smithers: Rory Calhoun?
Burns: Yes, Rory Calhoun. Look at him standing there on his hind legs, like Rory Calhoun.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 07:15 pm (UTC)Heh.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 07:21 pm (UTC)I have no idea how that pun made it in there. I blame gremlins.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 07:18 pm (UTC)I have this memory. This pervasive, fucked up, horrible memory I'd like to exorcise. I am about 4 years old (so 1981). It's late at night, and I'm told to look away. I look back, but there's a sliding glass door behind that chair, so it reflects perfectly. I see a pig-man attacking someone with a chainsaw. That's all I remember. I have never seen anything even remotely close to this image again in my life. The memory pops up every so often.
Now I know.
Thank you,
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 07:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 07:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 07:36 pm (UTC)'Low budget fun' was my memory.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 08:34 pm (UTC)and here's a gift for ya:
http://popculturespectrum.com/motelhelliconbyreidcooper.gif
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 08:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 08:46 pm (UTC)review book. I use to have a lot of them including those grey or silver coffee table size paperbacks "Cult Films???" originally in two volumes (i think they added two more) but lost them when i moved in 95 (left them behind by accident) and sold others i had collected.
Though this film was never one of my favourites (don't like gross films) it's fun to read about again, especially the way you write :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-03 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 09:53 pm (UTC)I thought it was "...lonely being a cannibal. Hard making friends."
:)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-03 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-03 05:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-03 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-11 12:19 am (UTC)