With Motel Hell, British director Kevin Connor took the combined screenwriting efforts of Robert Jaffe, Steven-Charles Jaffe, and Tim Tuchrello and created an incendiary analysis of American society. He wraps the film in a black humor foil as he parodies the taken-for-granted mundanely of American life, the culmination of which is a hybrid of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Alongside the satires of Larry Cohen, Conner’s work stands as one of the most accurate social litmuses hidden in the guise of gratuitous horror.
Ida Smith (Nancy Parsons, Steel Magnolias, Porky’s) and her brother, Vincent (Rory Calhoun, famed Western star of yesteryear), reside in Grainville, California, where their home-cured meats have become local legend. However, their fame is based upon a special ingredient which gives their meats a little extra something, that is, a hint of human flesh. The Smiths procure their prize culinary zing by ambushing undesirables and burying them alive (up to their heads) in a garden. After removing the victims’ vocal chords, the Smiths then feed their crop the best natural food in order to assure a hearty yield.
Bottom line, Hotel Hell is a scathing satire based upon the result of Grant Wood/Norman Rockwell’s Keeping-Up-with-the-Jones 1950’s Americana. We are presented with two hard working Americans, Vincent and his sister Ida (thus, no sex here, just an honest day’s work), who–despite the fact that their hotel gets little to no business–pulled themselves up by the bootstraps over thirty years ago (which, if the film is set in present day, would have been circa 1950) and gave it another go with a side business comprised of smoked meats.
Vincent declares, “There’s too many people in the world and not enough food. Now this takes care of both problems at the same time.” As such, his good ol’ boy attitude is a tongue-in-cheek, Swiftian solution to the side effects of capitalism. The Smiths fascistly select whom they deem to be social disagreeable, thus they are not only helping to solve the ever growing hunger problem two-fold by eliminating some of the world’s overwrought population, but they are also eradicating some of the social riff-raff along the way.
The most poignant aspect of the writing is that we cannot but help like the Smiths, in lieu of the fact that the audience knows how their renowned “fritters” come to be, as the brother-sister combo mosey back and forth in their matching overalls while Ira’s pigtails sway to and fro, displaying a youthful optimism at every turn. Ultimately, their likeability, epitomized in Vincent’s smile, is a succinctly applied Machiavellian smirk which, even though the area directly above it needs to be wiped off, nonetheless gets everything it wants, that is, benefit of the doubt. You can almost hear your subconscious questioning whether or not such people as the Smiths would be capable of committing the acts as they humbly occur scene after scene and that, folks, is the key to the film. Thus, in Conner’s worldview, Americana is the Smiths: a malicious, callous entity, completely aware of its depravity, but nonetheless manipulating itself towards (more) financial prosperity.
The innocent nature of the Smiths is so convincing that Vincent’s brother, Sheriff Bruce Smith (Paul Linke, K-Pax), has no clue as that anything is amiss regarding his brother’s business of more than three decades. Also, his moral laxity is also a signpost for the times in that he has no qualms with Vincent burying Boris “Bo” Tulinski (Everett Creach, stuntman for such films as Dirty Harry, Marathon Man, Bullitt, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Near Dark) with no questions asked after the latter’s fatal motorcycle accident near the motel. It also helps that the sole survivor of the crash is Terry (Nina Axelrod), whom the Sheriff takes an instant fancy to despite the fact that she has her eyes set on Vincent. This social critique is seconded by the figure of Reverend Billy (Wolfman Jack, American Graffiti), a televangelist, who confiscates Bruce’s Hustler amid assurances that the magazine will be “properly disposed of.”
It should come as no surprise that Tobe Hooper was originally slated to direct the picture, having previously issued another classic criticism of the American landscape six years prior with his masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Kevin Conner keeps himself focused, never allowing the humor to override his message, as the dying words of Vincent, however ironically, poignantly summarize how naively susceptible our egos have become amid the smoke and mirrors of American nationalism.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
