Badmovies.org Forum

Information Exchange => Reader Comments => Topic started by: Riff-raff on March 31, 2003, 12:30:13 PM



Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Riff-raff on March 31, 2003, 12:30:13 PM
Yikes.  Just yikes.  Any movie that ends with a chainsaw duel and a man in a pig mask is ok by me.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Jeff on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
A great classic from the 80's - not to be missed. There really needs to be a Special Edition dvd for this movie.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Jim Hepler on November 25, 2006, 04:09:03 PM
I liked this.  The one thing missed in the review though is the cliches.  TONS of them.  Even the heroine on the buzzsaw, for cryin out loud!

And the chainsaw duel was pretty good, but by FAR the best one in cinema history is in a not-so-well-known Chow Yun-fat Hong Kong flick called Tiger On Beat.  That movie is easily worth the price for the final 15 minutes alone.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: MessiahMan on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
Whoo!  First!  (Sorry..spent too much time at gamefaqs)  I rented this movie not too long ago.  Though I thought it kind of slow, it was definitely worth the time I put into it, and I have seriously thought of purchasing the DVD several times.  I was partial to the scene where they put the ropes around the herd's neck and proceeded to hypnotize them (I forget what implement they used, though...).  It was hilarious looking at the people's faces follow the motions the mystery thing.  I loved the chainsaw duel, too.  How often do you see something like that, I ask!  This flick is a true gem.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Brother Ragnarok on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
Ah, the first thing I've been sent for free.  The website is starting to pay off (*cheap plug* www.cinemasodomy.com).
The only question raised is, do people really not mind if you just slap random bumper stickers on their car without asking?  I'm going to have to try that.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: ChrisB on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
Quite a departure from director Connor's previous film, Arabian Adventure, but that had its doses of black humour too!
I notised John Ratzenburger is in there too as one of the band. He was in several of Connor's 'Lost World' films from the seventies before joining Cheers.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Ed L. on November 18, 2002, 06:48:51 PM
Chainsaw Fu!   This movies was one I cought years ago on late night TV.  It always stuck with me.  


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: BoyScoutKevin on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
Further proof that if you are an upright, outstanding citizen, you'll seldom be the victim in a horror film. As it is usually the drug users and the sexually promiscuous who become the victims. The horror genera. One of the most morally conservative of the film generas. Enjoy!


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: James Perry on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
When I was too young (about 13) to be watching this my 2 cousins had me watching this anyway on cable TV.  I had NEVER seen anything remotely like it.  My speed was Frankenstein, Wolfman, etc.  It was almost a coming-of-age thing.  Even the films one nude scene (I think one) was a surprize because my cousins didn't mention it until it happened.  The scene with the people planted in the garden was absolutely SHOCKING!  Something so terrible, yet I was sitting there with my 2 cousins laughing our head's off!  I remember bragging to friends that I saw this.  Telling them about the sign going from MOTEL HELLO to MOTEL HELL, etc.  Since then I've come to appreciate movies like this for what they are.  I bought this last year (DVD with the hair-raising DERANGED on the reverse side) and watched it for the first time in about 20 years.  I remember it being better...but it was still fun.  There's nothing quite like seeing a film like this or maybe DAWN OF THE DEAD for the first time.  So shocking...scary as hell...but soon it sort fo wears off.  How do you top it?  Last truly scarey film I saw was Blair Witch Project.  (Feel free to disagree as to it's scary-ness).  Sixth Sense was good but far from scary.  Signs just wasn't.  I'd like that feeling again when I first saw MOTEL HELL!  


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: BoyScoutKevin on November 25, 2006, 04:10:12 PM
After missing seeing this once on television, I finally got a chance to see it.

The Good
It gave B-movie actor, Rory Calhoun, one of his best roles.

The Bad
It was the PG-13 stripped down television version. Not the R rated theatrical version.

The Good
It was rated for all the right reasons: sex, language, violence. Everything that makes life worthwhile.

The Bad
After reading this review, before seeing the movie, there wasn't many surprises.

The Good
The writing. The film was surprisingly well written. I especially like "We better look for a place to crash."

The Bad
Some of the scenes didn't make too much sense. You think somebody would have dug themselves out of the ground, before this.

The Good
The lighting. Alot of today's horror films are so dark, that you can't tell what is going on. That was never the case for this film.

The Ugly
"TV Guide" gave this film only 1 slime. And that is the problem with horror films. And it is not the fault of the films, but of mainstream reviewers. With the occasional exception of "A Rosemary's Baby" or "An Exorcist." Horror films don't get the respect they deserve.

The Good
Wasn't that film clip from "Monster That Challenged the World," which I believe also is reviewed at this site?

The Ugly
It never ceases to amaze me, what is censored out and left in. In "Lair of the White Worm," it was "I'm not into headbanging."--"Are you into any sort of banging?" Here, it was the nudity (the girl in her birthday suit) and the sex (the whip cracking), but, most of the violence was left in, in both films.

The Good
Towards the end, the film really developed a genuinely creepy atmosphere.

The Good
It was quite funny. I especially liked the "Perils of Pauline" moment. In "The Perils of Pauline," the heroine is threatened by a buzz saw in the sawmill. Here, the heroine is threatened by a meat saw in a smokehouse.

The Good
The chainsaw fight. What a difference a dozen years make. The only other chainsaw fight I know about, is in 1968's "Dark of the Sun." And there were all kinds of compplaints that it was too violent. Yet this one was far more violent, then that one, and there are no complaints.

Enjoy the film. I did.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: HardPressed on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
Trivia bit: Just for kicks I watched the DVD of this with the Spanish audio track, and either that's Rory Calhoun doing his own Spanish-language audio loop, or the world's most gifted bilingual mimic. Both Mr. Calhoun and the woman who loops for his sister manage to do fluent Spanish with a midwestern American twang, which is pretty hilarious considering that the number of twangy midwesterners who can speak fluent Spanish is just about nil.

(Off-topic: Try Return of the Living Dead in Spanish. The acting's much better.)


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Dan Lyon on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
Motel Hell is the feel-good family funfest flick of the year. Starring Rory Calhoun, a regular guy on the street that was 'discovered'... what better way to become a successful actor? The basis of the film is amongst the best as it taps into natural paranoia. What if the waiter spit in my food ? What if the Baker is a jerk-off ? What if this tasty Snausage is ground-up Trailer Trash ? Life is full of the unexpected and so is Motel Hell. MH played in October as part of a week-long Monsterfest marathon on a cable tv channel that fancies itself to be, well, fancy. Jerk that I am, wide awake at 3a.m. getting MH onto vhs tape (I'll do what I got to do to get my gore - don't judge me) and these sunsab***hes had the balls to cut sections out of Motel Hell. Pencil-necked pimp-sticks that edit Classic Movies to fit between sponsor rants about cola and college girls flashing their titties on spring break truely need to carefully examine their life path. Motel Hell is a great flick; the Fat Sister is way too scary at too many levels - this could have been any movie and that actress would scare me, she heap big wummin - and of course everyone's favorite postal delivery man is in one of his earliest film appearances. To think - Cliff (not his real name) Clavin used to hang and party with the likes of Jimi Hendrix - ain't life strange ? Yes, when Motel Hell is being cut to ribbons (sorry) when it's playing at 3a.m., life is strange. Oh well. Beg borrow or steal a real copy of Motel Hell and wake the kids up. Bon appetit !  


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Todd Shields on November 25, 2006, 04:09:03 PM
This movie made me hungry!
And anything showing a young girl getting tied up is okay in my book.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: on August 11, 2004, 05:24:35 PM
 a true cult classic! One of my favorites of all time! Ida and Farmer Vince are the perfect pair.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: SRBoone on November 25, 2006, 04:10:12 PM
I've partaken of Farmer Vincent's fritters quite a few times now and they are still delicious after twenty years. Its a loopy and none-too-serious treatment of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" that is carried by the charming performances of Rory Calhoun and Nancy Parsons. You never woulda thought dueling chainsaws and offing lowlifes could be so fun.

This is a classic of 80's trash that is so sweet-natured and well-acted you can't help but want seconds, and thirds, and fourths, and fifths...........



Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Richard on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM
Pretty good.  Somewhat imaginative.  I like the indifference towards human life displayed by the farmers.  Meats Meat, and man's gotta eat! hehehe  4 out of 5 stars is about right.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: Sporkinum on November 22, 2005, 10:03:00 AM
The is what I took my wife to see on our first date. Been married 23 years.


Title: Motel Hell
Post by: HUTTER on November 26, 2005, 06:16:02 PM
The most charming psycho cannibals comedy ever made.


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: HarlotBug3 on August 21, 2007, 05:33:42 PM
My fiance and I rented Motel Hell on the double sided DVD with 'Deranged', it was my choice, only because I (like a surprisingly large chunk of comentors here) first saw it on late night TV as a child, 5 minutes of it anyway, something else must have caught my eye in between commercials.

While the former went from bad to good to worse for taking itself too seriously, the later went the opposite route and, though it's as cliche as any of the scenes, I have to say that I wish I'd been partying with Ivan and the Terribles when I watched it.

Neither intoxicated, sleep-deprived, nor pre-pubescent, this movie is BAD, paralizingly BAD. I was ready to call it 'classic' 80s cheese till they brought out the hypno-lamps, from then on it was simply trash.

Intentionally absurd or not, I'm laughing at you, not with you.  :thumbdown:


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: indianasmith on August 21, 2007, 06:18:27 PM
The villain's last words are classic:

"I was the biggest hypocrite of all.  I . . . . used . . . . preservatives!"


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: John Oberuch Jr on May 12, 2008, 06:12:01 PM
I say let women do what they want now.  Ida's havin' a good 'ol time there snappin' up those necks there.


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: Allhallowsday on May 15, 2008, 09:31:43 PM
Yikes.  Just yikes.  Any movie that ends with a chainsaw duel and a man in a pig mask is ok by me.
That's not a pig mask, that's a pig's head on RORY CALHOUN!!!  The casting of CALHOUN as the Motel Hello keeper and farmer is perfect and odd. 

The villain's last words are classic:"I was the biggest hypocrite of all.  I . . . . used . . . . preservatives!"
Class-sick and help explain this film... it's an indictment of American consumerism, y'pigs...!  :tongueout: :teddyr:  Karma, for you Indiana, good quote!!
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/POSTER_-_MOTEL_HELL.jpg)


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: John Oberuch Jr on July 19, 2008, 05:45:07 PM
The green nutrients make the meat really tender!


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: tara on November 30, 2008, 12:11:27 AM
Believe it or not I saw this movie when I was just six at a drive-in theater in Manchester, KY.  My aunt, her husband, my mom, and my cousin piled into a Nova and watched this. I never forgot it! At that age the humor was missed by me but not the grisly shockingness!  The thing that stuck in my mind the most were the sliced vocal chords and that unforgettable gurgling noise! And yes, the creepiness of that fat sister--yecchhh!  She's scary!!!  I love this movie, and finally snagged the dvd, a special edition is sorely needed.  Hey, anyone out there ever watched Silent Scream, circa 1980? Another one that left a lasting impression on me. They're never as scary as you remember as a kid but who cares!  B budget movies are the best! Hey, a recommendation-- Deathdream, a 70's movie that I caught on late one night at my friend's. It took me from 1986 to find out what it was then order it. Now I'm the proud owner. You gotta see it.


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: Matt on January 09, 2009, 11:08:30 AM
My favourite line is Bruce is at the end: "I guess there's gonna have to be some kind of investigation".   You think?!?!


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: Faelin on May 17, 2009, 04:06:35 PM
Is there a 1950's version of this movie? If so where do you think I can find it?


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: John Oberuch Jr on May 21, 2009, 01:06:30 PM
It's Bob.


Title: Re: Motel Hell
Post by: Doodle on October 21, 2009, 07:12:35 PM
IFC played this last night... haven't seen it in its uncut glory in about twenty-five years... yikes!

anyway, it is still awesome... so goofy... good times... needs a good DVD release for sure... I saw there was a remake planned for 2010... made me sad...

interesting side note, looking at all the actor's IMDB pages, it seems like most of them were on CHiPs at least once... maybe they all met there or something...

Doodle