Motel Hell

Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: August 12th, 2014.
Director: Kevin Connor
Cast: Rory Calhoun, Terry Axelrod, Paul Linke, Nancy Parsons
Year: 1980
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The Movie:

“It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters!”

Kevin Connor's Motel Hell tells the sordid tale of one Farmer Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) who, along with his frumpy younger sister Ida (Nancy Parsons), runs a farm and the nearby Motel Hello (though it seems that the 'O' in the 'Hello' neon sign is perpetually burned out). Vincent is known locally for his special brand of smoked meats which he sells at an affordable price to tourists and hotel patrons - but he refuses to tell anyone what his secret ingredient really is.

When Smith is out late at night harvesting that secret ingredient, he lays down some road spikes and along come a biker named Boris (Everett Creach) and his pretty blonde girlfriend, Terry (Nina Axelrod). The spikes do their job and the couple careens off of the road. Terry is taken back to the motel while Boris meets a completely different fate - when the cops, chiefly Vincent's younger brother Bruce (Paul Linke), come calling, he tells everyone that he buried the dead biker. Terry is understandably upset but soon enough, she comes around and while Bruce falls for her, she starts to fall for Vincent. Her attempts at seduction don't work out so well when he tells her they need to wait until marriage, but he likes her enough that he offers to show her the secret to the best smoked meat around. Ida is none too happy about this, however, and soon enough it all comes apart and a bunch of people wind up dead!

A pretty deft mix of horror and black comedy that builds to a sufficiently dark, bloody climax, Motel Hell holds up well more than thirty years after it was made. The film features some pretty solid camerawork and impressive lighting, using primary colors in bold, brash ways to give the whole thing a sort of E.C. Comics vibe. This compliments the twisted humor in the story well, and it helps to create some impressive and memorable set pieces. Quality special effects and makeup effects also help here, the film's 'pig mask chainsaw attack' scene rightfully having gone on to become quite iconic in the annals of early eighties horror.

Of course, the fact that the movie is anchored by a really solid cast doesn't hurt things either. Nina Axelrod is pretty as a picture here, playing the naí¯ve part well and attractive enough that we can certainly see why both Vincent and Bruce would be interested. Nancy Parson plays the polar opposite of her character. Ida is a behemoth, more akin to a Death Nurse type character than the damsel in distress that Terry initially seems to be. Parsons is the perfect fit here. She plays Ida as dimwitted and easily talked into things by Vincent, but at the same time capable of evil all on her own when the time comes for it. Linke is fine as the cop and it's fun to see none other than the late, great Wolfman Jack play a Hustler loving preacher here but the real star of the show is, not surprisingly, Rory Calhoun. As Vincent he channels the right blend of Ed Gein and Gomer Pyle. He's sinister and obviously up to a whole lot of no good but he's got a backwoods sensibility about him that seems to guide whatever moral compass he has left. Calhoun seems in on the joke and while he never breaks character or even really comes close to it, there's definitely a lot of the film's black humor stemming from his take on things.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Shout! Factory offers up Motel Hell on Blu-ray in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. Image quality is, for the most part, quite strong here and there's an obvious improvement over the past DVD release from MGM noticeable immediately. There are some white specks here and there but outside of that, no major print damage. Grain is obvious here but never really distracting. Detail is solid for most of the movie though some scenes look a little softer than others, likely more to do with the lighting and original photography employed in the production. Skin tones look nice and natural and there are no obvious issues with edge enhancement or overzealous noise reduction to note.

The only audio option for the feature is an English language DTS-HD 2.0 track with optional subtitles provided in English only. While there isn't a whole lot of channel separation here, the track sounds fine. Dialogue is always easy to understand and both the score and the sound effects have decent depth and range. There were no obvious problems with any hiss or distortion noticed during the movie and all in all, the movie sounds just fine.

The extras kick off with a brand new audio commentary with director Kevin Connor moderated by Dave Parker. This is a pretty thorough track with Connor filling in all sorts of blanks as to how his film career got started and how he wound up working on this particular film. He shares his thoughts on what works and what doesn't and offers up some stories about how the various cast members came to be assigned their parts and what it was like working with them. He also provides some information about the locations, the effects work and the script. There is some dead air here and there towards the last half of the track but for the most part the pacing here is pretty decent and there's some good information contained herein.

Also new to this release is a twenty-five minute long featurette entitled It Takes All Kinds: The Making Of Motel Hell which is made up of interviews with Kevin Connor, writer/producer Robert Jaffe, writer/producer Steven-Charles Jaffe and actor Marc Silver. It's a nice companion piece to the commentary obviously Connor's input is complimented by that of the other participants here. Topics of discussion include the film's reception by both studio heads and theatrical audiences when it was finished, budgetary issues, conception influences and the origin of the story. It's quite well put together and gives us a nice glimpse into the origins of the picture. Director of photography Thomas Del Ruth shows up in a separate sixteen minute interview entitled Shooting Old School in which he talks about the work he did on the film. This is, understandably, more on the technical side but that's not a bad thing as he talks about the look of the film and some of the challenges that arose in getting it just right.

Carried over from the Arrow Blu-ray release from a couple of years back is the eighteen minute Ida, Be Thy Name featurette is basically a panel discussion with critic Staci Layne Wilson, Twitch Film's Shelagh M. Rowan-Legg and cast members Chantelle Albers and Elissa Dowling in which the participants discuss the different roles of women in horror films with some occasional emphasis on Motel Hell. This one is a bit all over the place but they come up with and argue some interesting points about how and why Ida is portrayed the way that she is in this picture compared to other female horror movie icons. Also carried over is the eleven minute From Glamor To Gore featurette which is an interview with former Playboy Playmate turned actress Rosanne Katon. She talks about how she wound up being cast in the film, what it was like on set, her relationship with some of the other cast members and the crew members and a fair bit more. The third piece carried over from the Arrow Blu-ray is the fifteen minute Another Head On The Chopping Block featurette. Here actor Paul Linke talks about working on the picture and he shares his thoughts on what he feels works and doesn't work in the movie itself.

Rounding out the extras are two still galleries (Behind The Scenes and Posters And Production), a trailer for the feature and promo spots for a few other Scream Factory titles. Shout! Factory has released this one as a Combo Pack, so inside the Blu-ray case we get a DVD version with the same extras on it. Both discs include animated menus and chapter selection. Both discs are housed inside a slipcover (at least for its first pressing) and the cover art insert is reversible with the newly created image on one side and some original poster art on the flip side.

The Final Word:

Shout! Factory have given Motel Hell a pretty serious special edition release, offering a very nice high definition upgrade and maxing out the extra features in a big way. As to the movie itself, it remains a lot of fun, a twisted picture with some really effective black humor and an amazing performance from the late, great Rory Calhoun!

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!