strock@fortune.UUCP (Gregory Strockbine) (11/15/84)
Motel Hell has been out for a while but I just caught it on cable the other night. I had heard terrible things about this movie but it turned out to be pretty good. It doesn't take itself very seriously, at times it seemed like a spoof on slash movies. Not only did it have its fun moments but also scary and tense moments too. Its about a brother and sister team who run a motel and make smoked sausage on the side. Their sausage is the best around and the secret ingredient is human flesh. Their victims are knocked out with some kind of gas, planted in the ground (how absurd), have their vocal cords cut, then are fattened up for sausage time. There is a good dueling chainsaw fight scene between a sheriff and the suasage maker with the sausage maker wearing a pigs head mask. Tense and funny at the same time. Highly recommended for an entertaining evening.
ecl@ahuta.UUCP (ecl) (11/28/84)
MOTEL HELL A film review by Mark R. Leeper Tarzan knew where the Elephant's Graveyard was. That was the place where old elephants go to die. Old actors go to horror films. Rory Calhoun, heartthrob of early Fifties westerns and later "The Texan" TV series, pops up in MOTEL HELL as Farmer Vincent. He has his makes his money by running the Motel Hello and by making and distibuting Farmer Vincent's Smoked Meats. His meats are so good not because he puts a little of himself in his work, but because he puts a lot of other people in it. In the grand tradition of Sweeney Todd, Farmer Vincent's secret ingredient is human flesh. It seems the good farmer catches people, cuts their vocal cords, buries them in the ground, and force feeds them until they are ready to "become famous." It is a gruesome black comedy with a few really nice comic touches. Calhoun has a grand time of it, apparently playing his part as if he were dressing up in a sheet and going "boo!" If you don't concentrate too hard on the horror of the situation, this film is a lot of fun. (Evelyn C. Leeper for) Mark R. Leeper ...ihnp4!lznv!mrl