HMDS #2: Motel Hell (1980)

[lazario]

Director: Kevin Connor (From Beyond the Grave, The House Where Evil Dwells, The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot, At the Earth's Core, Shadow of Obsession, Sunset Grill)

Writers:
Robert Jaffe (Demon Seed, Nightflyers, Scarab)
Steven-Charles Jaffe (Scarab)
Tim Tuchrello



Cast
Rory Calhoun (Tales from the Crypt, How to Marry a Millionaire, With a Song in My Heart, Wagon Train, River of No Return)
Nancy Parsons (Porky's, Days of Our Lives)
Nina Alexrod (Critters 3)
Paul Linke (Shrunken Heads, Judging Amy, Chips, Happy Days, St. Elsewhere, Quantum Leap, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman)
Wolfman Jack (American Graffiti)
John Ratzenberger (Superman, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Cheers, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Gandhi, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, Monsters Inc., Superman II, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, WALL-E, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Reds, Cars)

IMDb plot(s):
"Farmer Vincent kidnaps unsuspecting travellers and is burying them in his garden. Unfortunately for his victims, they are not dead. He feeds his victims to prepare them for his roadside stand. His motto is: It takes all kinds of critters...to make Farmer Vincents fritters. The movie is gory, but is also a parody of slasher movies like Last House on the Left."

[tsmooth31]

i have this movie downloaded on my computer but havent seen it yet

[shunty]

a movie i have been meaning to see, but haven't. i have heard they are planning a remake.

[malbowski13]

I have seen this movie. No real structure to speak of but entertaining.

*SPOILER* Nice chainsaw fight at the end.

[lazario]

First thing I have to say about this movie, if you haven't seen it yet - SEE IT! It's not a great movie, but it is insane. There's always something going on. It's dumb and it's perverted and all that, but it's very well made visually, and the music is wonderful, and it's surreal, and the wit is very dark but pretty smart. The movie is just absolutely packed with stuff. I don't know if it's mainly going to appeal to whatever you like, but it's definitely a highly memorable movie.

The acting is pretty bad, except for the leads Nancy Parsons (?) and Rory Calhoun (oh, and Wolfman Jack, the famous radio personality from the 1960's and 70's is in the movie too). And the movie is worth watching just for them if for nothing else. It's not gory at all, but it's wild. And it's very creepy. It's basically about fanatics. The main characters have a religious reason for doing everything they're doing and they're also farmers, so they have a down-home kind of philosophy and are a lot of fun to watch doing stuff.

Perhaps the funniest scene is when a really weird pair of fetishist-tourist-weirdos who are into every sexual kink in the book invite the 2 (Vincent and Ida) to participate in their bedroom hijinks. So they smile and show up to the room with tanks of gas and these 2 religious people are pretending to be sex-maniacs. You would completely expect religious people to freak out about that sort of thing, right? Not Vincent and Ida.

[lowkey]

Actually, aren't Vincent and Ida supposed to be brother and sister? I can't remember for sure, but it seems like that's the case. That makes the swinging scene even more creepy/hilarious.

[lazario]

Yes they were brother and sister.

And I love how different they were. He was more "nice" and fatherly. She was more explosive, less even tempered.

[piggsy]

Hey Lazario, I'm loving your new avatar. It's adorable!

[lazario]

Thanks. It looks like that owl who always said - "Give a hoot, don't pollute." What was his name?

[lowkey]

Woodsy Owl? Is he still around? I haven't seen one of those ads since the early 90s.

There was McGruff the Crime Dog too. He's still around, but a different person is voicing him now. He doesn't seem as authoritative as he used to. The old one really did make me want to do my part to help take a bite out of crime. The new one just doesn't cut it. I think he may have lost some weight too.

[lazario]

Ha! Yeah, I haven't noticed but I may have heard something about it.

I think the owl was back from the 1970's and McGruff the Crime Dog was from the 1980's.

Want to know something even funnier? Smokey the Bear? "Only You... Can Prevent Forest Fires"? I think he was back from the 1950's! There's a parody of him in a Disney cartoon back from like the 1950's or 60's, one of the Humphrey the Bear and the Ranger of Jollystone Park (I think that was the name of the park) cartoons.