45 Years Later: Motel Hell

It feels like back in 1980, as the new decade was dawning, the horror genre was taking things seriously for the most part. We saw quite a few more straightforward movies come out during this year — which are all great, by the way! — and I think that because it feels like horror was taking itself very seriously more often than not in 1980, that’s a big reason why Kevin Connor’s Motel Hell feels like such a standout effort for that time in particular. It’s a film that has a lot on its mind, where if you look beneath its darkly humorous veneer, it’s taking its jabs at agribusiness, processed food, and blind consumer trust.

Even so, Connor’s movie never takes things so seriously that viewers are unable to bask in wickedly fun performances that make Motel Hell so memorable, as well as the wonderfully demented story that effectively reminds us of one simple fact: “Meat’s meat, and man’s gotta eat!”

In Motel Hell, we are transported back to a simpler time when roadside motels were commonplace, young travelers would go missing and no one would ever notice, and unsuspecting shoppers would come from near and far to support an up-and-coming local business so that they could get their hands on some of Farmer Vincent’s delicious meat products, not realizing that sometimes food regulations are a good thing. Without them, you could be consuming all sorts of things that are bad for you, including (gasp) human flesh!

Written and produced by Steven-Charles and Robert Jaffe, Motel Hell is a sublime dark comedy that rarely misses a beat thanks to the outstanding performances from both Rory Calhoun and Nancy Parsons who both give the film a nice sense of gravity even against the film’s more cartoonish supporting characters and storyline. Even though the premise of Motel Hell pretty much goes a bit off the rails in the final act of the film, Connor does elevate the material with a nice balance of disturbing imagery (voiceless victims buried up to their necks — they will always be creepy as hell) and several iconic and crazy chainsaw-wielding moments of violence in Motel Hell to make for an unforgettable slasher/cannibal mash-up that remains a ton of fun for fans of classic horror comedies.

When it was released, Motel Hell introduced a generation of horror fans to the charismatic Farmer Vincent (Rory Calhoun), his eccentric and devoted sister, Ida (Nancy Parsons), who are an enterprising sibling duo. Not only do they run the charming “Motel Hello,” but they also have created their own irresistible line of meat products that people can’t seem to put down. After a young woman named Terry (Nina Axelrod) is taken in by Vincent and Ida, she eventually uncovers all their dastardly and delicious secrets, threatening to put an end to their very lucrative livelihoods for good with the help of Vincent and Ida’s naive younger brother, Sheriff Bruce Smith (Paul Linke) who gets caught up in this murderous game of cat and mouse that ensues during the movie’s wildly chaotic third act.

Motel Hell came about as the Jaffe Brothers wanted to make a name for themselves in Hollywood, and they looked to their childhood for inspiration. Both Robert and Steven-Charles grew up watching classic horror movies throughout the 1960s, and they used a real-life inspiration for the lead characters in Motel Hell: a babysitter who was extremely kind and friendly towards their parents, but who was an absolute nightmare to the boys once their mom and dad left the house. Creating characters who were likable yet capable of committing heinous acts outside of the public eye was the key to the Jaffes’ ability to pull back the facade of Americana to expose its darker side through the exploits we see in Motel Hell.

After all, who would suspect a kindly local farmer and purveyor of meat products to be engaging in cannibalism?

When they penned the script, the Jaffes always intended for the film to have humorous undertones, but the studio wanted the brothers to turn Motel Hell into a straight-up horror movie that would tap into the burgeoning slasher craze following the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978. Steven-Charles and Robert pushed back, insisting that the project didn’t need to follow any industry trends, and MGM/United Artists finally agreed with the Jaffes, allowing them to move forward with their atypical genre-bender nearly 3 years after they first finished the script.

While many consider Motel Hell to be one of the best horror satires to come out of the ’80s, Robert always saw the film as something more. In a 2014 interview, Robert explained how the film defied categorization, saying, “It’s not satire, it’s not camp. It’s something else. We went through great pains to make sure this wasn’t campy, as much as possible. It was all taken as seriously as we could, so we weren't making a joke of a joke. I think what makes Motel Hell work is that you get to visit these people that you really care about, that you really love, that amuse you, that you think are fun. They’re like crazy relatives, where it’s fun whenever you get to spend some time with them. They just happen to kidnap and kill unsuspecting human victims to make their smoked meats.”

Because Steven-Charles and Robert weren’t looking to make Motel Hell as a typical horror satire, they decided they needed an English director at the helm to match the project’s comedic sensibilities. “I don’t know how it happened, but I think Motel Hell had this dry British humor to it, and we knew we needed to bring someone in who could really grasp that and play things as straight as possible with this script,” Steven-Charles explained in a 2014 interview.

Agreeing with the Jaffes, MGM/United Artists hired Kevin Connor, who had recently moved from the U.K. to Hollywood in 1980 in hopes of transitioning away from the world of live theater overseas and establishing himself as a filmmaker here in the States.

When he boarded Motel Hell, Connor thought the script was interesting and was keen to take the directorial reins, but he had a few ideas to help enhance the Jaffes’ overall vision for the world of Farmer Vincent. “I immediately liked the script, but the more juvenile stuff in it didn’t really appeal to me,” Connor explained in a 2014 interview. “I thought the movie would work without it, so I went back to the boys to talk about it, and we decided to play everything straight and take everything seriously in Motel Hell.”

As it turns out, Connor’s instincts were right on the money, and from there, he set out to make the film with both Robert and Steven-Charles working closely with him throughout the process.

Production began on Motel Hell at Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita, California, in May 1980, and one of the first orders of business was finding the perfect actor to take on the role of Farmer Vincent Smith, a character who felt like a mix of Norman Bates, Leatherface, and Colonel Sanders all wrapped up in one. Since Farmer Vincent represented the throwback ideals of an all-American, both Steven-Charles and Robert thought it would be a great idea to bring in an actor who came from the world of Western cinema. This led to the casting of Rory Calhoun, an actor who rose to fame throughout the 1950s playing cowboys in an assortment of films for 20th Century Fox, including A Ticket to Tomahawk and Rogue River.

For the role of Ida Smith, Nancy Parsons completely immersed herself in the world of her character who has a penchant for weird food products and idolizes her big brother, Vincent. Ida reveres him so much that when Vincent falls for Terry, she tries to split up the happy couple by any means necessary. Further complicating the family dynamic is the aforementioned Sheriff Bruce who also happens to fall head over heels for Terry in Motel Hell, and he finds himself at odds with Vincent, culminating in an epic chainsaw-fueled finale.

Robert was a longtime friend of Linke’s since they met during their college years, and he wrote the part specifically for Paul, who rarely had the chance to play the hero during his career, making his role in Motel Hell rather unique. Linke also took his heroic role so seriously that he even decided to wear a girdle throughout production so that he could “look the part” perfectly.

Other notable performers rounding out the cast of Motel Hell include Cheers alum John Ratzenberger playing a punk rock drummer who ends up in Vincent and Ida’s “secret garden,” Wolfman Jack as a televangelist, former Playboy playmate Monique St. Pierre as one of Vincent’s victims, and both Dick Curtis and Elaine Joyce play a pair of outlandish swingers who get lured to Farmer Vincent’s motel property and end up victims as well.

Both the production time and the turnaround on Motel Hell were extremely fast, as the film was released in theaters only a little more than five months after production first began. Made for a budget of $3 million, Motel Hell brought in a modest $6.3 million during its theatrical run. Despite its meager box office earnings, Motel Hell managed to win over some critics at the time, with Roger Ebert giving the film three out of four stars and praising its “refreshing” take on horror. Even though it took nearly 6 years before it would ever get a home media release, Motel Hell has since gone on to become a cult classic among horror fans and continues to garner favor amongst new audiences to this very day. I also think it’s pretty cool that the legacy of Motel Hell continues to live on after all this time through Robert Jaffe and Nina Axelrod who were married in 1981 and are still together today.

What makes Motel Hell so special is the fact that, for all its silliness, it’s a film that reflects a genuine affection for the horror genre as a whole. With wonderful nods to classic films like Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, and The Hills Have Eyes, with a hint of Blood Feast thrown in there for good measure, Motel Hell feels like that weird roadside diner you discover out of nowhere that serves you their mystery meat with a smile. And it’s horror fans like myself who keep coming back for seconds, not because it’s perfect, but because it is perfectly entertaining.