Hotel to hell

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Movie
German title Hotel to hell
Original title Motel Hell
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1980
length 106 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Kevin Connor
script Robert Jaffe (Author)
Steven-Charles Jaffe
production Robert Jaffe
Steven-Charles Jaffe
music Lance Ruby
camera Thomas Del Ruth
cut Bernard Gribble
occupation

Hotel zur Hölle is a horror film directed by Kevin Connor with satirical and comedic undertones, in which the star of numerous B-Westerns of the 1950s, Rory Calhoun , plays one of his most unusual leading roles. The film premiered in the United States on October 18, 1980, and had been shown in the Netherlands two months earlier. The film opened in the Federal Republic of Germany on November 21, 1980.

action

The gray-haired Vincent Smith and his younger sister Ida run a pig farm with an attached smokehouse in the country, for which they advertise with a large street poster: “Farmer Vincent's Smoked Meats. This is it! ". Attached to this, they also run a small hotel called Motel Hello, whose electrically operated name often has the last letter “o” flickering due to short circuits. But the siblings have a bloody and murderous secret: they also process human flesh.

Every evening Vincent lies in wait for motorists on a thoroughfare with traps laid out on the asphalt. The vehicles skid and tumble down the slope or roll over. One evening Vincent has a motorcycle occupied by two people in his sights. A shot is fired and the bike rolls over. The old bike rider Bo allegedly dies in the process; his pretty, much younger friend Terry survived the attack with minor injuries. Vincent takes a liking to her and, much to his sister's annoyance, decides to spare Terry. Over the next few days, Terry recovers quickly in his and Ida's house.

Meanwhile Vincent disappears every now and then behind a wooden wall, perfectly camouflaged by overgrown green plants, which separates a secret garden from the rest of the landscape. There he orders very special “plants” hidden under small sacks. In the immediate vicinity, however, the veterinarian Bob Vincent's pig husbandry inspected. As he approaches the plant-covered wooden wall to the secret garden, Vincent suddenly meets him. Bob is suspicious, and so the vet returns to this place the following night and climbs over the cordon. He sees the little bags under which something is obviously moving. He pulls some down and sees people's heads swinging back and forth, making gurgling and creaking noises. Everything below the heads has been dug deep into the ground. These people, whose vocal cords have been cut so their screams cannot be heard, are all victims of Vincent's nightly street traps. Terry's allegedly dead biker friend Bo is also among them. Before the vet can react, he is knocked down from behind. He too is buried and, like the other victims, fattened up for the next slaughter using funnels and hoses.

In the meantime, the young sheriff Bruce Smith has turned up at his older siblings. He is investigating the disappearance of several people. Bruce befriends Terry and quickly falls in love with her. But she has long since kept an eye on old Vincent, her supposed savior. When Ida tries to drown the bad swimmer Terry on a bathing trip, Vincent, who has swum, comes to her aid at the last second. Terry declares her love for him one evening and Vincent suggests that they marry her as soon as possible. Obviously, with Vincent's consent, Ida Terry pours an anesthetic into a glass of champagne so that the siblings can “harvest” undisturbed in the secret garden. Several buried street victims are put into hypnosis with light organ, then Vincent puts ropes around the necks of the people and starts his tractor attached to them. After strangling them with a quick jerk, the tractor pulls the dead out of the earth and takes them to the slaughterhouse.

Events roll over as Bruce gradually detects the terrible goings-on of his siblings and, plagued by jealousy, tries to convince the reawakened Terry that Vincent could not be the right one for them. He shows her evidence that Vincent must have shot her and Bo off the motorcycle. Both go to Motel Hello. Meanwhile, Bo managed to dig himself up and free the fellow victims. Gasping and gurgling, they shuffle through the darkness in search of their tormentors.

Ida overpowers her younger brother and brings Terry to Vincent. He explains to the shocked young woman that he has been praised for 30 years for the fact that nobody in the area produces meat as tasty as he does. In this way, he would also be doing something good for the world by the way: There are far too many people who have far too little to eat. Terry, deeply disgusted, tries to escape, but is caught by Vincent, gas-stunned and strapped to a conveyor belt used to cut chunks of meat.

In the meantime, the street victims staggering through the night like zombies have reached Motel Hello and together overpowered Ida. At the moment one of the incapacitated men rushes through a window into the slaughterhouse, Vincent is about to get rid of Terry. The battle ensues and Vincent wins. Meanwhile, little brother Bruce has woken up and gone to the slaughterhouse. He sees Terry lying on the conveyor belt and wants to free her when suddenly a man with a pig mask and a running chainsaw appears behind him. Vincent is behind it. A murderous showdown ensues: chainsaw against chainsaw. Vincent is seriously injured. As he dies, he tells his brother Bruce to look after the secret garden and look after the pigs.

Terry is freed from the moving conveyor belt by Bruce and they both go to the secret garden. Only one person is buried there: upside down. Legs in long red stockings kick high in the air. The road victims took revenge on Ida. When Bruce and Terry return to the motel, the letter 'o' flickers for the last time until the neon tube finally explodes. All that's left to read is: Motel Hell.

Production notes

The horror film is in parts strongly influenced by the slasher film classic Blood Court in Texas , which was made a few years earlier, and at the same time tries to parody this genre with various comic interludes. Above all, Rory Calhoun as human slaughterer Vincent completes his acting assignment even in the strongest moments of shock with a wide permanent grin.

The filming of Hotel zur Hölle was made at the Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita, California (exterior shots) and at the Laird International Studio in Culver City (interior shots).

The film cost around $ 3 million and grossed $ 6,342,668 in North America.

The actress of blonde Terry, Nina Axelrod , daughter of the famous writer and screenwriter George Axelrod ( Breakfast at Tiffany's ), largely said goodbye to acting in 1986 and now works as a casting agent.

The FSK released the film from the age of 18 after several edits.

criticism

The international critics were rather put off by the bloodthirsty effects (by the standards of the time) and felt that even the comedic interludes could not really save the film. Nonetheless, Hotel zur Hölle has become a cult film over the decades.

The film's large lexicon of people called Hotel zur Hölle a "human butcher horror".

The Movie & Video Guide wrote: "... scattered laughs and a lively finish fail to distinguish this gory horror comedy".

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Horror comic intended to amuse, but too repulsive to do so".

In the film magazine Cinema it says: “The improbable, the unimaginable, the brutality as the result of a fantasy that is not about the brutal itself, but the fantastic itself, give the film“ Hotel zur Hölle ”those elements that the Need a shocker of the eighties. "

In the Handbuch Films 1977-80 one can read about Hotel zur Hölle : “Indisputable horror film, which is only concerned with the representation of cynical misanthropy and disgusting brutalities”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 1: A - C. Erik Aaes - Jack Carson. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 644.
  2. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 880
  3. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 696
  4. ↑ Cinema, Issue No. 12 (Issue 31) from December 1980, p. 22.
  5. ^ Films 1977-80, Handbuch 10, Cologne 1981, p. 129