Warning: This post contains spoilers for the film Motel Hell.
Never trust a farmer who is known for the best meat around, especially if his pork doesn’t taste like any pork I’ve ever tried.
As soon as I saw that Farmer Vincent had the best meat around, I knew where he was getting it. However, I was still surprised (and maybe even a little disturbed) when they revealed the entire process.
Wolfman Jack makes a great pervy down-on-his-luck reverend.
I don’t have much to add to this, other than to say that I could watch Wolfman Jack play a pervy down-on-his-luck reverend all day long.
Shoehorning comedy into a horror script is a bad idea.
Written as a dramatic horror film, many people considered Motel Hell too disturbing. The director, Kevin Connor, had the script rewritten as a dark comedy. While I enjoyed both elements of the film, it felt uneven. I never knew if I was supposed to be watching a drama or a comedy. When the groovy BDSM couple show up (which is about half way through the film), I thought that someone had spliced in a scene from an abandoned John Waters script.
A cool idea thought up at the last-minute still needs to work with the rest of the film.
The pig-head-wearing-chainsaw-dueling ending is a cool scene, however, they conceived the scene at the last-minute and it shows. As I watched, I wondered why Farmer Vincent was wearing a pig head when he never wore one before. There’s a moment earlier in the film when Vincent’s sister, Ida, is wearing a pig head, but it did little to explain its appearance in the final showdown. I think it would have been better to have them both wear the heads when they were interacting with their victims earlier in the film. I’m sure this wasn’t done because it would have required costly re-shoots and most actors don’t want their faces covered by a big pig head, but I think it could have made for a better film.