Motel Hell (1980)

Motel Hell is a dark comedy, bordering on spoofing the horror genre in a style that some lovingly compare to EC Comics. The screenwriting and producing team of brothers, Stephen-Charles and Robert, collaborated on the script to Motel Hell on spec. They hoped it would finally open the door to a Hollywood career after several individual ideas for screenplays and novel ideas never got made.  They determined they’d create something currently in studio demand that wouldn’t cost much money, which meant an exploitation flick, an attention-grabbing cult movie they could have fun writing together.

The Jaffe brothers looked to horror movies though they found them terrifying. They enjoyed the 1973 Italian chiller Torso as well as Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre because they tempered repulsive subject matter with gallows humor that allowed them to cope with what they could never stomach from a straight-up gorefest. They wanted their horror script to be as funny as it was disturbing, full of humor to counterbalance the sadistic acts on display. As they brainstormed, they tapped into their own phobias, trying to imagine the most disturbing thing they could think of that hadn’t been done before. They came up with the notion of people buried people up to their neck in the ground. The ideas for why and how they got there sprung from that idea. They took turns making suggestions, one brother coming up with character and motivation concepts, while the other sibling took noted to springboard off of for his turn. After four weeks of back and forth, they compiled it into a draft script.

The finished “Sweeney Todd-esque” script follows the exploits of Farmer Vincent Smith, who has three basic jobs: farmer, motel owner, and purveyor of the best straight-from-the-farm smoked meat products sold in the country. He and his sister Ida set up road accidents to abduct injured passers-by along the two-lane highway near their motel (it’s called “Motel Hello” but the last ‘o’ is on the blink), chloroforming them to knock them out, then planting their bodies into the ground up to their neck in their walled-off “secret garden” (with their vocal cords severed). They’re kept fed until it’s time to process them for their super-secret blend of pork and human flesh meat products (their coy slogan is, “It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters”. Hanging around but completely oblivious is Vincent’s daft younger brother Bruce, who happens to be a county deputy sheriff based in the nearby town of Grainville.

Once completed, no studio would touch it. Either they hated it, or they didn’t understand it. Things changed after the breakthrough success of John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978, studios began seeking other low-budget horror features. Universal Pictures brought back the Jaffes for a second look, packaging it as the next vehicle for Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper. Unfortunately, Universal grew nervous about the gruesomeness of the script and dropped the film, putting Hooper on The Funhouse instead.

To the rescue came the father of the screenwriters, Herb Jaffe. Herb was the former head of worldwide distribution for United Artists for ten years before becoming an independent producer. Herb convinced UA to green-light the project when by accepting the role of the executive producer under his company, Camp Hill Productions, promising to fund as needed. UA put up $3.2 million if they could get the film into theaters by Halloween. Although a low budget effort, this was a substantial cost for a b-movie exploitation flick, as studio funding incurred substantial union fees and costs.

For the director, UA’s first choice was Joe Dante due to his ability to blend horror and comedy in 1978’s Piranha, but he’d already committed to The Howling. Curtis Harrington turned it down for being distasteful. Meanwhile, a British director with no prior Hollywood experience, Kevin Connor, found himself the unlikely choice because he was the right place at the right time. Connor had been pigeonholed into doing Edgar Rice Burroughs story adaptations as family entertainment for Amicus Productions. After Amicus went out of business and the bottom dropped out of the British film industry, Connor tried his hand at American films by relocating to the States in 1980. After four months of nothing going his way, Connor visited the office of the only person he knew in Hollywood, agent Bobby Litman, to pick up his sample reel videotape. Litman felt bad for his friend and though he didn’t represent him, told him he’d get him a gig. Litman called another agent, who mentioned that UA was looking for an experienced horror film director. Connor happened to have the desired experience – one of his films was a horror anthology in 1974 called From Beyond the Grave.

Connor brought several giant canisters of his 35mm print of From Beyond the Grave for the Jaffe brothers to screen. They loved it and the fact that Connor was an experienced editor. They felt he’d give the film a proper British sensibility that could boost the humor value. They offered Connor the script. Opening to the first page, Connor was immediately a[[rehensive. The first shot of the film involved obese Ida in a motel room bed with a dildo cuddling a pig. Connor also wasn’t a fan of graphic movies. He preferred the subtle approaches taken by Alfred Hitchcock and Claude Chabrol in emphasizing suspense and humor over crude sexuality and gory violence. However, he needed the break and the money offered. Plus, it would break the typecasting caused by his run of family films by showing he could handle mature projects.

Connor agreed to direct on condition that they could reduce some of the crude juvenile humor – no dildos, no bestiality inferences, no gratuitous gore. The comedy would be pitch black and tongue-in-cheek with no slicing of flesh or acts of cruelty that made you feel sorry for the victims. Vincent would treat his human livestock humanely, with no unnecessary pain before being taken to the slaughterhouse. The farmers see themselves as the good guys’ they don’t kill out of evil intent, rationalizing that they’re doing the humans a favor by ending the misery of life and reducing overpopulation. Everything must be played straight by in order for the film to work, both in the acting and the direction – no hammy performances or obvious sendups that diminish the credibility and tension of the suspense by playing to absurd proportions.

Connor conceived the story in ten-minute reels, each segment building up to something shocking occurring. The Jaffes agreed to rework the script but remained on the set to make sure their vision didn’t derail. To avoid the misogynistic formula trappings of the slasher movie cycle where female teens were mercilessly slaughtered, Connor and the Jaffe spread the ages, genders, and backgrounds of the victims. Included among the victims are a USDA inspector, punk rockers, prostitutes, and some kinky swingers who’ve come for an orgy.

Connor’s top choice to play Farmer Vincent was Harry Dean Stanton. Connor visited Stanton’s home several times to discuss script and character ideas. After much serious consideration, though, Stanton passed; his career was taking off after Alien and he had other better offers. Connor then worked with folksy b-movie Western genre regular Rory Calhoun, who exuded many of Stanton’s qualities. Motel Hell represents a rare film where Calhoun takes a starring role and it became his first horror movie.

Nancy Parsons, who would soon afterward become known for playing Beulah Balbricker in the Porky’s movies, auditioned for Ida and was very excited to get the part because it was a starring role and she wanted to work with Rory Calhoun. The character of Ida was based on a babysitter the Jaffe brothers had growing up who would expose them to inappropriate things, watching wrestling and guzzling beers while the parents were away. She was originally written to be an ornery lesbian but those aspects of her character were removed in later revisions.

For the other two main roles, nepotism played a part. The part of Deputy Bruce was written for Paul Linke, a friend of Robert Jaffe’s since their USC days, Linke was on hiatus from his role as Officer Grossman on TV’s “CHiPs”. He and his first wife Francesca were on the verge of birthing their son at home with a midwife. Francesca requested her friend Kether (aka Nina) Axelrod (daughter of playwright George Axelrod (who adapted screenplays for “The Seven Year Itch” (based on his play), “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”) be there to assist. Paul decided that he’d invite Robert It was love at first sight’ Nina and Robert began dating and became a couple.

During rewrites, Jaffe injected the part to cast Nina as a young blonde motorcycle accident survivor with daddy issues named Terry who begins to have feelings for Vincent, unaware that he’s a murderous cannibal.  Fearing United Artists might object to their relationship, Nina had to go through auditions. After she was officially given the role, the romantic couple pretended to fall in love while making the film. They married in 1981 and have remained together to this day.

Linke plays Vincent’s brother, despite the actor being 26 years Calhoun’s junior. For the role, Linke went on a crash diet at a place ninety minutes drive away to wrap his body with herbs and cellophane to shrink his fat cells. He also wore a form of corset under his police costume.

Wolfman Jack was another late addition, the job secured by his agent who was looking for movies to squeeze him into. The Jaffes agreed to give Jack a role to give the film some publicity to appeal to certain demographics. Frank “Mars” Cotolo. a comedy writer who wrote for Wolfman Jack on his radio show wrote in scenes of him as a slimy pastor. Although he shot a few lengthy scenes, most were cut and used only in the background on television. A church scene at the beginning and a wedding near the end were removed from the film.  One of the other TV preachers shown featured the same actor who played a swinger later, though most viewers fail to make the connection.

Motel Hell was filmed in the locale of Canyon Country, in northern Los Angeles County, California. A house at Sable Ranch was converted to look like the motel’s office while the nearby horse stables were used to build the rest of the motel exteriors. Interiors were done at Laird International Studios (aka Culver City Studios).

The Jaffes fought hard to keep the comedy in because United Artists, who were struggling with the Heaven’s Gate debacle, thought a straight slasher movie approach would be more of a sure thing and wanted to remove the comedy. There was a two-week period where it seemed like the production was on pause, which Linke believes was the period where the studio coerced Connor and the Jaffes to reverse the broadly comedic direction of the film. A slapstick scene of Officer Bruce falling down a flight of stairs was shot but in the script but then completely removed. However, Connor insists there was no studio meddling involved. He did cut some scenes, including paring down of scenes involving Wolfman Jack, especially in the early part of the film.

Connor added sequences of another preacher on TV because he had seen televangelist Gene Scott and thought it would be good to have in the background on TV through the movie. That preacher character is the same character and actor who plays the male in an S&M couple that comes to the motel to frolic later. Despite keeping the comedy, United Artists marketed it as a slasher because black comedies were not as commercially sellable.

The actors who played the victims in the garden sat in pits for hours to simulate being buried up to their necks, They were unnerved when they saw dead rattlesnakes all around that were killed by the crew. As they sat there immobile, John Ratzenberger, who played the drummer in the punk band Ivan and the Terribles, would unnerve the other actors by joking that he saw or felt a snake or spider in the pit or around the area.

To simulate the sounds of people whose vocal cords had been severed, the actors often made their own grants and gurgles, but for the character of Bo, Terry’s biker boyfriend, they wanted something extra special. The sound editor found a man who’d recently undergone a tracheotomy to come into the sound booth to make a whole series of different noises, unlike anything most people could do with a healthy throat.

The climactic showdown chainsaw fight was another late addition. It took place over four days, twelve hours a day, within a sweltering former outhouse. All of the pig heads and carcasses used in the movie, with the exception of the stunt person’s styrofoam pig’s head, were real and began rotting and smelling from the oppressive heat, the bee smoke that left them with black stuff oozing out of their pores, and the length of the shoot, making them nauseous.

In the 1970s, consumerism greatly expanded in the United States, and, in unison awareness of environmentalism. The public psyche in tune with the hippie movement looked for more responsible ways of dealing with life on Earth. A growing unease emerged about the overpopulation of people and dwindling agricultural resources to feed everyone. Dystopian science fiction films like Soylent Green explored the possibilities of humans as a food commodity when traditional means of nutrition collapse. Zombie films proliferated, expressing underlying fears of people turning on each other for sustenance.

Although the makers of Motel Hell claim they had no aspirations to make an eco-conscious horror film, the elements are undeniably there. The main characters claim they’re improving the quality of life for everyone solving the overpopulation problem. “Meat’s meat and a man’s gotta eat” is the motto of Farmer Vincent, the butcher/entrepreneur blending human meat into his pork products. They’re not playing God but doing what they can to help out the planet. They’ve planted a garden, not of vegetables, but of people they’ve abducted, buried into the ground up to their necks to feed and fatten for the slaughter. A humane slaughter, as they hypnotize their victims so they think they’re at Cape Canaveral about to take a mission to Mars so they experience no pain when they’re put under the cleaver. Vincent is gaunt and concerned about his obese sister Ida, who always seems to be stuffing her face, a hypocritical repudiation of battling human overconsumption that weighs heavy on his mind. In the end, Vincent has to confront his hypocrisies, not only of Ida but himself, who used harmful preservatives to keep his meat seeming fresh.

The film also comments on the American obsession with automobiles. The open roads are where to place traps. Preachers on television are everywhere offering salvation from the world’s ills in the afterlife, but it’s really Vincent who feels he’s found a better way to make life better for those still on Earth.

Motel Hell, despite studio backing, had mediocre box office results mostly due to too much competition for the horror-movie dollars when it was released as well as a burn-out factor from so many more prominent horror releases of the 1970s. It pulled in a little over $6 million off of its $3.1 million budget, so a modest disappointment. It has earned a minor cult following from lovers of eighties horror flicks. Some viewers and critics have perceived an underlying commentary on the excesses of American society, though the filmmakers claim they had no such deeper notions when putting the film together.

The Jaffes think that the limited success came from not marketing the film as being comedic. Because it was marketed as a grisly horror flick, audiences expected straightforward horrific elements and felt that dialogue meant to be funny was just bad moviemaking. After a couple of weeks, United Artists tweaked the ad campaign to highlight the comedy and the film fared better. Linke walked out of the screening feeling it was a major disappointment because it didn’t work as well as it should have on paper. Neither the laughs or gore were as strong as they could have been.

However, the film has nonetheless found a cult following among some horror fans who regard it as a horror-comedy hybrid a few years ahead of its time.

• Camp Hill Productions’ proposed second effort was to make a film version of Marvel Comics “Thor” in 1983 from a screenplay by Robert Jaffee and comics legend Stan Lee, with Kevin Connor tentatively attached. It was nixed for being too expensive at the time.
• Based on her appearance in this film, Nina Axelrod screen-tested for Rachael in Blade Runner
• In 2007, MGM optioned the rights to Twisted Pictures, who did the Saw films, were given the rights but they couldn’t find a good script and soon gave it back to MGM, with the producers seeking director Steven C. Miller was attached to an MGM remake produced by Craig Perry of Motel Hell but it went into development hell due to MGM’s financial issues before getting canceled.
• In 2010, IDW published a “Motel Hell” three-issue comic book miniseries where Vincent and Ida run a Napa Valley winery

MPAA Rated: R for disturbing violent content, nudity, sexuality, and language
Run time: 101 min.

Cast: Rory Calhoun, Paul Linke, Nina Axelrod, Nancy Parsons, Wolfman Jack
Small roles and cameos: Elaine Joyce, John Ratzenberger
Director: Kevin Connor
Screenplay: Robert Jaffe, Steven-Charles Jaffe