Motel Hell

Directed by Kevin Connor, Motel Hell follows a seemingly friendly farmer (Rory Calhoun’s Vincent Smith) and his oddball sister (Nancy Parsons’ Ida) as they kidnap travelers and eventually turn them into popular smoked-meat products. It’s certainly a workable, promising setup that’s consistently employed to inept and flat-out unwatchable effect by Connor, as the filmmaker, working from Robert Jaffe and Steven-Charles Jaffe, delivers an exceedingly (and excessively) sluggish thriller that contains few, if any, elements designed to capture and sustain the viewer’s attention – with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by Thomas Del Ruth’s frustratingly murky cinematography and a recurring emphasis on entirely misguided bits of comedy. And although Calhoun admittedly does turn in an interesting, compelling performance, Motel Hell, which often feels as though it’s desperately straining to cultivate a cult-classic atmosphere, renders its scant positive attributes moot as it progresses into a dimly-lit and absolutely endless second half that climaxes with a violent yet hopelessly meaningless final stretch – thus cementing the picture’s place as a predominantly worthless endeavor that feels much, much longer than its 101 minutes.

1/2* out of ****