Product Details

• Actors: Rory Calhoun, Paul Linke, Nancy Parsons, Nina Axelrod, Wolfman Jack
• Directors: Kevin Connor
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: April 27, 1995
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301971752
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,933 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Motel Hell is a gruesome but somewhat tongue-in-cheek bit of rural schlock along the lines of 1974's Deranged, although slicker and less effective. Former Western star Rory Calhoun plays Farmer Vincent, a country hotel keeper (free samples of jerky at the front desk) whose line of smoked meats turns his customers into unwitting cannibals. The movie's got some genuinely creeped-out ideas (a backyard garden of victims, buried up to their necks?), but the execution is pedestrian and the humor pretty square. Onetime cultural icon Wolfman Jack has a few scenes as a TV preacher, for no apparent reason. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Motel Hell is a classic and the best on top of that!!!!!!!!!, January 23, 1999

By	Stephanie Crowder ([e-mail]) (Eunice,Louisiana USA) - See all my reviews

Veteran actor Rory Calhoun stars as the delightfully fiendish Farmer Vincent in a deliciously ghoulish tale of the macabre that has now become a cult classic. "Meat is meat, and a man's gotta eat!" That was always granny's philosophy. And that's the way folks still think over at the Motel Hello (the o is burnt out on the sign) where Farmer Vincent mixes up his special blend of smoked meats. Heck, everybody in the county just loves Farmer Vincent's sausages and hams there's nothing quite like 'em. But pray tell , what's that we've heard about strangers just passing by Vincent's motel? And what are those odd things planted in vincent's "secret garden" that he only tends to at night? And, gosh, what are those strange carcasses Vincent has hangin' in the smokehouse? The Motel Hello is open for business folks. But if you're asked to stay for dinner, you may want to think twice!! Go rent motel hell at your local video store and just sit back and watch trust me you will be happy you did!!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meat's meat..., December 16, 1999

By	Brian Otterson (Orem, Utah) - See all my reviews

The term Cult Classic was invented to describe films just like this. I still can't decide whether it's the funniest horror film I've ever seen or the most horrific comedy, but its refusal to fit either of those categories is what makes it so memorable. The central concept of "Meat's meat, and a man's gotta eat" is hardly original (Soylent Green, for example) but the way Farmer Vincent selects and prepares his livestock is so wonderfully macabre and hilarious at the same time. Buy this movie! I can guarantee that you've never seen anything like it, but you'll probably want to see it again and again.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Horror film of the Eighties, August 11, 1999

By A Customer

Motel Hell was a wonderful horror/comedy that I consider the best of the eighties gore films. Rory Calhoun gives a wonderful performance as Farmer Vincent and the final duel of chainsaws where Calhoun wears a pig's head is what makes this great horror film a classic. Truely cult film material and well worth a look for fans of this kind of film. A movie with Wolfman Jack in it can't be all that bad!