Motel Hell (

1980

)

When I started watching Hong Kong cat 3 movies, I was alarmed at the rate with which they used accidental cannibalism as a punchline. Sure, I expect the occasional gross-out joke in a film that was about cannibalism like The Untold Story (1993) or Ebola Syndrome (1996), but Hong Kongese filmmakers mine this particular vein of humor even in all manner of films. Take for instance the scene in The Naked Killer (1992) where the severed penis of a murder victim accidentally finds its way into the goofy detective's sausage sandwich, and he continues to munch on it apparently ignorant of the fact that the meat in his sandwich has become cold, raw, and human. For a time I suspected that this was a uniquely Chinese/Hong Kongese cultural trait (possibly inspired by the fact that for the Chinese palate, virtually nothing short of human flesh would qualify as a taboo foodstuff). American films about cannibals, I reasoned would always be darker pictures devoid of much levity; films like The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and The Hills Have Eyes (1977). Boy was I wrong. Today's film shows that Western filmmakers and audiences were just as willing to crack dark jokes about eating people. What's more, it's relatively early on in the period when making movies about such subject matter was commercially viable.

You probably come into a film entitled Motel Hell with some reasonable expectations, namely that a motel will at some point figure prominently in the film's narrative. That is not the case as Motel Hell is primarily the story of Vincent, a loony farmer who makes his living selling smoked human flesh he disguises as pork. “Farmer Vincent's Fritters” would be a much more descriptive and accurate title. But Motel Hell is not like this is just a marketing imposed title, as the film begins with a neon sign that reads “Motel Hello” only the second “o” is on the fritz and fizzles out every now and then. Yet, as near as I can tell no guests ever stay at Motel Hello and nothing in the film's dialogue ever refers to the hotel at all. Vincent is not getting his stocks of meat by murdering his guests either, instead, he relies on a series of highway traps that become increasingly more elaborate and absurd as the film goes on (the high point has to be the cardboard cut-out cattle that Vincent uses to block the road at one point). Hell, when Vincent takes pity on one of the victims he has ensnared, a young woman named Terry, and brings her back home he has his, equally batty, sister Ida makes up Mom's old room rather than put her in one of the spare Motel rooms.

There is no reason for Vincent to decide arbitrarily to spare Terry while killing and eating any of his other victims, but it makes great sense on a practical storytelling level. Vincent is a great character, but since he's a psychotic cannibal he's going to be difficult for the audience to relate to. The introduction of Terry gives us a relatively normal POV from which to watch the madness unfold. It's the classic fish-out-of-water story albeit with a bit more dismemberment. To be fair, Terry is not a perfect viewpoint character, as it will turn out she is more than a bit loony herself. This gets more and more pronounced as it becomes obvious that the film is developing a romantic subplot between her and Vincent but this far too funny and far too absurd to bother anyone very much. Vincent, even if he weren't a deranged cannibal would be ill-suited as a romantic hero, for starters he's got to be pushing sixty! Not that he's particularly interested in the young woman, he sees her more as a protegee than as a lover and is planning to let her in on the secret of her family recipe once he deems her ready to help.

The oddball romance complements the generally absurd tone of the movie as exemplified by Vincent's constant lectures on the morality of his operation to his sister Ida. Vincent, you see, is no mere ghoul consuming his fellow human beings out of a perverse desire. Nor is he a grotesque prankster who delights in the mere act of tricking innocent bystanders into eating people (though he does take a certain pleasure in scaring off any kids who wander into his workshop using a pig head mask, a habit that makes him seem like a Scooby-Doo villain). No, Vincent is a moralist who sees his business producing human sausages as a mission for the betterment of the world; imagine the general tone of a preachy farm-to-table restraint and you'll have the general idea of Vincent's attitude on the matter of his sustainable foodstuffs. It's part of environmental salvation and part old-fashioned folksy father-knows-best wisdom. He even claims to be doing the people he eats a favor, as they probably all had issues in their lives and a brief time as livestock at Vincent's farm is probably more pleasant than whatever fate awaited them in the wider world. Now, my sense of humor is somewhat warped but frankly, seeing such an attitude used to defend cannibalism is downright hilarious. It's hardly a new joke, John Swift was making the same gag in 1729, but some things never lose their punch.

It's Motel Hell's willingness to go the extra mile and be absolutely repellent that makes the film work. It's not enough for Vincent to merely eat people, no he has to cut-out their vocal cords and bury them up to their necks in a hidden garden in some remote corner of the farm. These poor souls are left to scream silently with a bag on their heads until Vincent has determined that they are tender enough to eat. Every so often Vincent and Ida will come by to force-feed the new crop milk. Seriously, if this film doesn't put you off veal nothing will. I know that the field of mute heads occasionally thrashing and letting out a helpless squeak is a sight that will linger in my mind for some time. Many of the film's comedic set pieces fall short (the scene with the two swingers is particularly unfunny) but Motel Hell never skimps on the horror part of the horror-comedy formula. As a result, I can see it being too gross, too cruel, and too violent for more sensitive viewers to find very funny. The loss is theirs though because Motel Hell is a solid entry into the sub-genre and well worth the effort to track down.

Besides, if you're me, how could you pass up any movie that includes a scene where a couple goes on a date to the local drive-in theater to watch The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)?