Not to be confused with 1980’s amusing grindhouser Motel Hell, Shudder’s Hell Motel invites viewers to spend a prolonged vacation with a collection of influencers at the Cold River Motel, the site of an infamous serial killer rampage that, 30 years later, reopens as a tourist location for fans of sick depravity.
What begins as a lark, however, turns into a bloodbath of gnarly proportions, as creators Aaron Martin and Ian Carpenter (Slasher) and director Adam MacDonald stain their ten-episode series—premiering June 17, also on AMC+—crimson with all sorts of creative gore.
Going hard with the gruesomeness, it’s a slasher saga that’s both an intriguing whodunit and a playful critique of the true-crime and entertainment industries’ hunger to exploit tragedy. It’s a combination that begets humor, surprise, and at least a couple of instances of avert-the-eyes nastiness.
Hell Motel concerns 1995’s “Cold River Slaughter,” in which a clerk and his girlfriend massacred guests at the motel, one of whom—Caitlyn (Lauren Lee Smith), there on her honeymoon to second husband Joey (Christopher Jacot)—subsequently became famous thanks to the based-on-real-events movie franchise Doomed Service that featured her as the de facto heroine.
One of the fiends responsible for this massacre wore a Baphomet costume (i.e., a black hooded robe and a horned demon mask), thereby providing cinema with a new horror icon. Three decades later, the woman who played Caitlyn in those blockbusters, Paige (Paula Brancati), joins a handful of strangers for a getaway at the scene of the crime, a remote establishment that’s been re-opened by Ruby (Brynn Godenir) and Portia (Michelle Nolden) as a funhouse shrine which they hope will be turned into a can’t-miss attraction by these disparate individuals’ publicity and endorsement.
Arriving in a hearse, that group is made up of Paige; academic Andy (Jim Watson); psychic Crow (Shaun Benson); conceptual murder artist Kawayan (Emmanuel Kabongo), podcaster Blake (Atticus Mitchell), and sexpot Adriana (Genevieve DeGraves), whose claim to fame is sleeping with eleven serial killers (and counting). Together, they represent various branches of the extended true-crime tree, and they’re all excited to be this inaugural weekend’s VIPs.
They’re not disappointed by Ruby and Portia’s redesign of the place, complete with Dante quotes on doors, rooms with elaborate recreations of the murders, and an opening night feast prepared by acclaimed chef Hemmingway (Eric McCormack) that’s comprised of dishes that look like Caitlyn’s dismembered body parts. Hemmingway also serves them shots of his own blood, just to up the derangement factor.
Ruby and Portia’s extravaganza goes smoothly until the unexpected appearance of Floyd (Gray Powell) and Shirley (Yanna McIntosh), a couple in an RV who seek shelter at the motel due to an ongoing storm. Their presence greatly upsets the hosts, although not as much as the later discovery (during a goofy séance performed by Crow) that someone has been locked, and cooked to a broiled gooey mess, inside the sauna.
That death was clearly intentional, and so too is the subsequent detonation of Floyd and Shirley’s RV, thereby stranding them with the rest of this crew. It’s at this point that Hell Motel reveals the first of its two primary twists [minor spoiler alert]: Floyd and Shirley are the real Baphomet killers, and they’ve returned to their killing grounds to complete the grisly Satanic ritual they began 30 years ago, the goal being to usher the real Baphomet into our world.
Hell Motel thus becomes the story of two serial killers trying to finish their mission by offing individuals obsessed with their butchery—a clever-enough premise that’s really energized by the fact that Floyd and Shirley didn’t kill the weekend’s initial victim, meaning there’s another Baphomet-disguised fiend in their midst.
Martin, Carpenter and MacDonald spend the remainder of their seven episodes staging one elaborate and disgusting homicide after another, with hearts carved out of chests, floral arrangements stuffed inside body cavities, and snowblower attacks that result in an amazing amount of bloodshed.
The show enthusiastically embraces its old-school slasher roots, including by taking an Agatha Christie-esque approach to its material, having its characters not only fear for their lives but attempt to figure out which of them is the enemy—including Floyd and Shirley, whose actual motives are secret from the rest and who don’t want an interloper decimating the corpses they need for their blasphemous ceremony.
Hell Motel is simultaneously cast in a Scream-style mold, satirizing its players’ connection to, and fascination with, true-crime horrors. To their credit, the creators refuse to partake in leaden sermonizing, instead using their fiction-mirroring-reality dynamics for comedic carnival-ride carnage.
Their tone is spot-on, and their cast’s performances are of a suitable B-movie variety, balanced expertly on the precipice of cartoonishness. Moreover, from a visual standpoint, Baphomet is a pretty good slasher baddie, his unholy countenance ideally suited for a prolonged tear that involves a Baphomet-on-Baphomet showdown that leaves Floyd and Shirley grasping at straws about the identity of the individual stealing their thunder.
Hell Motel is so good at maintaining mystery that it’s a shame when, in its last two installments, it somewhat spins its wheels trying to fill out an eight-episode order. Still, if its energy flags a bit during its climactic chapters, it maintains its much-teased bombshell until the end, at which point it strives—mostly successfully—to conclude on a beguiling note.
From the start, Martin and Carpenter want to have their cake and eat it too, gleefully serving up murder and mayhem while slamming (or at least investigating) those who find it irresistible. The most impressive aspect of their have-it-both-ways approach is that it echoes the fundamental hypocrisy of true-crime itself, whose air of solemnity and oft-repeated respect for the dead (and the grief-stricken) is a fundamental part of its appealing exploitation package.
A cornucopia of sexualized violence, traumatic flashbacks, and self-referential wink-winking, Hell Motel makes a couple of missteps along its journey—most notably, a group attack that, in the aftermath, is too easily shrugged off by everyone—but generally proves a sharp and jaunty thriller. It’ll have viewers guessing up to the final demise, as well as hoping that Martin and Carpenter have additional plans for their small-screen slaughterhouse.
The post ‘Hell Motel’ Is the Horror Series Gorehounds Have Been Waiting For appeared first on The Daily Beast.
