Motel Hell

Way out in some unnamed rural locale is where we find Motel Hello, its red neon "O" sporadically lighting with a crackling sound like a bug zapper. The proprietors are Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) and his sister Ida, simple folk who are always in overalls, serving up plenty of down home hospitality to their guests. Farmer Vincent, as he is known to the locals, is renowned for his smoked meats -- made with "no chemicals or preservatives," products we soon find out are actually made from butchered humans, kidnapped and fattened in his "secret garden" until "harvest time." Vincent's brother Bruce (Paul Linke, who played a doofus cop on the TV show CHIPS) is the local sheriff, and too much of a doofus to figure out what's going on [1].

In an early scene a happy family is checking out of the motel, raving about the beef jerky. "We'd like to continue enjoying your meat, Mr. Smith!" bellows the tourist. It was in Vincent's response to this man, offering a friendly good-bye without once, even after the man left, acknowledging the double entendre, his adherence to this high ground of moral conduct, that I first sensed something drawing me to Farmer Vincent.

 

The Man

Farmer Vincent is a multifaceted person. He's a businessman but also altruistic, a farmer, a man of the land whose speech gives him away as being no hick, a religious, moralistic man who can be philosophic and prone to reflective moments. Embodying an integrity that few others can claim, Vincent lives his life according to strict morals and values rather than changing his beliefs to conveniently fit situations as they arise. He values creativity and is a practical person unimpressed with the trappings of the material world; he uses an 8-track tape player. And like all tragic heroes he possesses a fatal flaw, humanizing him, bringing his downfall by the movie's end.

The more I watched Motel Hell the more my affinity toward Farmer Vincent grew. The other characters faded into the background, hardly seeming human next to him. In the midst of this dross of common humanity -- simpletons, authority figures, pleasure seekers, and all followers -- here was a strong individual, a thinker with a personal vision who clearly stood above those around him.

To collect his victims Vincent devises a wide array of tricks and traps, usually with the goal of having people swerve off the road in their cars crashing, ending up dead or at least incapacitated. He then transports them to his "secret garden," a small area of his property protected by a fence, where each is planted up to the neck in the ground. Severing their vocal cords prevents screaming. Vincent values the artistic aspect of his work the most, telling Ida how much he enjoys the games, the traps he designs. These allow him to be "creative," he says, "That way the work we're doing here will always be as special as it is important." He senses there's something transcendent in the work he is doing.

 

The Rodents

A man and woman walk into the motel and instantly we sense things are not right. They've lost their way and they try to get chummy with Farmer Vincent, making it obvious they are swingers looking for a good time. The usually genial Vincent can barely hide his disgust however, and as he hands over the room key to the laughing flirtatious couple the look on his face tells us it won't be long before the two are hog-tied and planted neck-deep in the dirt next to the other "animals." Somehow Vincent's victims are always his moral inferiors. Occasionally he chooses the people, having interacted with them beforehand, as in the case of motel guests for example, but this rule holds true even for those driving down the road unknowingly into his traps: a leather-clad biker, a long-haired rock band ("Ivan & the Terribles") listening to loud music and smoking dope in a van, a pair of hookers. It's as if Vincent is so properly in tune with his fate that forces of the universe are aligned to assist him in carrying out what is destined. In a letter, Freud once wrote, "In the depths of my being I remain convinced that my dear fellow-creatures are -- with individual exceptions -- good for nothing." Vincent too knows that most people are never going to do anything with their lives, that they will waste what little time they have on entertainment and base pleasures, that they're only valuable as food. He is taking lives of no value and giving them meaning.

 

God

Vincent develops a relationship with Terry [2], a young woman surviving a crash caused after Vincent shot out her boyfriend's motorcycle tires. He nurses her back to health at the Motel, having found in her an innocent girl, the perfect mate for a God-fearing man such as himself. It is in his relationship to Terry that we first see Vincent's religious side. When Vincent carries the unconscious girl into the motel, he tells Ida, "The good Lord has chosen to pluck this flower away from the Grim Reaper, and I wanna make good and sure he keeps his hands off her." As Terry, distraught and confused, searches for some explanation or meaning to what has happened, Vincent sits on the couch with her, comforting her in a reassuring tone like a parent calming a child with nightmares. He speaks of providence bringing about these events. "The ways of the Lord are mysterious," he says, "The very fact that you're sitting here with us proves that it was preordained." In another scene Ida questions the effort they expend to entertain the animals prior to harvesting, and Vincent reminds her of what "the Good Book" says, of the Golden Rule. Vincent's thoughts on his destiny go beyond a Christian understanding. While working in the garden, he says to Ida "sometimes I wonder about the Karmic implications of these acts." [3] He sees himself in part as a conduit for bigger forces, taking no credit for "the good" he is doing, his actions being no different than if God himself had "blessed each of (his victims) with a bolt of lightning through their hearts."

The main conflict arises at Terry's bedside where Vincent sits counseling her. Feeling close to Vincent, she drops the sheet exposing her naked breasts, inviting him into bed. Shocked, he turns his head, ordering her to cover up. His intentions to propose marriage now surface prematurely, and Terry accepts. This is the inception of a conflict that cannot be resolved -- Vincent's love for Terry which he cannot deny, versus her loose morals which he cannot accept. This foreboding aside, Vincent's proposal is one of the most tender moments in film.

Vincent is practical and logical, fond of repeating epigrammatic family sayings: "Meat's meat, and a man's gotta eat!" "It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters." When Terry, having sneaked into the barn discovering the operation confronts Vincent with her disgust, he rebukes her with a simple explanation. There are too many people in the world, and not enough food, he says, and this takes care of both problems at the same time. He is just "helping out," providing a needed service.

As a farmer, Vincent is as progressive as they come. He is quite serious on the subject of his animals, feeding them no chemicals or hormones. [4] "I treat most of my stock better than farmers treat their animals," he tells Terry. And later he instructs Ida that "No animal should suffer unnecessary pain." While "planting" a few people, Ida calls them "furry-lookin critters." Vincent cautions her however, reminding her that "Granny never put any distinctions on any of God's creatures." [5]

 

The End

Things start to fall apart at the point of Terry's discovery. She accuses Vincent of playing God. Clearly annoyed at having to argue with someone so far beneath his intellectual level, he objects to such a presumptuous notion, expressing regret that he couldn't introduce her to his "world" in his own way. What's done is done though, and since she, morally a square peg, is obviously not going to fit in around Motel Hell, Terry is now, basically, meat.

It is in the climactic scene, when we see Farmer Vincent fighting Bruce, in mortal battle with chain saws, that we realize for the first time we are witnessing a tragedy played out here. Bruce has come to the aid of Terry, who has rejected his advances throughout the movie, breaking into the barn where Vincent has her tied, unconscious, to a conveyor belt headed toward a moving band saw.

When Vincent bursts through a door with a pig's head pulled over his own like a mask, wielding a roaring chain saw and laughing, he is for a moment the ultimate species-equality activist -- taking revenge for animals that usually stand no chance against man in the fight for who becomes food. It is unsettling to watch: Vincent in a dissociated state, [6] transformed into a man/God/pig perilously stepping into a realm where most men would fear to go. The two brothers lock chain saws in a cloud of exhaust; the one suffering a love unrequited, the other the pain of a love that cannot be, that was doomed from the start. Clearly, no good can come of this.

The cause of Vincent's downfall lies in his relationship with Terry. Like a naughty Greek God cavorting with the mortals, Vincent has mistakenly tried to bring Terry -- clearly one of the "others" -- into his own world. When this, of course, doesn't work out, he is then forced to treat her like cattle, but it is too late for things to return to normal. Bruce is in the picture emotionally, and now physically to save the object of his affection from a trip to the meat grinder. In the attack -- the height of Vincent's hubris -- on his own brother, attempting to mortally wound him with a chain-saw, Vincent has upset the moral order of the universe even further. Something's going to have to give. Although we know it is really Vincent's doing, it is still sad to watch such a great man taken down by a common fool like Bruce. Vincent falls onto Bruce's whirring chain saw blade with his stomach, remaining propped there in a sitting position as both engines come to a halt. The smoke clears. The dying Vincent, perhaps still not understanding just how different Bruce and the others are, bequeaths the motel, secret garden, and his "animals" to Bruce. He has held his beliefs to the end, going out on a note of integrity. There is one sin however that Vincent must confess to before he can die, something -- we are shocked to hear him say -- that has made him feel that his "whole life was a lie." As hard as it is to believe that Farmer Vincent would betray the trust of his customers, we find from his dying words that he has been a false advertiser: he used preservatives.

 

 

 

Endnotes

1. Vincent once explains that he took it upon himself to bury "Bo," a man he found killed in a motorcycle "accident," in the local cemetery because he didn't want to bother Bruce, he was doing the coroner a favor, and it was "for the best." Bruce has no problem with this explanation. Then at the movie's end Bruce makes the brilliant statement -- after realizing that dozens of murders have taken place at the motel -- "I guess there's going to have to be some kind of investigation."

2. The fumbling Bruce pursues Terry, and we are happy to see him shot down when he makes a clumsy come-on to her during a date in his squad car.

3. He says this with a smile, no doubt certain that he is improving his karma tenfold daily.

4. When Vincent captures Bob -- the livestock inspector who has been poking around the farm suspiciously -- , planting him with the other animals, we suspect it may have as much to do with Vincent's indignation over having his methods questioned as with Bob's getting too nosy.

5. After touching the animals -- whether alive or dead -- however, Vincent sprays his hands with some unidentified aerosol can and then wipes them with a cloth. This seems to suggest that his problem is that he actually puts himself too far above the animals, considering them dirty.

6. This is underscored by the fact that he emits nothing aside from laughter during the entire time he wears the pig's head. He doesn't speak until the battle's over and his mask is pulled off.

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