Motel Hell (1980)

You know, the idea for this one sounded pretty promising. Borrowing heavily from "Texas Chainsaw", we are introduced to Farmer Vincent and his sister Ida who run a smoked meat business out in the boonies. They also run the Motel-Hello, but when the o is out, it spells Motel-Hell...clever huh? Farmer Vincent is sort of like Jim Siedow's character from TCM. He's old and crazy, yet still retains certain morals. Vincent picks off various idiots that he stalks in the country roads and of course, his motel. Vincent and sister Ida snip out their victims vocal cords and plant them, still alive mind you, in their secret garden. Once they are ripe, Vincent humanly snaps their necks and smokes em for sale in his meat business. Of course, everyone just loves Farmer Vincent's Meats, though they would surely change their mind if they knew what the "secret ingredient" was. "Motel Hell" tries to be funny in many spots, and it just does not come off very well. The characters of Vince and Ida were entertaining somewhat, but I don't know, something just bugged me about this one. There is almost no gore to speak of and I was somewhat surprised by that. I expected at least a tad of the red stuff; I mean the flick is called "Motel Hell" right? I will admit though, the last 15 minutes, in which we see Rory Calhoun engaged in a heated chainsaw battle all the while wearing a severed pigs head is actually pretty damn cool. Almost makes up for the previous crappy 90 minutes you had to sit through. Almost. Keep your eye out for none other than everyone's favorite mailman, Cliff Claven, as one of the members of "Ivan and the Terribles" who gets planted in Vince's garden.