The Cutprice Guignol

Welcome back, my enigmatic enthusiast of all things giblet, guts and gore! Pack your bags, reinforce your locks, and decant your liquids: it’s time to check into Hell Motel.

Yes, yes, I know – I originally assumed this was a new season of Slasher, given that it comes from the same network and creators and features much of the same cast, but Hell Motel isn’t a direct part of the Slasher anthology. However, the interviews I’ve seen with the cast have set it squarely amongst the Slasher extended universe, at least when it comes to tone and content. And, frankly, that’s more than good enough for me – I adore the Slasher series as a whole, and something in that ballpark from the same creators is something my horror-loving heart is ready to invite in with open, probably severed arms. With that said, let’s jump into the first two episodes of the season, Blood Bath and Night Orchid!

Hell Motel boasts a pretty enormous ensemble (though I can’t exactly imagine they’re going to stick around for long). Portia and Ruby (Michelle Nolden and Brynn Godenir) purchase the Cold River Motel, the site of several apparently-satanic murders three decades earlier, with the intention of opening it as a true crime resort for fanatics of various flavours. To kick things off, they invite a collection of said fanatics, including artist Kawyan (Emmanuel Kabongo), true crime academic Andy (Jim Watson), serial killer survivor Blake (Atticus Mitchell), and celebrated murder-fucker Adrianna (Genevieve DeGraves, vamping it up in a neckline permanently making a break for lower ground).

Paula Brancati emerges as one of the most interesting characters right off the bat – Paige, a one-time scream queen left out of a recent reboot of the iconic franchise she helped make, is torn between guilt over the exploitation of these murders as entertainment and the fact that it’s pretty much the only way she seems able to pay her bills. I’ve always loved Brancati in particular out of the Slasher ensemble, and this is a really fun role for her – as much screeching in bad wigs as it is reflection on the exploitative nature of true crime and horror as a whole.

And that very much seems to be the approach these first couple of episodes are taking to this story – the commodification of true crime and splashy murder cases like this one, from business to art to, well, actual sex. Atticus Finch as Blake ends up on the pointy end of Adrianna’s fetish for murder, in a scene that’s actually pretty effective; a clash of the attraction to these stories and the repulsion in the same breath (though, in the interests of it being Pride Month, I will admit that it would take a lot for me to not have sex with Adrianna, knife or otherwise, if she came on to me like that).

But Hell Motel throws a fun wrinkle into the mix in terms of this season’s mystery – the perpetrators of the original murders Shirley (Yanna McIntosh) and Floyd (Gray Powell) have returned under cover of Winnebago to continue their satanic ritual from that fateful night thirty years before, unbeknownst to the current residents of the motel. It’s a great little twist to the whodunnit premise, as we’re left with a new mystery unfolding while the people behind the first one are right there under our noses. It helps that McIntosh and Powell are clearly having a ton of fun in these performances, chowing down on the scenery like the plot-relevant wolves keeping everyone trapped at the motel for the time being.

And fun is one of the main reasons I’ve booked in to Hell Motel this season, and these opening episodes have it in spades. There’s an unabashed sense of camp baked in to these stories – just the same way tofu is baked into the shape of a human head, you know? From the “Too Hot to Die” spelled out in neon on the wall to the bubblegum-pop punctuation, there’s a real throwback feel to the silliness that will never fail to hit the spot for me.

And that goes for the gore, too. Hell Motel re-establishes these creators as the masters of Just the Most Violent Thing You’ve Seen on TV This Year, with a couple of gleefully inventive and hideous kills to kick things off. Eric McCormack is the first to get it in the modern timeline (the right choice, I think, given how broad and campy the character is – as fun as it is to see McCormack strut around with a smarmy grin and miscellaneous facial piercings, it’s a character that gets very old, very quickly) – and let me tell you, from the zoom-in on the “sauna” sign to his lightly-braised flesh just falling from the bone, a slow pan over a slow-cooked human being with the structural integrity of some poorly-made blancmange. The second kill is pure Hitchcock, from the reflection of the rain and the gloved hand reaching out of the dark – even if Hitchcock didn’t go quite as hard on his real effects, though it has been a while since I last watched Rear Window.

Hell Motel is off to the exact start I hoped it would be – fun, inventive, and utterly entertaining, packed with returning cast members filling out a ridiculous ensemble. I would love to hear what you think about it and your predictions for this season as a whole in the comments below!

If you’d like to deep-dive Slasher with me again to compare against Hell Motel, check out my series here! If you’d like to support my blog and get access to exclusive content, please consider supporting me on Patreon, or if you’re interested in my fiction work, check out my short horror story collection!

(header image via AMC)