[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

THE MOUNTAINTOP MOTEL MASSACRE – A not massively well known regional indie from 1983. There's a bare bones plot about a middle aged hotel proprietor, just released from the local sanatorium, slowly building up to a serial killing spree. Along the way, she torments her guests by means of snakes, roaches and other foulness planted in their rooms. 'The Mountaintop Motel Massacre' is an odd one for sure. What do you make of a film where the 'hero' is basically a rapist (a sorry ass dude who connives sex out of a hitch-hiker by lying to her about being a record producer)? The set up is probably a rip of 'Psycho' (or 'Psycho 2', out the same year), and there are many references to same throughout, but, although TMMM is a vastly inferior movie by comparison, it's strong on a number of levels. It's ponderous and sometimes plods mid-section, but it's really atmospheric as well as just being a bit 'eh?' The strangeness of the scene where the hotel manger kills her daughter (who appears to commune with spirits with her goat and raven in an underground lair) is one thing, but then there are loads of other instances of weirdly arbitrary stylisation. The central character of the homicidal hotelier is well played, mostly silent and as inscrutable as Michael Myers in a way as we don't have a clue really who she is or why she's doing this stuff. I was slightly surprised to find that it was so well made – although TMMM is obviously really low budget, it's well shot and technically proficient whereas quite often the less well financed indie horrors of the day were not. Overall, TMMM is probably too awkward and odd to suit the tastes of anyone looking for a smooth ride with a bit of gore, but I'd certainly recommend it to early eighties and slasher completists.

Excellent review; I really need to rewatch this in the next few days.