Hell Motel - Review

Although Hell Motel does not bear the name Slasher, it could very well serve as the sixth season of the masked killer anthology series. It has the same creative team, both in front and behind the camera. It has a masked killer, a convoluted mystery and motivation behind the killings, which are linked to a past tragedy, injustice, or abuse, and a roster of colorful and morally, or ethically, compromised victims, who get ruthlessly whittled down, one by one, until the identity of the killer is revealed.

The whittling down of that roster is the series entire reason for existing. Whenever the narrative turns its focus on a particular character's backstory, the viewer knows that character's head has been placed atop that episode's chopping block. 

What makes it fun, more often than not, is in learning how past and present events will converge at the end of the episode. Until that moment, the viewer has no idea if they will be feeling a joyous frisson of catharsis when said character gets dispatched, of if there will be a pang of regret, because the character, while not all the great of a human being, did not deserve that.

Which makes the meta-commentary in the limited series' next to last episode, titled Cat and Mouse, so delightfully cackle inducing. True Crime academic Andy Lecavalier (Jim Watson), in a character shading flashback, is shown defending his doctoral thesis and it does not go well, at all.

"The movies that you site, which I had to endure in order to adjudicate your thesis defense," the lead panel member sneers at Andy, "are unequivocal trash. Full of two dimensional characters so grotesque and idiotic, one would hazard they deserved to die. Will you be advocating for the real world suffering of Wilie E. Coyote next?" Ouch.

Andy tries to marshal something resembling a counter argument to this brutal dismissal, but gets cut off and stomped all the flatter. If that is even possible.

"No, no, no, no," the panel member continues, with zero patience or mercy. "Turning your gaze to the simplistic and righteous gutter that you pretend to critique does nothing but reveal your inane and very questionable obsession with that very gutter."

Oof. While there is no shortage of gory and torturous killings in Hell Motel, this scene gets my vote for its most brutal murder. I also appreciate how it nods, winks, and nudges its viewers with all the subtly of a hammer being pounded upon a nail.

As was the case with both Slasher: Flesh and Blood, which served as my introduction to the series, and Slasher: Ripper, what I enjoyed most about Hell Motel were the layering of all the over the top plot twists and character revelations. Some were absurd, while others were predictable. Slasher tropes will always be troping, you know?

I thought I had figured out the killer's identity by the time the final episode kicked off, but I was wrong. This time. I did guess right with Slasher: Ripper, but Slasher: Flesh and Blood had me hopelessly flummoxed.

The big downside for Hell Motel is that it fails to stick its landing. There were a few moments and revelations that, in retrospect, did not fit together as well as they should. While that did not keep me from enjoying the show as whole, it also left me thinking Hell Motel was the weakest of the three I have seen to date.