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Welcome to another daily horror digest from Creepy Catalog! It’s the first weekend of a new month, so I think it’s time to binge some of the movies I missed in July. But before I go do that, I’ll share my thoughts about a series that concluded this week. Plus there’s a very important birthday below, so let’s get to it!
TV Series of the Day
Instead of a movie, today I’m talking about a TV series. It’s a series I’ve mentioned in a daily digest before: Hell Motel. I wrote about this weekly Shudder series when it first started about a month and a half ago. After watching the first two episodes, I mentioned that the writing seemed odd in places, but the slasher gore was fun. My first impressions were spot on, because that same assessment rings true now that the final episode has aired.
Hell Motel is about a group of people invited to spend a weekend at the reopening of an isolated motel where murders occurred many years ago. They’re all promised a VIP true-crime experience, but they all become involved in a new murder spree when someone in a mask starts slaughtering everyone. It’s a whodunit-style slasher story where all of the guests are trapped at the motel due to a storm, and everyone tries to figure out who among them is the killer (or killers) before they’re all dead.
First, the positives. I enjoy the idea of the story. It’s a classic-enough setup, and it works. What I really enjoyed was a twist in one of the early episodes in which [SPOILER] it is revealed that two of the people in the motel are definitely killers, but there’s at least one more that they (and we) don’t know about [END SPOILER]. That sets up potential for a very interesting murder mystery where part of the fun is trying to figure out who killed whom each episode.
I also quite enjoyed the slasher portions of the series. The blood flows freely, and a few of the death scenes are nicely grotesque. If I remember correctly, there is at least one death in every episode, and I enjoyed them all, even though we don’t really get a good look at all of them.
What I didn’t like about the series is the writing. The basic idea is good, and the characters are interesting enough, but are they all extremely dumb. I don’t like complaining about character decisions in movies and shows, because for the most part stupid character decisions often still make sense in the context of the story. The characters in Hell Motel, however, are deeply stupid all the time. Even at the most basic level.
I mean, the characters all know that there’s at least one killer loose in the motel (most of them don’t know there are multiple), but they all constantly isolate themselves from the group. They’re not locking themselves in rooms or hiding, they’re just going about their business, alone, behind unlocked doors, all the time. After a while it started feeling ridiculous when characters would excuse themselves to be alone and then, surprise, they end up dead. It hurt the show a lot in my eyes.
There were other things about the writing that bugged me too. Like, discovering evidence and confronting someone about it, but then forgetting it ever happened when they got distracted (this happened late in the series). So, the writing of the mystery wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but the slashing kept me hooked and watching. If you want to watch, Hell Motel is streaming on Shudder and AMC+. I say give it two episodes, and if you’re into it, keep going.
In the News
- It was announced yesterday that A Quiet Place Part III is coming, and it is scheduled to be released on July 9th, 2027. John Krasinski will return to write, direct, and produce the film. (Deadline)
- Margot Robbie is in talks to star in Tim Burton’s remake of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. (Variety)
Birthdays
Wes Craven was born on August 2nd, 1939. Wes was one of the most well-respected and influential filmmakers in all of horror. He shocked the world with The Last House on the Left (1972), he shook up the slasher genre twice with A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Scream (1996), and he proved the importance of reinvention with New Nightmare (1994). Sadly, Wes passed away ten years ago this month (August 30th, 2015). I’ve expressed my admiration for Wes Craven as a filmmaker on this site before, and if you want to know more about his career (and all of his movies), take a look at the article I wrote about him a few years ago.
Edward Furlong was also born on August 2nd, in 1977. He’s most famous for starring as John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), but he’s also been in quite a few horror movies. In the 1990s he starred in Pet Sematary II (1992) and Brainscan (1994). In more recent years he’s been featured in low-budget horror movies like The Zombie King (2013) and The Forest Hills (2023).
Also celebrating a birthday today is Kansas Bowling, born on August 2nd, 1996. I first saw Kansas in the low-budget horror movie The Third Saturday in October Part V (2022). She also starred in Murdercise (2023), and she’ll be in the upcoming vampire-horror-comedy Onlyfangs. Kansas has many more acting credits to her name, and she is also a director, editor, and writer.
More birthdays on August 2nd:
- Butch Patrick (1953) – Eddie Munster in The Munsters TV series.
- Susan Denberg (1944) – Christina in Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Events on This Day
Signs was released in theaters on August 2nd, 2002. The ending might not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s hard to deny the rest of the movie. I mean, who could forget the video with the alien walking by, or the alien in the pantry? This is one of M. Night Shyamalan’s best. Signs is streaming on AMC+.
Also released in theaters on this day, in 1985, was The Hills Have Eyes Part II. This isn’t Wes Craven’s best, and he’d agree with that statement. He didn’t even want to make the movie, but he agreed to do it essentially because it was a job (though it was released in 1985, production began before his two movies released during 1984). The budget ran out before filming was complete, and the studio decided to just go with what had been shot. If you’ve seen The Hills Have Eyes Part II, it’s plainly obvious that it’s an incomplete film padded with footage from the first movie. If you want to check it out, it’s streaming on Tubi.
More movies released on August 2nd:
- Fright Night (1985)
- Body Parts (1991)
That does it for today. Now to finish up my July backlog and get ready for another month of horror. The movies will start increasing in frequency soon as Halloween looms closer, so I need to catch up!
