Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986)
Growing up as a child in the 1980’s during the boom of VHS rental shops there were always horror movie covers the stood out to me.This one for some reason has always stuck with me but ,it wasn’t until today that I finally saw what lied withing the case with the crazy woman peeking out from behind a bloody door ,In Mountaintop Motel Massacre.I was surprised ot see this little hidden gem on netflix and I instantly added it to my queue and waited anxiously for it to arrive.Well I have to say I was not let down.Mountaintop is a pretty nice little slasher flick I must tell you.The film starts with a phot of an old woman in a straight jacket next to the caption,( Arkansas State Mental Hospital:Chambers,Evelyn ,Admitted: July 13 1978 Released: January 24 1981)
Then we are introduced to Evelyn,Who apparently runs the small run down Mountaintop Motel.She lives with her daughter who is obviously not well either and is caught trying to summon the spirit of her dead father in order to save her from her crazy mother.Upon seeing this Evelyn goes into a frenzy ,swinging her slingblade around like crazy and ends up killing her daughter.The police arrive and chop it up to a accident in the garden.After this we meet our cast of characters,First we see a young newlywed couple on their way to their honeymoon and they make a pitstop at the shanty little shack,we also meet Bill a reverend who lives on the property and Melvin a older black carpenter who is new to town.Then we meet Al a well off playboy type and two lovely cousins tanya and chrissy he meets while they are broken down on the side of the road during a storm.Al convinces the girls that he is a record exec at columia records and coaxes them into following him to the motel in order to get out of the storm.Once Evelyn’s Motel fills up the blood starts to flow.Evelyn has a series of trap doors running underneath the motel and into each room for her to access them.She releases several critters into the rooms in hopes of taking care of her tenants without getting her hands dirty,which works to a certain extent when she releases a snake into the newlyweds room and the husband is bitten in the face.Later in Al’s room the two girls are singing for him in hopes to get a record deal,to no avail because we learn later that he in fact is just an advertising agent and does not work for columbia.anyway after there little performance he promises to sign them and one of the girls jumps right into his arms ,hoping to get a threesome going he says "let’s not make this a solo act." this unfortunately for all does not work out as planned as one of the girls is not open to the idea and hides out in the bathroom.While she is in there Evelyn makes her way into the room and offs her with a sickle across the neck.The couple hears the screams but when they head into the bathroom there is no body in sight just a trail of blood.See evelyn uses these underground trail to store the bodies out of sight.After this Al and Melvin go to alert all the guests of the murder and they investigate.after this one by one the guests are offed in viscious fashion under Evelyn’s slingblade.Melvin finds the trapdoors while Evelyn tries to sneak up on the old man while taking a dump,after discovering these trap doors ,Al and Melvin begin to nail all of them shut and decide to go under the motel to corner Evelyn and take her out.This movie is suprisingly well acted for such a low budget slasher and some of the atmosphere used here is downright creepy,plus they add a nice touch of Evelyn hearing and sometimes seeing her daughters corpse talking to her telling her to kill her occupants because they are going to reinstitutionalise Evelyn.Some of the Killings in this one are pretty nicely done but nothing outstanding for this type of film.The gore level is not Too High but it manages to get the point across well enough.Alot of times when I finally see one of those films that I remember the cover of so fondly they dont live up to my predetermined hype but this one suceeds on all levels.Actually I was expecting something much worse going in and I was pleasantly surprised.Fans of 80’s slasher should enjoy this one , but just don’t expect something mindblowning and you will enjoy this one.there are some funny little mistakes made during the production of this one but you have to really be watching to pick them out.Two that I noticed were when Al picked up the two girls they mention that they left their money in their purses which were back in their broke down car but when they arrive at the motel they both have their purses,And one scene where the door of a particular room changes from having a pull lock and the knob switches sides,but honestly who is really gonna notice such small mistakes.?Me when I am bored ,but other than that they should go unnnoticed.
3 out of 5
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