The brother and sister team of Rory Calhoun and Nancy Parsons are terrific in this delightful horror comedy that shows how local farmers created their delicious sausages, and it's a great secret recipe. Of course it involves human flesh, as fresh as the day their throats were slit and they were buried in the garden with fresh herbs and a lot of love. The nutty siblings "adopt" the pretty Nina Arvenson with the intent of enrolling her in the family business, and they got more than they bargained for when the local sheriff begins snooping around only to discover their secret. It's only a matter of time before Calhoun and Parsons end up as part of their own trap.

Campy and in delicious bad taste, this is tacky yet a lot of fun but it goes a bit overboard when Calhoun ends up engaged to the much younger Arvenson. The two veteran actors are having a blast, with the future Beulah Ballbricker of "Porky's" delightfully cheery enjoying the human tallywackers she seasons and the still handsome Calhoun making you think about everything that goes into those Jimmy Dean's.

You don't have to worry. There is very little blood in this film, just the sound of the still living humans growling without their voice boxes working as Calhoun and Parsons attend to the garden. Then there's the sound of necks snapping before the corpses are removed for shredding. The sound of a chainsaw does not mean that you're going to see blood squirting out of the bodies about to be turn into mincemeat, and there are funny scenes with both characters running around with a pig head over their necks. Greatly deserving of its cult status, I still think that they needed to trim a little fat off the top because it is slightly overlong. Other than that, it's quite an enjoyable little black horror comedy that has quite a suspenseful conclusion.

As Sweeney Todd was to the British eating public of 18th century London so was Farmer Vincent to the American eating public of the 1970s. His smoke meats are the talk of his local area and he maybe on to something in terms of feeding the world's population which doesn't want to go in for veggie burgers. In fact futuristic America would do well to consult this man in terms of manufacturing and delivering Soylent Green or any of the other Soylent colors. Farmer Vincent's recipe might well make the world more amenable to that product.

Motel Hell with a minimum of actual blood and gore and a maximum of black comedy is a funny film, but not for the squeamish. Rory Calhoun who resigned to the fact in the Seventies that he was no longer an action hero seem to really enjoy himself playing in these kinds of films. Calhoun and his sister Nancy Parsons run both a farm and a motel modeled on the Bates establishment. But just killing these people isn't enough. Once in their clutches these people are buried in their special garden with their vocal cords cut and just the heads showing like cabbages. They are fed like the hogs and when they've got enough meat on their bones they are harvested and then smoked and cured and sold in the local area where his smoked meats are a local delicacy.

Calhoun's undoing comes in the form of rock groupie Nina Axelrod who survives when her band is taken for Calhoun's special garden. Rory the old coot still has his needs even though this puts him in competition with his own cousin Paul Linke who is the local sheriff and as clueless as the rest as to what goes on in Motel Hell.

I don't usually rate films like this too high. But I make an exception here with Motel Hell. Calhoun and the whole cast seem to be in on the whole gag and look like they're having a great old time. So will you.

This is an unabashed B-movie black comedy. Nobody should have any illusions. The acting is over the top amateurism. The writing is unwavering parody. The characters are unflinching stereotypes. The style is low grade Corman-esk. But whatever problems and limitations it has, the movie enjoys itself and it shows on the screen. This is a black comedy that is having fun with the horror genre.

Farmer Vincent (Rory Calhoun) kidnaps unsuspecting travelers and buries them in his garden. Unfortunately for his victims, they are buried alive, and grown like cabbage. Then he harvest them. You will enjoy the gore.