Watch Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel For Free
Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel
Right after Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California, in 1955, a toy salesman in town for a convention brings his wife with him so they can both go to Disneyland. They stay at a rundown place called the Sunset Motel nearby. Soon the wife is having an affair with a man staying at the motel. The husband hires a psychotic criminal to spy on them, the wife and her lover plan to murder the husband, and the voyeuristic motel manager is spying on everybody.
| Release : | 1992 |
| Rating : | 5 |
| Studio : | |
| Crew : | Set Decoration, Director of Photography, |
| Cast : | David Hewlett Sherilyn Fenn Whip Hubley David Johansen Kenneth Tobey |
| Genre : | Comedy Thriller Mystery |
Watch Trailer
Cast List
Reviews
Just perfect...
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
I saw this film when it first came out. It has taken me years to track it down again (I recalled it being named Murder At The Sunset Hotel). I loved it back then and with some of the plot bending twists I wanted to see it again to get a better grasp of things. Yes, it does indeed leave you confused in a few scenes but it is engaging throughout. both visually and thru its dialogue and unique & intricate plot. The feel is gritty yet sleek. Ugly yet beautiful. It leaves you with a taste in your mouth that you wonder is it pleasant or not. Spoiler: Pay attention to the very first dialogue exchange between the main characters.
The movie was an attempt at film noir and while it succeeded visually, it failed story-wise.For most of the film, the viewer is too confused, particularly in two of the scenes where time and space seem to totally change, and one of the main characters (played by Sherilyn Fenn) has no idea what is going on. We don't either. The film also is too talky. It desperately needs a bit more action.On the plus side, the colors in here are nice and the characters are strangely reminiscent of the ones you would see in David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" television series (in which Fenn also starred.) Fenn, by the way, is easy on this male's eyes!!The 1950s lingo and references were fun (Davy Crockett cap, '50s products such as 20-mule team borax, beatniks, etc.).All in all, however, the best part of this film was the title.
Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel is one of those few and far between movies that are truly artful without being at all pretentious. The refreshingly original plot is not too complicated or deep, but the film is entertaining and clever in it's simplicity nonetheless. It's funny, it's sad, it's smart, and it's cool, but it's probably best suited for a slightly left of center personality. Unfortunately, the average movie goer probably won't get the point, but there's much more to this film than a few really nice bikini scenes. In a nutshell, "Desire and Hell ..." makes the relatively well-visited-in-cinema statement that "underneath their (shiny plastic veneer) exteriors, most things aren't what they seem " ... but the essence of this film is the wonderful "radioactive electric-toaster Disneyland bomb shelter daddy-O McCarthyism Americana" way in which it expresses the idea. If that was all gibberish to you, you probably won't understand or enjoy this film ...
A few eye-filling bikini shots of Sherilyn Fenn are not reason enough to sit through this self-conscious, forced, artificial, illogical film noir "homage". Roughly half the dialogue is gibberish in desperate need of translation; perhaps the characters were inventing a new form of space language or something. It's one of those rare films where absolutely NOTHING works, and after about 20 minutes you'll be ready to give up on it. (*)
