Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel

Sherilyn Fenn shines (as she always does) in this off beat dark comedy about black mail, amnesia, and misguided love. It has sharp, quick-witted dialogue. Strange plot twists. Great cinematography. Great choice of cast and crew. It's one of the most watched movies in my video collection and will continue to be...

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. (*)

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.

Sherilyn Fenn and husband Whip Hubley arrive at the Sunset Motel in Anaheim. He's there for a toy convention. She's there to see Disneyland, which has just opened. They fight constantly. He hires psychotic beatnik David Hewlitt to spy on her. She's sleeping with David Johansen. She starts having strange lapses in memory. He dies during one of those lapses. This rather lame noir homage with shades of David Lynch feels designed to be a cult film, and is generally as lame as those kinds of movies are. One of the few bright spots is Paul Bartel who plays the motel manager. This film has the most idiotic and poorly handled twist ending I have seen in many years.