Meurtre au Sunset Hotel

Original title: Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel

1991
PG-13
1h 35m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Sherilyn Fenn in Meurtre au Sunset Hotel (1991)

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... Read allRight 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 t... Read allRight 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 pl... Read all

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

4.9/10

448

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination total

Photos9

User reviews7

4.9448

Featured reviews

10BrokenQuill

Fenn shines as always

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...

10ulfras

A sumptuous experience

This is a wonderful film, rich in imagery and layered dialogue. The cinematography is beautiful, the script clever and full of twists and homages. The music is wonderful and haunting. The acting is superb, and includes the only film appearance of David Johannson (Buster Pointdexter), that I'm aware of.

Great film, one of my favorites. See it!

2gridoon

A disaster.

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. (*)

ccthemovieman-1

The Title Is Better Than The Film

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.

5rdoyle29

Pretty terrible noir homage

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.

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Storyline

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Trivia
Miramax was originally slated to distribute the film theatrically in the United States. Instead, producer Donald P. Borchers ended up distributing the film himself through his outfit, Two Moon Releasing.

Goofs
When the police pick up Bridey at the Drive-in theater there is an Edsel parked there. The movie is set in 1955, but the first model year for the Edsel was 1958, so there would not have been any available until the fall of 1957.