Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel DVD 90's Murder Mystery Thriller Sherilyn Fenn
Very Good condition - usual UK/European PAL DVD Region 2 - 98 minutes - 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 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.
This 1991 neo-noir black comedy is a single disc DVD with no frills, just the play, scene select and language selection options. Set against a late 1950’s backdrop—including a great 50s-early 60s style music soundtrack and over the top 50’s phrases it even comes complete with Davy Crockett hats.
Bridget 'Bridey' DeSoto [Sherilyn Fenn] books into a motel with her uptight salesman husband Chester [Whip Hubley]. The wife's lover is also there, and the husband hires a psychotic criminal to spy on her but he soon falls for her. Meanwhile the wife and lover plan to murder the husband, all the while the voyeuristic motel manager is spying on everyone. Then the plot gets complicated. Really complicated. Exactly who is blackmailing who and whose killed who and where’s the body? What day is it anyway? Oh I don’t know says Bridie and ...well that’s it. You’ll have to watch it to try and understand it.
From the opening this isn’t politically correct, Miss Fenn bending over in a skin tight red Hobbie skirt –not that the colour has any relevance. The obligatory slow-motion of Sherilyn getting out of a pool dripping wet [more than once I add]. Every guy she passes leering noticeably at her [I don’t know why] but I’ll never view a juke box in the same light again. She’s a woman with plenty of dreams like a split level house that’s so big she’d need an electric cleaner, she wants an electric egg beater, she’ll even make apple pie for dinner, she’d even kill to get all that. Ahh the good old days.
Some excellent one liners flow like verbal diarrhea once they start. It’s like space cats on mars. Oh go away I loved you better when you were dead. Says it all really, clear as mud. Worth buying to see the one object of desire –the fur hat of course. It’s a dirty world but somebody's got to live in it. It’s like those murderous traffic lights in Twin Peaks and if you liked that series, like twists, turns, betrayal and confusion then buy it daddy-O or bite me!
Review;
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 ...