No Tell Motel

I must admit that the poster/cover for "No Tell Motel" did catch my attention and it was what made me sit down to watch it. Although now I really wish I hadn't. This movie was a complete waste of time in my opinion.

The story is not really particularly great, and it lacks appeal and lacks the ability to captivate the audience. The story seems to be forced together by odd bits and pieces, mixed together with a ghostly little girl. The storyline is somewhat skittish and jumpy, which doesn't really work out to anyone's favor.

As for the characters, well I will say that they were one-dimensional and lacking personality and any kind of magnetism to make you really care about them. They are too generic and shallow, which makes you just shrug on the shoulders whenever something happens to them in the movie. I am sure that the various actors and actresses are good enough on their own accounts, but the characters they had to work with in this movie did them no justice.

Scary moments? Well you have to look long and far for them in this movie, because there weren't any. And as a matter of fact, there were even close to nothing thrilling in the movie as well. "No Tell Motel" is a fairly tame experience for a horror movie, and there are far better ghost movies out there for your viewing pleasure.

"No Tell Motel" was somewhat of a struggle to get through, and more than once I found my attention drifting else where and my eyelids growing surprisingly heavy. This is not really worth the time or effort, unless you have absolutely nothing else to watch, or if you are a hardcore fan of someone on the cast list.

There's a line in one of my favourite films called Ratatouille (though I feel I'm soiling it by even bringing it up here) that tells us Anyone Can Cook... even a rodent. Well, anyone can make a horror film... even an idiot. But that doesn't mean they should. Especially one devoid of scares, where the dumb people barely react when their 'friends' bite the bullet, and when the 'twist' is like, the stupidest thing EVER in the history of mankind. And yes, we all know little girls who just stand there staring at you saying nothing, are naturally creepy, but overuse this formula and you're liable to be accused of lacking ideas. The dude behind the camera here hasn't got an original thought in his noggin.

It's not big, it's not clever and it certainly isn't the least bit enjoyable. F's all round, and back to film school for you, Mr Wannabe. Sometimes, I think it would be easier to teach a cat to fetch than make a decent scary movie... 3/1

No Tell Motel is a low budget paranormal movie. A group of friends seek haven in a derelict motel after their vehicle breaks down.

Most of the cast seem attracted to this type of movie or equally micro budget action movies. It's a B movie which serves to flesh out Primes catalogue but really, otherwise, doesn't have much going for it.

Writer T. J. Cimfel doesn't give the cast a lot to work with. He specializes in writing for B movies. I've seen V/H/S Viral which he also wrote, and it is on a par with No Tell Hotel.

Paranormal movies are about the jump scare and such movies set in motels / hotels can work. Ti Wests' The Innkeepers or the more recent The Rental directed by Dave Franco prove that there is plenty of juice in the genre. Just not in this particular instance.

The ghost isn't scary; the plot, if not predictable, is certainly undemanding; there is a gross factor but its to do with drug use and rape, not the supernatural; and so it goes.

There is a lack of strong direction from Brett Donowho. He seems to be enjoying more success as an actor having won the odd award here and there. The 'action' is stilted and there is a tendency to the cliched in the unfolding of several scenes.

The special effects are scarce and to be honest when encountered, are a bit hokey.

I feel I'm being pretty harsh. No one purposely sets out to make a dodgy movie but there is, in truth, not a lot to redeem No Tell Motel.

This movie had no purpose,no scares,plot holes bigger than martian craters,and a cast that couldn't act their way out of a wet origami bag made of bathroom tissue. Why the actual events of the past literally,interactively, played out in front of the characters is a mystery, and not even one that is interesting enough to want to solve. The characters were all "terrible people" except for our token girl-next-door,naive sweetheart,who was so saccharine you wanted her to die anyway. Little ghost girl needs company,but why couldn't her parents keep her company? They were dead too. Skip this one. It's too late for me,but you still have a chance to avoid this trainwreck.

This film was re-titled "Haunted Motel" when it was shown in local theaters. This actually was already a warning that this is going to be one lousy film. I should have taken that warning.

"Haunted Motel" starts with a tragic accident when a little girl was suddenly run over by a speeding car. Her shocked parents could do nothing but helplessly wail by the roadside in front of their motel (called the Round the Bend Motel). This scene shot in dramatic sepia is the best of the whole film (worth a star on its own). Everything else fell to pieces after that.

Several years later, a group of five young people meet a car accident and were forced to spend the night at an abandoned roadside motel. And, as all horror films of this type go, we see the members of the group get killed off one by one, apparently by a ghostly little girl. Of course, the explanations come at the end, but by that time, you don't even care if you completely get it or not.

During all this time, we get a convoluted and confusing sequence of inexplicable events, told with absolutely no sense of dread or terror at all. Even the ghostly little Angela looked so pasty and fake, you don't really get scared by her. All the characters (a drug addict, a masochist, a rapist, a pregnant teen and her clueless friend) were very thanklessly unlikable, and the actors portraying them did not exactly rise above mediocrity of the material.

This is a generic B-horror film all the way. No redeeming factors either in the story, technical or in the acting departments. This is tolerable only if you have nothing else to watch, but keep your expectations real low.