We’re familiar with the rules of horror films. We all know that woods have arms and the hills have eyes.
Yet we still scream.
Fright films traditionally count on monsters — usually armed with a chainsaw or sharp teeth — to turn up the scream meter. But a rundown motel (dingy hotel? down-at-the-heels hostel?) still manages to give us the creeps. It’s been almost 50 years since Janet Leigh checked into, and never out of, the Bates Motel in “Psycho,” but we’re still scared of scary motels.
Lately, there’s been a lot of scary motels in movies. Add “1408” to the list Friday. John Cusack stars as a debunker of alleged supernatural events who checks into Suite 1408 of a New York hotel where no one checks out alive.
Here are other recent big-screen hotels that offer much more than just a free Continental breakfast:
Bug
“Exorcist” director William Friedkin’s thriller stars Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon (left) as a pair of damaged characters who live in a tacky, down-at-the-heels Oklahoma motel. They think creepy-crawlies have dug in under their skin.
Vacancy
This room-for-rent thriller is set in a motel that makes “Psycho’s” Bates Motel look like the Four Seasons. Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson (left) are spouses fighting for their lives at the motel, where they find hidden cameras that are used to make snuff films.
Hostel: Part II
The bloody innkeeping of 2005’s “Hostel” proved to be so popular, a sequel was ordered. In it, three American college students find that Slovakian hostelry isn’t a three-star experience. It does get a high rating for its inventive ways to torture and kill.
Motel Hell
The 1980 flick starred Rory Calhoun as a demented farmer who plants unsuspecting motel guests into his garden, eventually extracting the secret ingredient for his fritters from them. A remake is due next year.
