Rating: D
Dir: Robert H. Gwinn
Star: DJ Perry, Johnny Dark, Anthony Hornus, Fred Griffith
The main location here, the Hotel del Sol, is one of Yuma’s most recognizable landmarks. It dates back almost a century, having been built in 1926 as the Hotel Del Ming, after the then mayor of Yuma, Frank Ming. In its heyday shortly thereafter, it boasted of having air-conditioning in every room – a remarkable luxury at the time. It was a backdrop for a number of films, reportedly including deleted scenes in Psycho. However, it can be seen in 1984’s The Getaway, starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, although closed a few years later. It has remained vacant ever since, though there are plans to demolish much of the building and convert it into a transportation hub.
I write the above, because it’s considerably more interesting than writing about the movie. It is probably the best horror film made entirely in Yuma, albeit simply by being the only horror film made entirely in Yuma. I am open to correction on this point, of course. Donald (Hornus) was in prison for twenty years for robbery, and on release, heads to the hotel where he believes his accomplice hid the loot from the crime. Also present are a group of real-estate flippers, who just got a contract to renovate the place and are there, supposedly to check out what will be involved. While refreshingly mixed gender, they spend more time goofing around, or playing what is surely the most boring game of strip poker in film history.
Just in case that’s not enough for you – and it certainly was not for me – there’s a lunatic in a mask running around the place. He is eliminating members of both groups with various tools, such as a nail-gun. Of marginal note, the asylum physician, Dr. Nitas, is played by Natalie Wood’s little sister, Lana. She’s best known as Plenty O’Toole, the Bond girl who was thrown out of a window by Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever. Quite some distance from there to a disused hotel in Yuma. Don’t expect anything significant in the way of B-movie entertainment here: while there are a number of killings, there’s hardly any blood and one, not great, bit of toplessness.
It also takes far too long to reach the mayhem, with the characters well short of holding your interest until then. There may be one sub-plot too many: give us the thieves looking for loot, or the property renovation team. Both simply ends up in them both feeling like no more than cannon fodder. for bloodless and uninventive deaths of no impact. I get the feeling this is a case where the makers got access to the location first, and had to figure out a story around the abandoned property. This can sometimes work: Session 9 shows what can be done with the right building in the right hands. Going by the results, I’ve a feeling this movie is considerably more a case of the former than the latter.