Everyone is running away from something, suggests battered wife Nikki Travis (Bad President’s Dawna Lee Heising) as she picks up another woman along a desolate highway. For Nikki, it is her abusive husband (Walter Hochbrueckner, who also wrote and directed), whose violent ways left her no choice but to hit the road.
Her destination? The Paradise Motel, a hole in the wall destination where nothing is what it seems . . . not even “paradise”. Full of some seriously strange characters and a country soundtrack by way of drunken melodies and busted Wurlitzers, The Paradise Motel is about Nikki’s own search for meaning in a town called Paradise.
What Nikki, who checks in as Joan Crawford, finds waiting for her, though, is something more than just a room for the night.
Starring the one and only Mel Novak (“An Eye for an Eye,” “Game of Death”) as Raymond Taylor, the owner of the Paradise Motel, Angel Princess (“Gain”), Llenelle Gibson (“Private Sales”), Vera R. Taylor (“Ballet of Blood”), Juliana Rose (“Rise of the Zombies”), and Jason Wilburn (“Erased”), this film is all about chance encounters as hitchhikers along the road become denizens in the local dive bar and beyond, falling in line to help this woman out in bizarrely unplanned ways.
The Paradise Motel is indeed one hell of a strange trip as Nikki ducks and dives her way out of one mess after another . . . all on the road to freedom. The motel and its surroundings are creepy and enough to set anyone back on their heels, especially when it is announced that there are killers on the loose.
AND JUST WAIT UNTIL NIKKI’S HUSBAND SHOWS UP!!!
He wants to teach her a lesson, but to do that he has to find her first. With Nikki on the run, she’s got some backup in some unplanned areas thanks to the guests at The Paradise Motel. It just might be a hole in the wall, but you will never forget what happens there thanks to the consequential actions of some of this film's characters!
Run, Nikki, run! Get out of there. Independently shot, The Paradise Motel might be a little dry in areas, but it all adds up to create a low budget revenge thriller that shows its knives when you least expect it, stabbing them down with intent. It's honest in its depiction of a battered woman and Dawna Lee Heising absolutely nails her performance.
The Paradise Motel is going to hell. Find out why in Hochbrueckner’s award-winning dramatic thriller!
MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime:
Director: Walter Hochbrueckner
Writer: Walter Hochbrueckner
Cast: Dawna Lee Heising; Mel Novak; Llenelle Gibson
Genre: Thriller
Tagline:
Memorable Movie Quote: "Don't you dare talk back to me."
Theatrical Distributor: Spheroid Films
Official Site:
Release Date: February 19, 2022
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: A battered wife on the run searching for paradise finds that paradise isn't always. Nothing is as it seems.
