Cinema's Most Infamous Hotel Accomodation

Sadly, many of us have had a hotel stay at some point that was less than satisfactory. Perhaps the room is horribly noisy, positioned above the hotel's smelly bins, or you ended up double-booking with some six-legged tenants that aren't prepared to share the bill. For me, it was a pokey hotel in Frankfurt that smelled of drains, amplified all the road traffic noise from outside, and had the proprietor waving flies off the morning breakfast that had been out all night.

There are three particular hotels in the movies however, that are not so keen on repeat customers. The first cinematic hotel you'd never want to stay at is the Bates Motel run by the deranged Norman Bates in the black and white classic, Psycho. Forget about leaving your adverse credit cards for a room deposit, the mother-fixated Norman Bates wouldn't even care if you had a bag full of stolen money in your room, by the time he and his alter-ego have finished with you. Check for spyholes in the bedroom and maybe invest in an extra padlock so you can have a shower in peace and safety. Make sure that you don't let any nice-looking old ladies into your room, as they may have a few issues about which knife is the correct one to use!

The next movie hotel is from Hostel, a 2005 horror film set in a small town in Slovakia. In the film, students on a backpacking holiday find themselves lured to a luxury hostel where they are the centre of attention from the local girls. Needless to say, there's a nasty (and graphic) surprise in store as the business that doesn't really offer a good bargain to students with adverse credit rating, emerges as a front for an international circuit of lunatics to indulge their hobbies. Initially popularised by the graphic content and Quentin Tarantino producing, the film does have a good story, intelligent script and a spiked brickbat aimed at wealthy nations taking advantage of economies of weaker countries.

A quaint old fishing port on the Spanish coast . . . there couldn't possibly be anything to be afraid of there, surely? Not if you're watching Stuart Gordon's Dagon! Loosely based around Howard Phillip Lovecraft's short stories, Dagon sees our shipwrecked hero and heroine book into the Gilman Arms as the locals promise to get help for their injured companions. What they don't realise until far too late is that although people book into the hotel, not a great deal of them seem to leave. The hotel is damp, mouldy and has no locks on the doors, probably because anyone staying there is grabbed by the locals to become pride of place in their ritual celebrations . . . as a sacrifice to the demonic god Dagon!

I'm happy to say my stay in Frankfurt never got quite that bad, in comparison to cinema perhaps a lumpy bed or indifferent staff member aren't really things to get so worked up about.