Mountaintop Motel Massacre[i] is a 1983[1] American psychological slasher film written and directed by Jim McCullough Sr. and starring Anna Chappell, Bill Thurman, and Amy Hill.

[5] Although the film received negative critical reception upon its theatrical release, it has, in later years, been noted for its offbeat atmosphere, and has been referred to as an "early 1980s drive-in gem.

Shortly after, a man named Robin Crewshaw arrives and also takes a room; the two men converse about the rundown state of the cabins and share a drink.

At nightfall on the nearby highway, cousins Prissy and Tanya have their car breakdown en route to Nashville and are picked up by Al, a lascivious man who pretends to be a record producer in hopes of bedding both of the women.

[2] The interiors of the cabins had to be repainted and redressed prior to shooting, while the underground tunnel sequences were filmed above-ground in makeshift sets that were built and covered by visqueen in order to keep light out.

[2] After the film was acquired by New World Pictures in 1985, reshoots were undertaken by the studio's executive Roger Corman, who felt the final sequence in which Evelyn is killed was not violent enough to appease audiences.

[9] The production design was forced to rebuild a section of the underground tunnel set, and retool the sequence, which has Evelyn die from a near decapitation when a support beam collapses on her.

[9] The film was independently released by director Jim McCullough Sr., opening in Opelousas, Louisiana on July 15, 1983 under its original title Mountaintop Motel.

The story is too silly, the murders too predictable and unimaginative, the blood too phony and the acting too much on the level of a bad high school play to send so much as a shiver down anyone's spine.

"[13] The New York Daily News wrote of the film: "Evelyn and the title site's assortment of snakes, rats and roaches keep the doomed cast of mostly amateur thesps awake, but this [is a] soporific one-set wonder ...

[19] The DVD eventually went out of print, and the film was largely unavailable until being re-issued by Image Entertainment's "Midnight Madness" series in September 2011.

[21] On May 24, 2019, the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America by Vinegar Syndrome, featuring a new 2K scan of the original vault materials.