Motel Acacia (2020)

 

 

Cool poster. Awful movie. 

First of all, I was expecting a movie that had Bront Palarae and Nicholas Saputra in supporting roles to be a tad bit better, but boy was I mistaken. They took two amazingly great actors and flushed it, just flushed it down the drain. 

The starting of the movie was pretty basic. It followed the general South East Asian horror trope - dark beginning built on a foundation of death that pushed the movie's story. But as the movie progressed, i'm not sure if the director wanted it to be a slow burn, but slow it was. However, slow burn movies usually culminate in a satisfying end, but this movie fell short of that. It was as if you suffered through nearly one and a half hours of slow, meaningless dialogue & acting and were presented with disappointment.I

It's like being invited to a barbecue and the host is giving you a bunch of rules and regulations and asking you to bring a shit tonne of things and you're hyping yourself up for it thinking that maybe, just maybe it'll be all worth your time, but it's a vegetarian barbecue and you're served with grilled zucchinis. That's how this movie felt. 

 "Let me stick this fork through my brain and embrace the sweet, sweet salvation of death"

Despite the tormentingly bland story line and overall movie experience, Motel Acacia does make up for it in the set design and the atmosphere. 

"It's like Bed of the Dead (2016), but with a better design."

Once you get past the first few seconds of the movie, you're transported to a visually stunning piece of art.  The external and internal shots for the next five to ten minutes are phenomenal. Set designers or location scouts did a really good job and I must commend the director and producers and everyone that worked on the set for a tremendous job well done. 

However, that's about it. I was honestly expecting more from the two main actors, JC Santos and Agot Isidro as well as the two South East Asian acclaimed supporting actors Bront Palarae (Malaysia) and Nicholas Saputra (Indonesia), but knowing both their prowess in acting, I blame the script writer and director for this. 

JC Santos did an OK job Agot Isidro was a little lacklustre, but I did want to see more from Jan Bijvoet. He played the creepy, estranged father with a dark background pretty well. The other supporting actors were either too stiff or didn't receive the proper instructions for them to be memorable and were far too easily forgotten.

I won't give you a rundown of the movie itself since there's really no need to as I implore you not to watch this movie, but it's pretty much a really bad monster movie. Motel Acacia is supposedly a haven for illegal immigrants which the proprietor lures in to feed the monster living in the bed (yea, you read that right). But only men are allowed on the bed because if women were to lay on it, the creature will just impregnate them (yes, again, you read that right). 

All in all, the movie's just a massive waste of time. But if you just want to focus on the set design, then by all means, watch the movie. But if you're looking for a great horror/monster movie, then please don't.

In a nutshell, I give Motel Acacia a one ghost emoji out of five.  👻