I’m of the age where Corey Feldman still represents cool. The star of such iconic 80s movies like The Goonies (1985), Stand By Me (1986) and of course The Lost Boys (1987) will always be the Corey of 25 years ago irrespective of what kind of b-movies he shows up in nowadays. Besides, The Lost Boys 2 and 3 had a certain charm about them, right? Right? In any case, whenever I get presented with a contemporary Corey film I’m always pretty intrigued to see what he’s up to… unless that is if he has his name plastered on the front sleeve like he’s the principle actor but winds up being in the movie for about five minutes. It’s an old trick, but one that we regularly get fooled by. Irrespective of such tomfoolery, it at least gives me the opportunity to spend a third of the review writing about Corey Feldman, as otherwise I’d struggle to reach 500 words talking about the content, or lack thereof within Jack’s Motel – name change from 6 Degrees Of Hell.

We start on the set of a haunted house themed attraction which may or may not actually be haunted. One of the staffers has made the mistake of bringing a real knife to work instead of a rubber one, police are called – scene ends. Next, a few nameless generic youngsters appear. Then we have a séance. Then a ghost appears that resembles a naked Uncle Fester from The Addams Family, quickly followed by a collapse of generic blonde female. Cue main titles…

Post credits we’re in Metcalf Police Headquarters and here’s Corey playing a paranormal investigator (*starts virtual Corey on-screen timer*), listening to the story of the policeman who attended the fallout of the prior paranormal event. I think. At this point I was too distracted by the CGI water falling from the interior ceiling to notice any exposition. This is swiftly followed by the most comical sex scene ever put on tape – a couple seem to be imitating turtle sex. Then again they just could be trying to convey the emotional fragility and general lethargy of having intercourse whilst depressed. It’s difficult to tell.

Is this as painful for you to read as it was painful for me to watch? I’ll happily admit an element of bias comes into play when reviewing low budget horror, simply because I don’t think these films get a fair deal and I like to encourage the biggest audience possible to see them. We live in a society now that when something isn’t perfect or polished its cast aside by the majority and considered inferior, coupled with the fact it’s getting more and more difficult to distribute low budget horror in these uncertain times. However, at times you have to draw a line, hide your low budget appreciation membership in the junk drawer, and just tell it like it is.

Jack’s Motel is not a great film. It’s very incoherent and despite a slightly stronger final half hour, if you played it in a cinema, you’d be in the minority if you were still seated by the time the end credits began to play. The acting is very average, but to be honest that’s never really bothered me in a work of this budget. More concerning is the fact that it’s just really really dull. As for the Corey timer, I clicked stop at around the 4:30 mark, so much for top billing.