In a world where football teams lose the game from a field goal kick, Olympians miss the gold by seconds, or delicious meals get burned, it is saddening to watch something fail at the very end. In the same way, the delicious meal of a five-star restaurant means nothing if it ends in food poisoning, the ending of a movie can polarize the entire film. Motel Acacia has everything that makes a great modern horror movie, from an interesting world, a great core concept, and wonderful practical effects but it fails to stick the landing, in the most unfortunate way possible.

In a world where border control has been raised to totalitarian levels including a massive wall, impossible to get citizenship IDs, and a roaming armed border patrol, a young Filipino man has been picked up by his estranged father. JC is looking to take over his father’s business of secretly procuring IDs for undocumented immigrants but soon learns that they are actually feeding them to something lurking in the depts of the bunker. After a car accident, JC finds himself alone in the bunker with immigrants wondering where their papers are, why all the doors are locked, and what are those noises coming from the room down the hall.

From its small cast and limited locations, it is safe to say that the budget of Motel Acacia wasn’t huge. It is rare to see a budget used so effectively with locations having so much history, uniqueness, and style to them. This is a world that is built entirely on its environments, dialogue, and what we can draw from the story rather than just having it told to us. Combine the fantastic sets with the use of practical effects that are outstanding in their simplicity and the technical side is unmatched, even when compared to highly funded blockbusters.

Where the film begins to fall apart, and can not be saved by even the wonder practical monsters, is in the story. While the story is very cut and dry in the first half, the father has been paid by the government to lure immigrants looking for ID cards to this bunker and disposing of them, the story gets complex and convoluted in the latter half. After JC is stuck in the bunker with the immigrants they begin to question him about where his father is with their IDs and the story becomes a tense lock-in situation where JC has to decide what he is going to do. From there his character arch becomes more of a character roller coaster where his decisions don’t seem to be governed by any sort of logic, ending in an unsatisfying finale that undoes anything fun or interesting that Motel Acacia had built up.

Motel Acacia does so much right, from the core concept to the sudden horror movie angle that it is definitely worth a watch, but it is so sad to watch it fail in the final act. It is the kind of film that is a victim of a story that wasn’t sure how it should end. Everything can be perfect but no movie, no matter how technically fantastic, can survive a bad story.

5 out of 10

Motel Acacia
RATING: UR
Acacia Motel Trailer Starring JC Santos, Jan Bijvoet
Runtime: 1 hr
31Mins.
Directed By:
Written By:

About the Author

A huge horror fan with a fondness for 80s slashers. Can frequently be found at southern California horror screenings and events.