Diksha Sundriyal
Shudder’s ‘Hell Motel’ follows the story of a group of people who are brought together to spend a weekend at a place called Cold River Motel. This trip is meant to draw attention to the newly renovated place, which is already known for grisly murders that happened in one of its rooms thirty years ago. The group of ten, including the new owners of the place, is trapped inside the motel when the weather becomes unforgiving, and they have no way to connect with the outside world because there is no Wifi. The string of murders doesn’t help the case either. The motel emerges as a character unto itself over the course of the season, but unlike the doomed fictional characters, real-life people don’t have a chance to visit the place. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Cold River Motel in Hell Motel is Fictional
‘Hell Motel’ is a fictional slasher horror series that plays with the audience’s obsession with true crime and the many ways it can manifest in different people. Like all the plot details and the characters, the location is also entirely fictional. In real life, there is no place called Cold River Motel, which has gained notoriety for being a place of murder. The cast and crew of the Shudder series created the place by filming on various locations while also relying on carefully built sets to bring a highly realistic and chilling vibe to the story.
Most of the filming of ‘Hell Motel’ took place in and around Toronto. Several locations in Etobicoke and Cobourg were used to patch together the things that eventually make up the infamous motel where almost all of the series takes place. The crew turned towards the outskirts of the city to find perfect spots that would let them exhibit several spots of the motel that packs loads of secrets in its many rooms. The idea was to create a place that would force the characters into a merciless bind where they have to share the same roof as the killer, having no idea who that person actually is.
Interestingly, instead of filming in a single location, the show’s creators leaned towards finding different places for outdoor locations and the inside of the motel to allow more space to the actors to inhabit their characters and do their magic as they transform into the true crime fanatics, all of whom seem to be harbouring one secret or another. While the suburbs of Etobicoke and Cobourg served the purpose of the motel’s outdoors, the indoors were shot in more controlled locations, allowing the show’s creators to expand the functionality of the motel and come up with craftier ways to kill its characters.
Read More: Hell Motel Episode 1 and 2 Recap: Blood Bath and Night Orchid
