page_title: Motel
section_title: In popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: Motel / In popular culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Bates Motel Set at Universal Studio Hollywood CA. Source: Taken by en:User:Ipsingh
context_page_description: A motel or motor lodge is a hotel designed for motorists and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles. Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined as a portmanteau contraction of "motor hotel", originates from the Milestone Mo-Tel of San Luis Obispo, California, which was built in 1925. The term referred initially to a type of hotel consisting of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and in some circumstances, a common area or a series of small cabins with common parking. Motels are often individually owned, though motel chains do exist.
  As large highway systems began to be developed in the 1920s, long-distance road journeys became more common, and the need for inexpensive, easily accessible overnight accommodation sites close to the main routes led to the growth of the motel concept. Motels peaked in popularity in the 1960s with rising car travel, only to decline in response to competition from the newer chain hotels that became commonplace at highway interchanges as traffic was bypassed onto newly constructed freeways. Several historic motels are listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.
context_section_description: The Bates Motel is an important part of Psycho, a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film adaptation. Psycho II, Psycho III and Psycho IV: The Beginning, sequels to the film, also feature the motel, as does Gus Van Sant's  1998 remake of the original film. A comedic 1987 television movie Bates Motel and the 2013 television series Bates Motel, a prequel to the films, both use the name of the motel as a title. In the 2010 Halloween TV special Scared Shrekless, Puss in Boots tells a cautionary tale about the "Boots Motel".
  The scenario of an isolated motel being operated by a serial killer, whose guests subsequently become victims, has been exploited in a number of other horror films, notably Motel Hell (1980) and Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986). More recently, the genre has been revived with such films as Mayhem Motel (2001), Murder Inn (2005), Vacancy (2007), and its direct-to-video prequel, Vacancy 2: The First Cut (2009).
  Several of these horror films also incorporate the sub-theme of voyeurism, whereby the motel owner spies on (or even films) the sexual exploits of the guests. This plays on the long-established connotations of motels and illicit sexual activity, which has itself formed the basis for numerous other films, variously representing the thriller, comedy, teen film, and sexploitation genres. Stephen C. Apostolof's Motel Confidential (1967) and the porn film Motel for Lovers (1970) were two notable early examples. More recent manifestations include Paradise Motel (1985), Talking Walls (1987), Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel (1991), and the Korean films Motel Cactus (1997) and The Motel (2005).
  In countless other films and TV series, the motel—invariably depicted as an isolated, run-down, and seedy establishment—has served as the setting for sordid events often involving equally sordid characters. Examples include Pink Motel (1982), Motel Blue 19 (1993), Backroad Motel (2001), Stateline Motel (2003), Niagara Motel (2006), and Motel 5150 (2008).
  In TV's The Simpsons, the Sleep Eazy Motel signage displays its name with missing neon lighting segments, "Sleep-Eazy Motel", a sleazy motel advertising hourly rates and adult movies. The cockroach motel and no-tell motel stereotypes continue with various motels in the series, including the Happy Earwig Motel and Worst Western.
  In the film Sparkle Lite Motel (2006) and the TV miniseries The Lost Room (2006), the motel made forays into the realms of science fiction. In the Pixar animation Cars (2006), a clientele of solely anthropomorphic vehicles requires all hotels be motels where clients drive directly to their rooms; allusions to real Route 66 motels on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places abound in the film. The Cozy Cone Motel design is the Wigwam Motel on U.S. Route 66 in Arizona with the neon "100% Refrigerated Air" slogan of Tucumcari, New Mexico's Blue Swallow Motel; the Wheel Well Motel's name alludes to the restored stone-cabin Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Missouri. A long-defunct "Glenn Rio Motel" recalls Route 66 ghost town Glenrio, New Mexico and Texas, now a national historic district on the state line. Glenrio once boasted the "First Motel in Texas" (as seen when arriving from New Mexico) or "Last Motel in Texas" (the same motel, its signage viewed from the opposite side).
  In literature, Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me (1962) depicts a French-Canadian Vivienne Michel as a clerk minding the doomed Dreamy Pines Motor Court in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Unlike most of Fleming's work, this storyline does not appear in any of the James Bond films.
  In computer gaming, Murder Motel was an online text game by Sean D. Wagle, hosted on various dial-up bulletin board systems (1980s, originally Color64, ported to various other platforms). The object was for each player to attempt to brutally kill all fellow guests in each room of a motel using a variety of weapons.
  In theatre, the seedy motel room has been the setting for two-hander plays such as Same Time, Next Year (1975) and Bug (2006). Both were later adapted as films. 
caption: The Bates Motel set at Universal Studios
exif: {"Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.7", "Image ExifOffset": "102"}