"Don't disturb Evelyn. She already is," as the paying customers of MOUNTAINTOP MOTEL MASSACRE will soon learn with Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray/DVD combo.

After an extended stay in a mental hospital, Evelyn (Anna Chappell) is further stressed by the death of her husband who leaves her in charge of the remote Mountaintop Motel and a less-than-stable teenage daughter Lorie (Jill King) who keeps company with wild animals, reptiles, and insects in the moonshine tunnels that connect the motel cabins. When Evelyn catches her daughter conducting a séance to speak to her dead father, she goes berserk and accidentally kills Lorie. The Sheriff (James Bradford, THE LOST WORLD) seems to believe Evelyn's story about a garden accident, but salesman-turned-preacher Bill McWilley (Bill Thurman, 'GATOR BAIT) who is staying at the hotel has his own suspicions as a longtime friend of Evelyn's late husband. Following the funeral, it becomes evident that Lorie is not at rest, at least in Evelyn's mind, as her voice warns Evelyn that everyone around her wants to put her back in the hospital. As night falls, a storm blocks the road, and a group of stranded motel guests – newlyweds Vernon (stuntman Gregg Brazzel, SWEET JUSTICE) and Mary (Marian Jones), journeyman carpenter Crenshaw (Major Brock), ad executive Al (Will Mitchell), and Nashville-bound singing hopefuls Tanya (Virginia Loridans, VIDEO MURDERS) and Prissy (Amy Hill) – are soon to be on the receiving end of Evelyn's hospitality.

An obscure Louisiana-lensed regional slasher produced in 1983 as MOUNTAINTOP MOTEL that became a minor cult hit when New World picked it up in 1986 and gave it the immortal title MOUNTAINTOP MOTEL MASSACRE for a short theatrical run and wider exposer on home video and late night television. The supernatural aspect is novel for the time but Evelyn's motives are muddled beyond she's crazy. It appears that she is goaded by the ghost of her daughter or her own guilty conscience telling her that everyone around her wants to put her away but she uses her daughter's animals, reptiles, and insects to terrorize the guests and her use of a sickle appears to be biblically-motivated. The gore is relatively restrained apart from a severed hand and a briefly-glimpsed shot of a sickle impaling a victim from cheek to cheek (shown more graphically in the disc's behind the scenes stills) while the Joseph M. Wilcots (ROOTS) is proficient for the most part – although some shakier bits including the terribly photographed reshot ending may have been photographed by someone else – and the synth scoring by Ron Di Iulio (HONEYMOON HORROR) is intermittently effective. Actress Hill is also credited with "Ward Robe" according to the end credits. Director Jim McCollough Sr. was previously responsible for the BOGGY CREAK-inspired bigfoot pic THE CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE.

Released theatrically and on home video by New World, MOUNTAINTOP MOTEL MASSACRE was first released on DVD by Anchor Bay in 2001 and reissued in a double bill with THE INITIATION in 2003 followed by an Image Entertainment DVD in 2011. 88 Films issued the film on Blu-ray in 2017 from rights owner Lakeshore's existing HD master. Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a brand new 2K scan of the original camera negative. We do not have the UK disc for comparison, but the American disc milks the original elements for all they are worth, bringing out detail in the rundown real locations, the tunnel sets – an above-and-beyond job by haunted house attraction worker/production designer Drew Edward Hunter – and the film's modest special make-up effects while the frenetically-shot climax is clearer than the VHS and DVD versions but the weaknesses of its photography are done no favors by the remaster. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track fares better overall with clear dialogue and scoring while English SDH subtitles are also provided.