EDITOR’S NOTE: Nightmare Hotel was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, March 24, 1979 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, August 16, 1980 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, September 26, 1981 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, August 20, 1983 at 3:00 a.m.

Nightmare Hotel is the TV title for A Candle for the Devil which is also known as It Happened at Nightmare Inn. Directed by Eugenio Martín, it begins with sisters Marta (Aurora Bautista) and Verónica (Esperanza Roy) confronting May (Loreta Tovar), one of the guests at their small inn. She’s sunbathing nude outside and in the middle of an argument, she’s shoved down the stairs and dies when she goes through a stained glass window. Just as the sisters start to get rid of the body, the dead girl’s sister Laura (Judy Geeson) shows up, wondering where her sister is. She decides to stay there until she can find her sister.

Things are steamy all over town. One of the guests, Helen Miller (Lone Fleming), is on the make and bringing men back to her room at all hours of the evening. Verónica is sleeping with the much younger Luis (Carlos Piñe) and stealing money to give to him. And every man in the village seems to be swimming nude, which excited and enrages Marta, who soon kills Helen.

An American mother named Norma (Blanca Estrada) comes to stay just as Laura leaves, worried for her safety after Helen disappears. She asks Norma to let her know when she leaves to ensure that she isn’t killed. Soon, the sisters covet the baby and start to believe that Norma is a sex worker and has no idea who the father is. Verónica grabs her baby as Marta stabs the woman. It turns out that she was in the middle of a divorce and this gives Verónica more reasons to doubt her sister; she gives Luis all of her money and says she no longer wants to see him, begging him to leave town.

Laura returns, after not hearing from Norma. She brings a man from town,  Eduardo (Víctor Barrera), who finds a container in the basement with mystery meat floating in red wine. As he finds Norma’s severed head, he’s murdered by Marta. At the same time, a guest gets sick from eating food made from people and her husband goes to the police.

Laura returns to her room and finds Eduardo’s body as the sisters attack her, dragging her to the room with the rotting meat. As she screams against a window, the police save her, but as her face and tears go through the credits, it seems like she will never be the same again.

When this played U.S. theaters as Dread Stop at Nightmare Inn, it got a PG rating. How?!?

I loved every moment, from the Blaise Pascal quote at the start — “There are only two types of men: The righteous who think they are sinners, and the sinners who think they are righteous” — to the final moments.

In 1985, this was remade in Turkey as Vahset Kasirgasi (Brutal Storm). And thanks to my friend Bill Van Ryn, I know that this played double features with Things From The Grave, which is a retitled Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things.

You can watch this on Tubi.