‘Valley View Motel’ Checks Into FrightFest With a Bloody 1970s Thriller

A bag of stolen diamonds, two crooks whose partnership is already coming apart and a Pennsylvania motel where checking in might cost considerably more than the room rate provide the foundations for Valley View Motel. The 1977-set neo-noir crime thriller from Kevin Ignatius and Nick Psinakis will receive its World Premiere at Tubi FrightFest later this month, bringing organ thieves, a deceptively mild-mannered hitman and one increasingly disastrous night to the festival’s Main Screen.

Ignatius and Psinakis write, direct, produce and appear in Valley View Motel, continuing the hands-on independent filmmaking approach behind their previous features My Best Friend’s Famous, The Long Dark Trail and Cheat. The new film stars Corin Clay, Ignatius, Laura Im, Judy J. Lee, Tom Mesmer, Logan Psinakis, Nick Psinakis, Janie Sharon, Soulo Smith, McKenzie Such and Michael Thyer.

The trouble begins when best friends and co-workers Cliff and Reg become involved in a diamond robbery. Cliff has reluctantly agreed to drive the getaway car after Reg, struggling with a debt to a loan shark, persuades him to participate. What Cliff does not know is that his friend has a rather more violent exit strategy planned. Reg kills their accomplices and the bank guards, leaving the pair fleeing with the entire haul.

They hole up at the remote Valley View Motel while waiting to meet dealer Diamond Rick. It is, in almost every conceivable respect, the wrong motel.

The brother and sister running the place have their own criminal operation, drugging guests and harvesting their kidneys for sale on the black market. Meanwhile, the owner of the stolen diamonds has dispatched a hitman to recover his property. The assassin happens to be a high-school maths teacher with a fondness for self-help books, an outwardly ordinary presence masking a decidedly different professional life.

Adding another complication are a Korean mother and daughter who arrive at the motel while attempting to relocate and begin again, unaware of the criminals converging around them. Alliances and family relationships are subsequently tested as the various parties try to survive until morning.

Valley View Motel was filmed in Ignatius’s hometown of Warren, Pennsylvania, with the filmmakers building the production around locations, vehicles and other resources available through the local community. Ignatius also composed the score, while Connor Smyers served as cinematographer and Psinakis edited the film.

The project continues a filmmaking partnership that has deliberately operated outside conventional studio structures. The pair cite the resourceful production methods associated with Roger Corman as an influence, while their director’s statement points towards the early work of Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and the Coen Brothers as part of their wider cinematic inspiration.

There is a FrightFest connection here, too. Ignatius and Psinakis previously brought Cheat to the festival for its World Premiere on opening night in 2023. Before that, their feature debut My Best Friend’s Famous featured Ryan O’Neal and Mindy Sterling, while their pandemic-era follow-up The Long Dark Trail moved into experimental horror territory. Their latest film shifts again, this time towards a scrappy 1970s crime picture with a particularly strange collection of people under one motel roof. Or several rooms, presumably. Things sound crowded enough already.

Valley View Motel receives its World Premiere at Tubi FrightFest on Monday 31 August 2026 at 1.10pm, screening at ODEON Luxe Leicester Square in London. For tickets, visit: frightfest.co.uk/