Desert Stop Motel

The blistering Nevada desert sun beats down mercilessly on the cracked asphalt of the lonesome highway, a serpentine ribbon cutting through the vast emptiness. In the shimmering distance, a weathered sign advertises the Desert Stop Motel, a ramshackle establishment that appears to have seen better days. The Corrigan family - father Paul, mother Ellen, and teenage siblings Blake and Claudia - are on a road trip when fatigue sets in. Desperate for respite, they spot the motel and pull into the near-deserted parking lot, their car raising a cloud of dust. Only a handful of vehicles, some appearing abandoned, occupy the spaces. As they approach the office, the motel's owner, Joe Rubin, a man in his fifties with an unsettling demeanor, greets them with a forced smile. He informs them that he and his wife Norma have run the place for five years, conveniently omitting the motel's sordid history. Inside, Norma, a timid woman in her sixties, tends to the attached diner, her movements guarded as if afraid of her husband's watchful gaze. When Paul inquires about the other guests, Joe dismisses it with a vague "just a few." Exhausted, the family checks into their room, only to find their cell phones rendered useless by the desert's remoteness. That night, Paul discovers their car has been sabotaged, the engine disabled. Confronting Joe yields no answers, only evasive responses that raise suspicions. As darkness falls, the Corrigans realize they are the only guests at the motel, the other cars left to rot in the parking lot. Blake, the inquisitive son, stumbles upon an unlocked room where he finds Kara, a terrified woman in her forties, bound and pleading for her life. She reveals the horrific truth - Joe and Norma are serial killers who have been preying on unsuspecting travelers, burying their victims in the unforgiving desert. Blake smuggles Kara into his family's room, and they devise a desperate plan to escape the nightmare. With no means of communication and the nearest town a hundred miles away, they must rely on their wits and courage to outwit their deranged captors. As tensions escalate, the Corrigans and Kara band together, using every resource at their disposal to defend themselves against Joe and Norma's murderous intentions. In a heart-pounding climax, they manage to overpower the demented couple, resorting to self-defense to end their reign of terror. With the keys to one of the deceased guests' cars in hand, the battered but resilient survivors flee the Desert Stop Motel, leaving the bloodstained establishment and its grisly secrets behind. They race towards the nearest town, their harrowing ordeal finally over, but the scars of their brush with evil will forever haunt their memories.