Slaughter Hotel (1971)

Giallo involving a somewhat detached Klaus Kinski, who barely takes the time to remove his hands from his jacket pockets. For such an insanely powerful actor, he isn't allowed to do a great deal here, but that's because he's the mysterious masked killer. Isn't he?Also featured here are British actress Margaret Lee (as Cheryl Hume) and giallo legend Rosalba Neri (as Anne Palmieri). Also known as 'Cold Blooded Beast' and 'Slaughter Hotel', 'Asylum Erotica' is a fairly enjoyable thriller/horror/whodunit involving a murderer lurking around the grounds of a stately mental hospital. The location is tremendous, full of long and clinical rooms and corridors in which various graphic killings take place.There are some interesting directorial flourishes from the prolific Fernando Di Leo which especially enliven the more gruesome sequences. We get tantalising glimpses of bloodied corpses, mangled inmates and staff, and convincing stab wounds - so brief are these glimpses, that we are not quite sure what we have seen.This certainly doesn't push the boundaries of what can be achieved in this genre, but what it does, it does well. It would have been nice to have featured more of Kinski. With his wild and striking looks only barely made respectable by a white doctor's coat, you know his character Dr. Francis Clay might well be capable of crazed antics. Don't you?

A mysterious killer, clad from head to toe in black, breaks into a loony bin that seemingly caters exclusively for rich beautiful women. Utilising a variety of medieval weapons, that conveniently and rather unbelievably decorate the huge institution, the maniac proceeds to slice, chop and stab his way through the patients and staff.Hampered by a simple story and rather unimaginative deaths, The Cold-Blooded Beast isn't a particularly great giallo; but with a good cast (including Klaus Kinski) and a bevy of gorgeous hotties willing to shed their clothes at the drop of a hat, the film is still worth a watch if you enjoy sleazy Euro-horror.Director Fernando Di Leo wisely packs his otherwise unremarkable film with so much full nudity and soft-core sex that one can easily forgive the pedestrian plot and lacklustre kill scenes. The women (who aren't exactly the shy and retiring type) all get nekkid at one point or another, and some of them are even kind enough to indulge in a spot of lesbianism, and, occasionally, graphic masturbation (at least in the uncut European version that I saw).Margeret Lee is drop-dead gorgeous as Cheryl, ultimate target of the killer, whilst scorching hot Rosalba Neri (French Sex murders, Amuck) stars as nymphomaniac Anne (who steals the show with a spot of explicit self-gratification). Also unmissable are Jane Garret and Monica Strebel as a pair of rug-munchers who, in the film's funniest and most memorable scene, indulge in a spot of tribal dancing before getting down to business.Klaus Kinski isn't required to do an awful lot; he doesn't spend much time on screen and, thankfully, he keeps his clothes on.Although the violence in the film is fairly frequent and quite nasty in tone (an axe attack, a stabbing, a crossbow bolt through the neck, a body trapped in an iron maiden), the actual gore level is fairly low (we see quite a bit of blood, but not much else). Towards the end of the film, things get a bit stronger and eventually when we are treated to a fabulous moment where the killer goes crazy with a mace and does away with a whole group of nurses in seconds.Shortly after this, he is shot to death by trigger happy police officers in a squib-tastic finalé.The Cold Blooded Beast gets a fairly decent 7/10 from me, for it's gratuitously sleazy vibe and for not worrying too much about letting a decent story get in the way of all of the sex and violence.

I knew beforehand that Di Leo's sole foray into the giallo subgenre didn't have a good reputation, but I couldn't have anticipated that it would be so lame! As a matter of fact, it almost challenges Riccardo Freda's TRAGIC CEREMONY (1972) for the title of the poorest and most bewildering vintage film by a renowned Euro-Cult director I've ever watched! Despite its violent outbursts - mostly confined to the second half - typical of Di Leo (one particularly vicious episode at the very end, which leaves numerous victims, has to be seen to be believed), he shows no real feeling for - or even much interest in - this type of film! In fact, a good deal of the running time is devoted to exploitative erotic content featuring nymphomaniac Rosalba Neri and a lesbian relationship between a nurse and a black patient! With respect to technique, the editing is particularly sloppy: sometimes it seems like the editor has fallen asleep on the job, with several scenes going on for much longer than is required (beginning with the very first scene of the killer prowling the asylum grounds - though before the credits had even rolled, more than just my brain cells had suddenly snapped to attention with the appearance of a fully naked Margaret Lee {one of my favorite Euro-Cult starlets} tossing and turning in bed; regrettably, this is her only nude scene in the entire film!); occasionally, however, there are disorientating tilted shots and a series of pointless - and irritating - rapid cuts of two converging locations (for instance, the killer approaching a victim's room); besides, we get all kinds of people having flashes to earlier scenes, but the shots are so randomly chosen as to make no sense whatsoever!The score, usually a prominent feature in a giallo, occasionally delivers but it's too uneven (the killer's theme is dreadful, for instance) to really count as a success; indeed, the only worthwhile element to the whole film is the casting of three Jess Franco alumni in the lead roles: the aforementioned Lee (despite the fact that her role doesn't give her much scope) and Neri (who, at least, gets to shed her clothes quite often and takes a shower memorably), and Klaus Kinski as an enigmatic and wild-looking doctor who becomes romantically involved with Lee - even if his contribution is a listless take-the-money-and-run turn, seemingly there only to serve as a red herring! By the way, the notorious and mystifying audio glitch found on the version (horrendously dubbed in English and actually bearing the on-screen title of COLD-BLOODED BEAST) released by Media Blasters - which also plagued the copy I watched - is a real pain in the neck...

Slaughter Hotel isn't exactly a well-renowned slice of Italian cinema, as most people that have seen it don't exactly have a lot of good things to say about it; but personally, I thought it was rather good! The first half of the film doesn't contain a lot of excitement, as barely anything happens and the time used, which is obviously meant to build up the situation and main characters, isn't exactly fascinating. However, Giallo films are most famous for their style and this film has bags of it! Director Fernando Di Leo makes good use of his colour scheme, and every time the plot starts to get a bit dry - Rosalba Neri (in the role of a nymphomaniac, no less) and her beautiful female co-stars are always on hand to get their kits off. The plot isn't exactly deep, but it's well worked and makes good use of the central setting. We focus on a rest home for rich, beautiful women that like to have sex with just about anyone. The Giallo elements creep in by way of a serial killer going round murdering various members of the cast; but it's obvious that this film is more geared towards fans of exploitation.I can't deny that, really, this is a poor film; but it does everything that you want from Italian seventies cinema so well that it's difficult to hate it. Everything about the movie is over the top - from the brutal murder scenes all the way down to the plethora of sexual activity - and that's nothing but a good thing if you ask me! I don't tend to like films where the killer uses the same weapon over and over again, but that's not a problem with this film as our killer here has a cabinet of medieval relics at his disposal, with all manner of implements from crossbows to swords, all the way down a mace getting covered in blood. The murder scenes aren't very realistic or shocking, but they bode well with the film's style - and this is quite an achievement since the murder plot isn't really relevant to the rest of the movie. Wet-dream Rosalba Neri heads up a decent cast, which includes Klaus Kinski in one of his less memorable roles...but it hardly matters, as it's the women that lead this movie. The ending is totally ridiculous and illogical, but it does feature a great assault on a bunch of female patients and while I don't care who the murderer is; it doesn't matter at all. If you like your films colourful, illogical and sexy; this movie is for you.