Slaughter Hotel - Too Much Hotel, Not Enough Slaughter

I was buying a couple of titles from 88 Films recently and I saw that their website has free shipping over £30 in addition to their Skulls rewards program, so I threw one more title in my order; Slaughter Hotel, or Cold  Blooded Beast as it's called on their release.

When the package arrived (like every UK package I've gotten - opened) I was surprised to see that it still came with a slipcover despite it being released last July. I was curious as to why they hadn't sold out of the slipcover yet. And then I watched it. Oh, it kinda sucks. That's why.

I'm not sure why it was given the title Slaughter Hotel when it was released here since this takes place in a wellness clinic and not a hotel. But I guess that has a better ring to it than Lesbian Mental Hospital That For Some Reason Has A Small Museum Of Antique Murder Weapons. I know before dropping my mentally unwell wife off at a mental institution I'm always sure to verify that they have an iron maiden on-site.

This movie certainly goes into full slaughter mode in the last 10 minutes with a man Richard Speck-ing a room full of nurses with a mace, but sweet fancy Moses are the first 85-minutes dull. Most of the movie is just made up of softcore sex scenes, brotherfucker Rosalba Neri masturbating (with extreme labia closeups) and seducing a guido gardener, an unbelievably awkward neverending dance scene, and Klaus Kinski looking like a horse. There are murder scenes sprinkled in between the erotic stuff, but none of them are particularly interesting or well staged.

The problem for me is that while the women in this movie are all very beautiful, I've never found sex scenes interesting whatsoever. I understand if you're watching porn specifically to take care of business, but I don't quite understand the appeal of erotic cinema outside of that purpose. I have no problem with the nudity, I just find panning up and down naked bodies while they writhe around to be very uninteresting. I guess I'm in the minority here because I know Vinegar Syndrome's porn and Synapse's Nikkatsu Roman Pornos with titles like Rape Teacher: Beaver Diver always sell well.

This is a good looking movie with some nice cinematography, good atmosphere (that is basically wasted), and a beautiful location filled with beautiful women, but unfortunately, I found this one very dull for the most part, and by the time it does pick up, it's over. It's the rare Italian movie I've listed for sale immediately after viewing it. I will say that the music here by Silvano Spadaccino is actually great; the theme played during the croquet game is one of my favorites. I whistled that for days after watching this. In fact, I'm doing it now. It's a shame such lovely music is wasted on a dud like this. My opinion, skip the movie, buy the soundtrack. 

If you want to check this one out, the 88 Films release is region free (slipcover has sold out officially now, maybe I got the last one). If you don't want to import that version, the Raro version is available on Amazon. The 88 has better picture quality, but the Raro does have some great features of its own.