Slaughter Hotel (aka The Cold-Blooded Beast)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: B-
When people talk about how bold and innovative Roman
Polanski’s Repulsion (1965, reviewed elsewhere on this site) was about
women and sexual anxiety, many of the films that followed on the subject were
independent productions that have been lost to time and especially to
censorship. Fernando Di Leo’s sexual
murder thriller Slaughter Hotel (1971) is one of the better, more
interesting, more effective beneficiaries of that freedom and innovation.
Of course, Alfred Hitchcock and Psycho (1960) in
particular was the bigger groundbreaker, but this film is in color and wants to
go further in the eroticism direction.
Media Blaster’s uncut version here is the film at its most graphic,
though the interesting reverse is that the sexuality is more graphic than the
violence. This received an R-rating in
its time, but would probably get an NC-17 for female nudity. The story is about a mental institute where
the women are all emotionally and sexually challenged in as far as they are all
suffering from nymphomania in various ways.
What could have been a joke or disaster is surprisingly realistic and
not as campy as it might have been. It
gets darker when it turns out there is a killer on the loose who wants to
“punish” them for liking sex.
Klaus Kinski leads the decent cast as Dr. Francis Clay,
who is trying to help them.
Unfortunately, the gardener enjoys sex and for other male staff members,
the temptation might be a problem. In
most cases, the women all seem to be married.
Outside of any jokes of why a husband would want to loose such a wife,
but most of these women are attractive.
That may also hurt the credibility of the film a bit, but the film is
played seriously without the joke-a-minute stupidity we get form films now and
I have to say that made it effective viewing.
Yes, there is some exploitation here and there, but it is minor as
compared to how good and mature the film is.
The sexual parts never get cheesy.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 x 1 image is mixed, in
part because some censored footage is softer than the body of the film, but
cinematographer Franco Villa demonstrates a fine grasp of the scope frame and
that makes this an even more effective film.
Color is consistent for the most part, credited as Telecolor, which
includes interesting uses of color throughout.
There are a good share of sharp shots throughout which will give the
viewer an idea of how good looking the film must have been in its initial
theatrical release. This was shot in
Techniscope, but Telecolor does not seem to be a dye-transfer color process,
but something more like regular single-strip EastmanColor. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is English dub
only and shows its age, but is relatively clean and clear just the same and
Silvano Spadaccino’s score is good, especially the reoccurring sensual piece
that will remind one of laid back Jazz of the later 1960s. Extras include original theatrical trailer,
an alternate sex/pre-murder scene, good director interview, photo gallery and
four more trailers for other Media Blasters product.
I remember seeing this edited and pan & scan on TV
decades ago, but this is 94 minutes and save a couple that may have been lost
with time. Slaughter Hotel is a
cult film that deserves more than cult status.
It deserves serious revisionist thinking as a minor classic of a more
honest time in cinema when it came to sex and violence.
- Nicholas Sheffo
