Asylum Erotica

Reminds me of less complicated Italian slashers like Bava's 'Bay of Blood'. This film sticks primarily to sex and blood. The plot is unimportant, but easy to pay attention to since it's so sexual in bizarre ways. Flashbacks re-cap all the suggestion you might miss.

Tons of nudity and weapons. It lacks some of the mystery of the Italian greats, but I can't imagine fans not having a blast watching.

"Slaughter Hotel" is quite a perplexing film experience… Not so much because of its brilliance, uniqueness or professionalism but because it's so damn addictive despite being one of the most poorly scripted horror film ever made. This is one giant trashy mess in which story-logic, atmosphere and character drawings have all been skipped in favor of more luscious nudity and sleaze. We're welcomed in a resting home for hot & wealthy ladies, with mental problems going from burnouts to nymphomania. There's a team of strange doctors, unprofessional nurses and even a hunky gardener at these ladies' service to help them get over whatever problems they got. In order to make "Slaughter Hotel" at least somewhat resemble to a giallo, director Fernando DiLeo also introduces a mad-raving murderer, typically dressed in black and using the institution's old-fashioned armory decoration as slashing tools. All put together, this results in extended sequences of females having any form of sex (masturbation, lesbian action or actual sex) before brutally getting killed. The basics of exploitation cinema, maybe, but nonetheless a bad movie with too many tedious moments and totally wasting a great cast. I don't think you're meant to care for the killer's identity as his/her motivations largely remain unexplained at the end. There are a lot of things that don't make the least bit of sense (butt-massages??) and the girls, for some reason, all have extended flashbacks with completely irrelevant contents. I suppose that was done to reach a playtime of 90 minutes. Klaus Kinski looks terrifically vicious with his long blond hair but even his presence can't bring much redemption. The murders are gory (especially the grand finale!) but not the least bit disturbing. "Slaughter Hotel" is worth watching for fans of Italian horror but I'm sure everyone will acknowledge that it's nothing more than a poor man's Sergio Martino, Dario Argento or Mario Bava.

While not as violent as other Italian Giallo/slasher movies of the 70's, Slaughter Hotel is worth a look. The movie centers around a series of murders at a mental hospital for women. We learn all about the patients sexual desires before they are killed off with mediaevall weapons. Plenty of nudity and a pretty bloody ending won't disappoint those who like this kind of entertainment either. A pretty decent cast and good photography and sets also help a great deal. Overall, this is a solid movie.

As a giallo this movie is a real disappointment. The plot is virtually non-existent, the suspense is nil, aside from the widescreen compositions the cinematography is unimpressive, and I'm sure the occasionally interesting score was recycled from a better movie. Klaus Kinski obviously phoned in his performance (long-distance with a very bad connection) and Rosalba Neri (aka Sarah Bay) is pretty much wasted.

On the other hand, if you're looking for softcore porn, this movie is a relative masterpiece. The crisp cinematography is superior to just about anything else in that genre, and you have an elegant Italian instrumental score as opposed to the usual, grating wah-wah synthesizer. The plot may be anemic, but it certainly doesn't interfere with any of the action. Even sleepwalking through their respective roles, Neri and Kinski can act circles around your typical softcore sex performer. Kinski, of course, does not actually perform any sex scenes (which is good--we're talking Klaus here, not Natassia). Neri, on the other hand, has done many sex scenes in much better movies, but I'm confident no one will complain about her scenes here, even if they don't exactly show off her considerable acting talent. As in many European movies, Neri's "solo" sex scene really pushes the line between softcore and hardcore, but in the best possible way. Only the ending is terrible regardless. It comes out of nowhere and will appeal only to fans of medieval weaponry and/or the Richard Speck student nurse murders.

Wow! You ever wonder why you are who you are, and how you got this way? I saw this movie in 1973 when I was 12 years old. Didn't know it at the time, but it was happily inappropriate for a group of impressionable pre-teens. My day camp counselor who was about 17 at the time took us to see this along with a karate flick ("The Hong Kong Cat"). It was classic - the counselor and his girlfriend drinking beer & sitting five rows behind nine raucous and rowdy 12 year olds. Then when the first solo shower scene of one of the inmates comes on, followed by a pretty sizzling interracial lesbian vignette, we were dead silent. "Slaughter Hotel" is a roller coaster ride of wood-inducing soft core action, followed by well, slaughter. There are spots where they try to make sense of the story, but its basically a maniac loose in a hospital where all of the female patients are lusty and attractive. I remember thinking how I could get a job at a place like that? Years later it reminded me of the Richard Speck episode from the sixties, where he killed 8 nurses in Chicago. I got this on VHS from Amazon a few years ago, and it maintains its ability to stimulate. Yeah we were all marked after that movie. We later graduated to hard core flicks on 42nd St in NYC, but I digress..Rent this if you can, and see if doesn't maintain your ah, interest. Klaus Kinski probably removed this from his resume, but I consider this one of the godfathers of there slasher genre.