"Slaughter Hotel"

Oh, man....over three months since the last post? Get regular, Lance. Regular, like after a good dose of Haley's M-O. Regular, man.

"Slaughter Hotel" is a giallo from 1971, directed by Fernando diLeo, known much more for his Italian crime pics than anything giallo. I'm not sure if he made any other gialli, but this one....is....interesting.

All the standard pieces of gialli are present in the movie, but at best, they're clumsily put together. It's almost as if diLeo, et.al. had a checklist to go down and make sure requirements were met. What we get is a film that's shaky in structure but does have some nice moments....along with some embarrassing ones.

The nice moments are mainly in the photography itself. The movie takes place in a "rest home," a mental hospital for disturbed young women, all of the Italian giallo "hottie" persuasion. Rosalba Neri and Margaret Lee are standouts in this particular category. Lots of gratuitous nudity and inserted shots of masturbation, in a couple of instances. You can tell it's not the actual actresses involved in this, and you can also hear an off-camera producer yelling "I needa more-a play-with-herself-a!" (Well, figuratively.) Frankly, after viewing the movie, I felt like I needed a bath.

So, back to the photography. The setting is a nice sort of castle-converted-to-group home, although, oddly, there is a room full of medieval torture devices, including an iron maiden and various knives and axes. Just the thing to have in a home for the loony. Klaus Kinski stars but really doesn't have a whole lot to do. He's the definite red herring with his hair styled the way it is (I'm not giving away anything there, believe me), and he plays a good guy. Imagine, a loony bin, with Klaus Kinski as the kindly doctor. Wow.

So, all in all, I'll say that this is one of the most uneven movies I've ever seen. It's worth watching for the good stuff, especially if you're a giallo fan, but many scenes, in particular the reveal-of-the-killer resolution, are almost eye-rollingly bad. I give it 2 1/2 out of 5. It's a 50-50 proposition at best, but I'd be willing to bet I'll watch it again someday.

Here's a soundtrack snippet: