Very disappointing...

Good concept, poorly executed.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Well, yes, this is a pretty bad Euro-sleaze picture that has liberal doses of blood and murder but far more nudity and sex. Not really all that bad a combination is it? We get an asylum for rich women relaxing, playing croquet, and having fun - only to be visited by a masked, heavy-breathing murderer wielding a variety of medieval weapons. If you are looking for cogent and coherent story here, pass, BUT if you are looking for one of those classic entertaining, sleazy pictures that you could only get from the 70's(and in particular Italian cinema) then sit down and enjoy. The film has a pretty impressive cast from that era of "genre" stars like Klaus Kinski. He does virtually nothing in the movie and I barely noticed he was in the picture at all. True, most of my attention was focused on the female cast, but Kinski does nothing with his role of a doctor helping these women cope with their problems(he does start an affair with one later though). John Karlsen as Professor Osterman does a far better job engaging the audience with his acting skill as the man seemingly running this institution. But make no mistake, it is the female cast that is a veritable buffet for the eyes. First, there is Sara Bay - Rosalba Neri - she went by Bay in the classic sleaze-fest Frankenstein' Daughter where she played a nymphomanical scientist out to create the perfect lover to satiate her carnal desires. She disrobed frequently in that film and does so here. Guess what? In this film she plays a patient with a seemingly incurable disease - nymphomania! What acting range! Who cares. Just look at that black outfit she wears through most of the picture. Then there is Margaret Lee - a beautiful Englishwoman who is no stranger to these types of films and is very integral to the revelation of the denouement. Next we have beautiful blonde and buxom Gioia Desideri as a woman who tries to kill herself(fortunately she later gets some much needed help). There is a hot, steamy shower scene with Neri, but hands down the most erotic aspects of the film deal with a bizarre relationship with Nurse Helen and patient Mara. The way Nurse Helen - Monica Strebel - seduces and ravages Mara with just her delicious blue eyes is a real treat to see. She is so blatant that I was laughing. Then we get the massage scene where Mara has her exotic buttocks caressed for what seemed like twenty minutes. There is more. Both girls are pretty, and we even have Mara do one of her homeland tribal dances or something along those lines. But I digress from the horror of the film, for it does have some. No one dies until 30 minutes into the film. But the opening SUGGESTS a murder will take place. The deaths are interesting though we never really are given a real reason for why they happened. We get sword deaths, death by iron maiden, a crossbow, an axe, and even a scythe. The ending is very bloody and very surrealistic almost as a mace is used with frequency and energy - like the energizer bunny it keeps going and going. Look, this is no great film by any means. It is fun though(on many levels) and somehow keeps your full attention. It does have great atmosphere. It does have lots of eye candy. It does have some wonderful Euro-sleaze music. Before I set down to write this review, I gave it a 5...I have now convinced myself to give it a 6. It might be worthy for you to take a peek.

Fernando Di Leo (known primarily for his Italian crime action thrillers) directed this exploitation flick, set in a posh "asylum" where wealthy wives are "put away" to "get better" by their "concerned" rich husbands. I guess many will consider "The Cold Blooded Beast" (its alternate title is "Slaughter Hotel", which I think is not accurate and misleading) a giallo of sorts. A killer, wearing a black cloak and ski mask (Di Leo mostly shoots him in shadow and off to a distance), is selecting patients to murder and it is up to the viewer to decide who this mysterious psychopath is. Could it be the enigmatic, man-of-few-words Dr. Francis Clay (Klaus Kinski, just as fascinating and tight-lipped as he normally was back during this time in his career), adored by the neglected patient, Cheryl Hume (Margaret Lee)? Could it actually be someone with a deranged psychosis that causes him to lash out at women? The bevy of beauties who populate this locked down institution include Rosalbi Neri (stealing the film as the sultry nymphomaniac, Anne Palmieri, whose illness could derive from her husband's impotence towards her), Jane Garret (as Mara, pretty much abandoned by her parents), and Gioia Desideri (as Ruth, a patient with suicidal and homicidal tendencies). The institution, which looks more like a fashionable resort than a den for lunatics, has medieval devices (not sure why these weapons are used as décor for a place dedicated to wealthy, but troubled wives) the killer will use throughout, such as a dagger, sword, crossbow, iron maiden (!), and spiked ball (used to bash the heads of nurses in one hurried assault as the police are after him!). The violence, to be honest, is off-screen and edited in a fashion not to detail the kind of savagery that seems implied (to be honest, when Di Leo shows the results of the killer's savagery, they are less gruesome than it might appear, such as Rosalbi's fate).This film also features (much to my pleasure) a blossoming lesbian romance between a nurse (the gorgeous, petite red-head Monica Strebel)and her favorite patient, Mara, including a massage and bathtub rub-down, climaxing in a dance and brief, but titillating, love-making session. I was a bit frustrated that Di Leo pulls away from their climax just as it was getting good, but the whole film seems to shy away from "going too far" (all though there are plenty of female crotch shots to our disposal). Neri, to tell you the truth, is the reason to seek this one out—she smolders seductive power and makes love to us through the camera. I tell you I worship every inch of this woman's tantalizing body. Who can fault the gardener for not rolling around with her in the greenhouse?!?! Again, their sex scene only goes to a specific "safe" point, without becoming too softcore. Margaret Lee, who certainly isn't a slouch, also has a scene similar to Neri's final scene, where she writhes in ecstasy on her bed, naked and in a state of bliss, seemingly caught in a fantasy dream. If you like this, then Di Leo doesn't disappoint you. Neri practically makes love to her bed, masturbating, and wallowing around in her sheets like a pig in slop; it is spellbinding if you love the female form. Kinski is as odd in behavior and strange as he needs to be to possibly convince an audience of his perhaps being the killer. With John Karlsen as the chief of the institution, Professor Osterman.

A host of Italian beauties with psychological problems, varying from stress to nymphomania are resident in an isolated country mansion for the mentally disturbed. A masked and cloaked killer is at large within the house, using varieties of medieval weapons that bedeck the walls of the old Gothic mansion, his victims are the both the guests and the nurses, but what is his/her motive? First off, any film that casts Klaus Kinski as doctor in charge of the insane has got to be worth a watch, Di Leo gathers a decent cast of Giallo regulars that also includes Rosalba (Fingers) Neri, Margaret Lee Jane Garret and Monica Strebel, all of whom are happy to get their kit off and let their lustful needs be catered for by whatever means available, for this institution is rather lax in security and it would seem ethics, as staff and patients get together for regular steamy liaisons. The pace is slow to begin with as we are awkwardly introduced to the main characters with some truly atrocious dubbed dialogue, but the killings and sleazy sex that verges of hardcore, soon help relieve that oversight. The Gothic location is superb and adds immensely to the atmosphere with its many medieval weapons, torture devices and suits of armour that adorn its many corridors, very inappropriate for a mental hospital with violent patients freely roaming the building, but this is a giallo and suspension of disbelief is required. There is little in the line of a cohesive plot and as a viewer you won't even care about the identity of the killer, whose motives are left rather unclear when finally revealed, but this is a fun sleazy film, I didn't think I'd like it after about 15 minutes but it soon grew on me. The film other than that has a superb print, but very poor quality sound that seems to have been taken from many copies of the film in an attempt to get any sort of quality. The score by Silvano Spadaccino sounds familiar and its main sinister theme is excellent, some of the lesser compositions seem to be from another film though and don't quite suit the visuals, but I have to say it's a film that is better than the sum of its parts and certainly more entertaining than some reviewers might have you believe.

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.