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“How nice to be sent to a famous loony bin!”
Straddling the lines between the gialli thrillers and softcore romps that were
so popular with mainstream audiences in Italy during the 1970s, Fernando (Milano
Calibro 9) Di Leo's skin 'n' kills movie Cold Blooded Beast (otherwise
known as Slaughter Hotel) features a bevy of beautiful women
inflagranti and in peril, as well as Werner Herzog's notorious performer Klaus
Kinski…
Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more
screenshots…
“You'll have to admit it's a beautiful part of the
country and I believe that'll help you recover quickly – you've got to give it
a chance.” In a mental facility nestled away in the quiet of the
countryside a roster of lonely housewives and rich men's isolated daughters,
exhibiting bourgeois malaise and suicidal flirtations, are being stalked by a
shadowy, cloaked figure who roams the halls of the old villa, plucking all
manner of medieval instruments of death from the display cabinets. Evidently
talk therapy and shiatsu aren't on the menu, and the patients are about to find
themselves up shit creek.
“Killing me is one thing, but why commit suicide?”
The patients of this palatial booby hatch include Anne (Rosalba Neri, Amuck!)
– what would have then been classified a 'nymphomaniac', battling a warped
history of incest; Cheryl (Margaret Lee, Venus In Furs) – the
controlling partner in a family business; and the agoraphobic Mara (Jane
Garret) – whose new nurse Helen (Monica Strebel) has assumed a very
particular interest in her treatment. Some of them may be hard to control –
especially Anne, who is pathologically compelled to rattle the bones of any
male staff members – but the head shrinkers aren't much better. Klaus Kinski (Aguirre
Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo) plays Dr Francis Clay; deemed
'over cautious' by his more laissez faire colleagues in this 'rest home resort'
with 'few regulations', he remains tight-lipped and brooding while subtly
flirting with his patients (never mind that searing Kinski gaze).
“I'm not getting better, because nothing is the
matter. They should know it by now. They all assume that everyone has a mental
illness.” What unfolds is a procession of vice in vaguely connected
scenes as the kills (escalating to nine in the frenzied climax) and the
nookie (occurring with metronomic regularity) go toe-to-toe. The
fleeting murders, including a head being lopped off with swift precision by a
garden scythe, generally lack suspense while the splatter is limited in the
heat of the moment, but with the sheer volume of bared flesh on offer it is
clear to see where Di Leo's attention was most drawn. From the cheesy
titillation of Mara and Helen's encounters, to the more bizarre sensory attack
of Anne cooling off in an omni-directional, white-tiled shower (resembling
some kind of decontamination chamber), the sleaze scale soars –
particularly with a few fervent, gynaecological close ups that were performed
by body doubles drafted-in for extra shooting once the main actresses had
clocked off for the day! Indeed, this was a common practise at the time, the
intention being to sate the appetites of more liberal-minded foreign markets.
“I'm not one of those mad people who need you – I just
want to make love. Make love, that's all!” Written by Fernando Di Leo
and Nino Latino, the depth of the screenplay rarely extends beyond the surface,
doing the bare minimum to justify all the boobs 'n' blood that is paraded
across the screen. It's a shame, because there are some provocative elements
that would have benefited from further exploration. Anne's sordid back story
promises dark acts and emotional revelations to come, but somewhat sputters to
a middling climax. Similarly, Helen's predatory use of her position amounts to
little more than a secret sin. The film cries out for a sub-plot exploring the
ignorance (intended or otherwise) of the clinical staff to Helen's abuse
of trust, but instead we get nothing more than cheap T&A.
“What's the difference between a new love and a new
life?” More interesting, though, is how Cold Blooded Beast is
presented. At times the film seems to suffer the occasional psychotic break of
its own, as we suddenly cut from from one dutch angle to the next in the midst
of an otherwise quiet and controlled sequence. Moreover, on three occasions we
are plunged into strange plot-recollecting montages which take on the role of
fever dreams suffered by a handful of the patients as they writhe in their beds
(naturally, their sweaty, contorted motions reveal them to be nude sleepers).
Accompanied by Silvano Spadaccino's atonal score – all clangs and haunting
echoes – these sequences simultaneously act as flashes of the characters'
madness, but generally feel like padding in the absence of a stronger and more
detailed story.
“Father and Mother were never tender with me – you
were the only one.” Certainly not left wanting for prurient interests, Cold
Blooded Beast lurches into the middle ground of giallo cinema. Doing the
bare minimum to qualify for the genre, it occasionally shows flashes of
inspired intensity such as the fast-cutting murder-a-thon climax, which is
riddled with wide-eyed and sweaty-faced close ups machine-gunning themselves
across your retinas. While few of the cast have much to sink their teeth into,
disciples of beautiful European actresses of the era will find enough to enjoy
themselves. It is an average effort, lacking the tense set pieces orchestrated
by masters of the genre such as Dario Argento and Sergio Martino, but Cold
Blooded Beast at least makes up for its mediocre plot with an excessive
amount of laughably gratuitous nudity and the occasional moment of genuine
nastiness.
“This is the work of a psychopath, a cold blooded
beast, and he's still at large!” The 32nd entry in 88 Films'
“Italian Collection” features a HD restoration of the film from its original (and
uncensored) negative, although certain elements briefly display variable
image quality on occasion. The audio, meanwhile, is a solid presentation in
English or Italian with optional subtitles, but do note that a few short
sections of the film are presented with subtitles as English tracks were
missing for some fragments.
Special Features include a 13 minute interview with
Rosalba Neri from 2017 in which she talks about nudity, Fernando Di Leo, Klaus
Kinski, and Margaret Lee; a 16 minute interview with Silvia Petroni, who was a
script supervisor on many Italian genre films of the time; and there's also an
audio commentary, trailer, and English credits sequence. There's nothing to get
too thrilled about, but there are a few interesting tidbits to glean from them
– mind you, a bit of judicious editing (and trimming down the credit
sequences) would help inject a bit more zip and tidiness into the
interviews.
A similar level of attention to detail would have benefited the
reversible cover art: who is “Leonardo Di Leo”? Since when was “Cheryl Hume” (one
of the character names) a famed Italian actress? And when did Klaus Kinski
appear in the 80's slasher flick X-Ray?! You'd be wise not to look too
closely at the screenshots on the reversible sleeve, too – spoiler city, much?
88 Films do good work, but they are shelling these releases out at a hell of a
rate, and a recent price hike in their standard launch price feels a smidge
unearned when you compare their releases to the consistently more generous
packages provided by Arrow Video.
N.B. Screenshots are not sourced from the disc itself,
so excuse their relative low quality (I don't have a Blu-Ray drive from which
to snapshot them).
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