User Reviews

You know how you can tell how scuzzy 1979's Play Motel is? I had a hard time finding a SFW poster to share along with this article. The giallo genre has the tendency to veer toward the seamier side of the tracks, but this one jumps into the filth, rolls around on it and then never takes a shower.

Patrizia and Roberto (Ray Lovelock, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Murder Rock) are a married couple who've just stayed at the Play Motel, a no-tell motel where couples meet up for "adult encounters." Kind of like DJ Island, the swinger's club on the outskirts of my hometown where the high school English teacher who told me I'd never become a writer overdosed on Viagra in the hot tub.

They discover the body of Maria Longhi, a famous man's wife, in the trunk of their car. After calling the police, they discover the body has been moved. Following giallo tradition, our heroic couple decides to help the police with the case.

We get to see some of the scenes within the Play Motel, like a couple where the man dresses like the devil and his lover dresses like a nun. There's some blackmail too, along the way. Just where the film seems like it's becoming a mystery story, it decides to throw in a ten-minute long love scene. To the shock of the film's leads, the producers inserted hardcore scenes into the film upon release, which I've only seen in one other giallo - The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, which also features Patrizia Webley. There's also an appearance by adult star Marina Hedman, whose debut mainstream film was in Lucio Fulci's My Sister-in-Law, opposite giallo queen Edwige Fenech.

Is it any surprise that this film comes from Mario Gariazzo, the deranged mind behind the most morally repugnant rip off of The Exorcist I've ever seen - that's a compliment - Enter the Devil?

If there's one nice thing you can take away from Play Motel, it's the theme song. Seriously, it sounds like the most demented Wings song ever. It really feels like it comes from a completely different movie!

Lot of comparisons to D'amato i'm seeing around Play Motel, but at least D'amato films did gore when it could be afforded, the case even in some of his po-nos. No excuse here if this was purely intended as an S&V exploitation film. Play Motel's kills are cheap bordering on pathetic. The Argento references help, but not that much. It astonishes me that that the apex of giallo sleaze, Giallo A Venezia was released (and probably made in) the same year as this. I guess i was setting my expectations a little too high to be expecting another one of those.

Play Motel has a sordid narrative of Forbidden Photos of Swingers Above Suspicion that is all well and exploited for kinky softcore fumbling. However, if this was meant to be nothing but softcore, why the killing? Why the attempted assault? I can excuse the champagne bottle, but why do violence in the first place? And so lazily at that? Zombie 2 had teared the throat out of the box office by then and this film was still playing around with strangulation and squib-less gun shots? Regarding the striking of the iron when it's hot, Hell of the Living Dead (1980) puts this film to shame.

I guess this was the work of that one band of Latin film creatives that had issues with combining sex with violence, and regarding the reasons for it's inception, the film suffers. Sure, there is a Hard cut version, but it's too little. Not that much to salvage today. Play Motel just doesn't hold up as well as other Italio-sleaze of the time.

Too much focus is put into the nonsensical police procedural plot, playing out somewhat like a derivative copy of Pieces with none of J.P Simon's directorial panache supporting it. The only highlight of the film is it's softcore material, veering occasionally into sex set pieces arresting in their elaborate perversity.

It just baffles me why this was not a straight sex comedy and instead a giallo featuring surely some of the most underwhelming murder set pieces of the entire sub-genre. bluh. Just why?

Paying a fair amount of money for a (good looking) HD scan of this skin flick might make me a little bias, but i still feel that there was a fair amount of confusion amongst the filmmakers about who their audience was going to be for their end product. Even so much as to have the producers 'Guccione 'it and shoot the aforementioned hard cut scenes when all the legit cast and crew had gone home. These inserts look quite well put together for an overnight shoot though i must say. You add these scenes with De Rossi level gore and maybe a more cynical screenplay to the picture and we might have had a minor psychotronic masterpiece on our hands.

Alas, we have to settle with such diabolical humour as a disgruntled client telling a call girl to die of cancer. Ahead of their time!

PLAY MOTEL is one of those 70s Italian films that you would figure would come from the film-stable of someone like Joe D'Amato of Jess Franco, or one of the other Italian Exploit Kings- relatively "normal" storyline, with some hardcore sex footage for good-measure. This one plays out like a strange amalgamation of genres, and is often disjointed and hard to follow at times, but the sleaze-level is pretty high, so I dug it in that respect...

The Play Motel has a secret room for more "discriminating" customers where they can take their girlfriends, wives, hookers, etc...for kinky sexual liaisons. They even have costumes and props for their lucky guests. Anyway, what some of the patrons don't know, is that the motel also operates a blackmail ring where suggestive pictures are taken from an adjacent room and then used to blackmail the sex-room's occupants. A businessman, the police, an actor and his girlfriend, a sleazy photographer, a black-gloved giallo-style killer, and a few others are all embroiled in the "mystery" of trying to get to the bottom of the blackmailing ring...

PLAY MOTEL's storyline is often confusing and a bit over-ambitious for what is essentially a sloppy skin-flick - but it works for the most part. Entertaining for all the fur on display if nothing else, and the "mystery" end of it is handled relatively decently. Not a great film by any stretch - but fans of this sort of 70s-era attempt at melding hardcore sex and a "serious" storyline will no doubt enjoy - oh, and the "theme song" and soundtrack in general are priceless...7/10

Finding the 1988 Richard Hatch starring Giallo Dark Bar to be much more enjoyable than I originally had expected,I decided to take a look at the IMDb page for the films writer/director:Stelio Fliorenza.Quickly discovering that Fliorenza is only credited with having worked on a grand total of 6 productions,the main title which caught my attention out of that small group was him being credited as an assailant director for the 1979 movie Play Motel,which credited as being the first ever "modern" "Erotic Thriller".With getting the chance to see this landmark Erotic Thriller,and also getting to see more of Fliorenza's work,I decided to book my ticket for a very special sounding motel.

The plot:

Heading off to work after having an amazing night with a prostitute in a low-rent motel,A leading politician is given the ultimate wake up calls when he is sent a message blackmailing him over secret photos being taken of his meeting with the prostitute.Not trusting that the blackmailers will give him all of the negatives, (the copies of which,have unbeknownst to him been seen by his wife,who has secretly decided to take them to the police.) Mr Shamrock decides to phone up his lawyer for advice on how to progress about safely getting hold of the compromising pictures.As Shamrock contemplates on what his next move should be,a young couple leave the motel after having suddenly got in the mood for some quick "fun".Argueing all the way back home,the couple finally stop arguing with each other,when they hear a load thud in the boot of the car.Slowly opening the boot up,the couple start to wish that they had never gone to the motel,when they discover that the brutally murdered body of a woman has secretly been thrown in the boot of their car.

View on the film:

Whilst writer/director Mario Gariazzo does give a few stylish Giallo flashes,from Ubaldo Continiello's catchy Jazz Pop-Rock songs,to some good,side angle corridor shots of the killer slowly walking up to the victims. Gariazzo disappointingly ruins the potentially increased feeling of fear in the Giallo/Thriller moments,by making them look like they were only included as an after through to extend the running time of the sleazy peeping tom central plot line.Being credited as the first "modern" Erotic Thriller, Gariazzo does show an eye for thankfully going left field in one or two of the otherwise likable (Gariazzo makes sure to fully show off his great looking actresses) "bedroom scenes".For the opening of the film, Gariazzo takes a wicked swipe at all of the priest and politicians by having the prostitute and the politician dress up as a nun and a devil worshipping Catholic priest,along with also showing things that you can do with a champagne bottle that you will hopefully never see at a wedding reception.