Hotel Inferno

My quick rating 4,8/10. Pretty silly plot with some non-existent acting. That really isn't the point of this movie, the point is to watch what is a first person shooter game that has been put on celluloid (OK, old term, but I am old). This movie is over the top with completely fake looking gore and stupid bad guys, just like a game. That is the novelty and that is the only place it gets points from me, beyond that, this movie sucks. Watch it for that reason alone, don't laugh when you hear the main character speak, he is supposed to sound like a moron. Not worth typing enough,even for IMDb today,so enjoy,or don't, up to you. Guess I changed my mind, this was enough for IMDb, short and sweet....

I abso-bloody-lutely loved Necrostorm's first movie Adam Chaplin, directed by and starring Emanuele De Santi, but was rather disappointed by their follow up, Taeter City, which was helmed by Chaplin's special effects man Giulio De Santi: it tried hard to impress, but simply didn't work anywhere near as well as a whole, despite once again featuring tons of superb splatter. But I'm a generous kind of guy, always willing to give a film-maker a second chance to impress, and with Hotel Inferno, impress me De Santi most certainly has. As Yoda might say. If he watched gore films.

Shot entirely in first-person POV, Hotel Inferno is quite unlike anything I have ever witnessed before. Sure, I've seen first-person POV employed sparingly in films like Doom and House of the Dead, but never has it been used as fully or so effectively as it is here, the viewer being fully immersed in the action from start to incredibly bloody finish. Quite how De Santi pulls off some of his technical trickery is simply mind-boggling, the whole film feeling like one long take during which numerous foes are dispatched in graphic fashion by the film's anti-hero Frank Zimosa, the hit-man through whose eyes we witness the action.

Zimosa (Rayner Bourton) has been hired by mysterious businessman Jorge Mistrandia (Michael Howe) to kill a couple currently staying in a fancy schmancy hotel in some strange, unspecified foreign country. Mistrandia, who keeps in contact with Zimosa via high-tech glasses that relay everything the hit-man sees, insists that the kills be carried out in a ritualistic manner with specific weapons. Always the professional, Zimosa obeys, but becomes concerned when his second intended victim displays some worrying symptoms before he has even been touched, spewing blood and pus all over the bathroom while mumbling about 'She' being 'fed on pain'. Suspecting that something is seriously wrong, the hit-man decides to split, but Mistrandia has other ideas and sends other killers to prevent Zimosa from leaving the hotel.

What follows is an hour and a quarter of extreme, jaw dropping brutality, with the plot taking strange turns into the world of the occult, pitting Zimosa against an army of deformed zombie-like creatures and—in the manner of the video games that it so closely emulates—an end-of-level boss that is super powerful and seriously freaky. Admittedly, the film loses focus in the final act and feels a little longer than it really needs to be, but overall this is a very impressive piece of horror cinema—innovative, exciting, and oh-so-incredibly-gory!

This 2013 movie titled "Hotel Inferno" definitely was something else. It was unique, to say the least.

I hadn't heard about it prior to now in 2021, as I had the opportunity to sit down and watch it. So I wasn't sure what to expect from the movie, though I can't really claim that I was overly thrilled about reading that the movie was filmed in first person point of view.

But still, it was a movie that I hadn't already seen, so of course I sat down to watch it. Especially since I am a big fan of horror movies, and I must admit that the movie's cover was actually sort of interesting.

While the 2013 movie from writer and director Giulio De Santi was watchable and something else in comparison to many other movies, then I just had a hard time really getting into the movie. Why? Well, I suppose it was the first person point of view, mixed with a fairly bland storyline and rather dubious special effects.

Sure, the movie had the heart and spirit in the right place, but the execution - pardon the pun - of the movie's transition from script to screen just didn't really manage to impress me.

There is a good amount of blood and gore in "Hotel Inferno", but sadly the special effects were not overly impressive, and definitely hadn't the feel or look to it for a movie made in 2013. Nay, it felt more like a low budget movie from the early 1990s.

For a horror movie then "Hotel Inferno" was just somewhat of a bland experience. This is not really a movie that I would put on top of the to-watch-list, as there are far better movies out there that would provide you with an abundance more enjoyment and entertainment.

My rating of "Hotel Inferno" lands on a bland five out out ten stars. The movie was watchable, and definitely had some interesting aspects to it, but ultimately writer and director Giulio De Santi just didn't deliver something outstanding here.

As it stands right now, all of the reviews from this movie are 1 star or 8-10 stars. All of these people are wrong.

For starters, this movie plays out exactly like a fist person shooter video game. The tropes, the dialog, and obviously the camera angle and movement. There's little doubt what this movie is supposed to be and, in all honesty, it does it rather well. The whole first person thing has been tried to a much more limited extent in some movies. House Of The Dead and Doom come to mind. But in these movies it was more for the movie's denouement...a final showdown. In Hotel Inferno it's done throughout and it's kind of enjoyable.

This isn't without it's drawbacks. The camera is jumpy, the dialog is on-par with a video game, and it lacks a bit of continuity. You'll find a 10 minute action sequence ended just to have some exposition on what happened and what will happen next. Again, exactly as you would in a video game. It's like finishing a mission and waiting for a cut scene to tell you what you did and what to do next, except it's a movie. This gets a bit old even if you follow the premise.

For a movie with this budget the special effects are actually quite well done. Gore fans will undoubtedly appreciate the over-the-top violence and gore and others will probably just laugh at the preposterousness of it all. Either way, the special effects team absolutely did the most with what they had.

All in all it's a relatively enjoyable movie if you know what you're in for (and have a six pack of your preferred adult beverage available). It's something a little new but absolutely not without it's flaws. Is it perfect? No. Is it a bit of fun to watch with some friends? Absolutely.

This movie got a handful of bad reviews, but I guess different people look for different things in films. I like 1) creativity 2) atmosphere 3) Uniqueness. This movie has all things I like in a good horror movie. The gore is an A+ effort (of course, Necrostorm never fail on this front), a truly individual story and characters that are fresh. Never in my life before have I seen (or heard) people who speak like this, but I mean that in a good way - It gives the film it's own feel. I've owned this a few months and watched it repeatedly, it never fails to entertain. If you are a fan of Necrostorm but not seen this, it's better than Taeter City and on a par with Adam Chaplin. The story isn't particularly complex, but I don't think that matters here. This is simply a tale about a man falling into trouble and trying to find his way out. No more to it than that. Except he get's out of it using extreme violence! Fun! Watch it.