Recensioni degli utenti

Play Motel is something of a cross between Giallo and your standard sleaze film; as the common Giallo theme of sex is revved up, while the other staple of the genre; namely, murder mystery, is pretty much forgotten about in favour of showing as much skin as possible. As you might expect given that premise, the sleaze factor is amazingly high, and director Mario Gariazzo appears to be trying to imitate the likes of Jess Franco with his sex-heavy plot line. The way that the actual plot is lost under all the skin is actually quite comical, as it's clearly there just to take advantage of the (at the time) popular Giallo sub-genre. But then again, you've got to expect that sort of thing from Italian filmmakers! The plot focuses on a place called 'Play Motel'. Sexual activity is rife there, but unfortunately for the guests; Play Motel has a peeping tom on the premises, and he enjoys snapping pictures of love making couples and then blackmailing the wealthy victims with the threat of making the photographs public. We follow a half-assed investigation into the crimes...

The film has something of a reputation among cult fans for being raunchy, but actually the sex is rather soft considering what can be viewed in similar films. That being said, the film is quite a long way away from being clean; and we still get to see various taboos being broken. The music is what really makes this film what it is, as Play Motel features some of the most ridiculous sounds ever to grace a Giallo. The title song is hardly 'Hotel California', and the way some corny music comes on every time two people are about to get it on works well. Despite being trash, Play Motel actually features a rather decent cult cast. Ray Lovelock is the biggest name with regards to the actors, and he receives decent support from Antonio De Teffè, as well as buxom females such as Enzo Fisichella ('Big Alligator River'), Patrizia Webley (The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance) and Marina Hedman (Images in a Convent). The blackmail plot gets resolved at the end, although it's completely uninteresting. However, this film is really all about smut and sleaze; and on that front, Play Motel certainly delivers!

Eat your heart out, Norman Bates! Your uncanny motel only has a dead mother in the basement whereas, at Play Motel, there's kinky sex, severe blackmail and sadistic killing going on. This movie is a strange little outcast in the wonderful Italian sub genre of gialli. It honestly has a murder-story to tell, but it's more than obviously inferior to the incredibly large portions of rancid, gratuitous and semi-pornographic sex on display! Wealthy persons, mostly married but physically unsatisfied, gather here to make ALL their sexual fantasies come true. This includes dressing up like Satan and nuns, but also S&M and even intercourse with a bottle of champagne! However, these poor little perverts are unaware that the motel is also the home base of a blackmailing-network. Shortly after their visits, the guests receive incriminating photographical evidence of their little sleazy escapades and a demand to pay huge sums of money or else the pictures will be handed over to the media. When murder inevitable follows, the police (unorthodoxly, I may add) instructs a couple of actors to go undercover and infiltrate inside the dubious motel. This is an odd but strangely addictive movie, completely without suspense or surprises, yet extremely entertaining. The murder-plot and the killer's identity are the by far the most predictable I've ever seen, but you never seem to bother about this as the film introduces – oh yes – numerous gorgeous and naked women! The music, particularly the title song that can be heard whenever a couple checks into room number 4, is very catchy and fun. "Play Motel" is 100% pure and genuine TRASH, but a definite must for fans of Italian cult cinema. Hard to find, but give it your best shot (pun intended).

Before all our genitals shrivelled up using the internet, iphones, and other gadgets, people used to pass the time having sex. This is their story.

After a hilariously upbeat theme tune introduction, a middle aged man goes to the Hotel of the title and hooks up with a woman in the bar. The seemingly knowing guy on reception gives them the key to Room 3, a blood red room that contains all manner of kinky equipment and costumes. Plus a two-way mirror so that someone can take pictures and blackmail the clients later. You see that guy dressed up as the devil and unnervingly chewing on that actresses chin - he's a high flying businessman, and that lady dressed as a nun - that's not his wife.

One threatening letter and several kinky blackmail pictures later, and this guy is approaching his lawyer in the first of many scenes that don't make any sense in hindsight. The lawyer is dubbed with one of the funniest voices I've heard in a long time, for the record, so it's good when this guy shows up throughout the film. The blackmailed guy's wife gets wind of the whole deal and goes to the police, where cop Antony Steffen gets involved. Some black-gloved killer also gets involved, as the nun lady gets murdered and the wife soon follows suit while investigating the hotel.

This all sounds like a great set-up for a slash-a-thon, doesn't it? It's a pity that the investigation of the blackmail plot takes precedence, interlaced with endless nudity and liaisons in Room 3. Ray Lovelock and his missus get involved as newlyweds that witness some dodgy happenings and agree to help the police, resulting in his missus tracking down a photographer and taking part in a lengthy nude photo session that's followed by another nude photo session, then a third nude photo session until we get to another naked session in Room 3 involving a bottle of champagne that had me laughing out loud. At this point I was thinking that the killer might be some grudgeful cleaner fed up trying to wash filthy man-fat out of those sheets.

To be honest, although the film does contain about as much nudity as a copy of Razzle, it's not that filthy. My stomach did turn at some of the over-zealous snogging by Marino Mase mind you. Judging by the cheeseball look on Marino's face when he dresses up as a Bishop, I'm pretty sure none of this was intended to be taken as a serious artistic statement. Rather, it's just a parade of naked ladies for you to knock one out to.

Down in the bottom of the barrel of Italian exploitation cinema is the subgenre of shocks and pornography. "Play Motel" aint filled with clumsy inserts of the Joe D'amato school, the actors 'perform' their deeds quite nicely both verbally and otherwise. And the cinematography is top notch. It's really a simple murder/revenge story but pretty well made, I might add. The hardcore scenes are thrown at you within 4 min. but the pace goes down in the last hour...still, a must for jaded fans of Italo smut!! Get the uncut version.

P.S. If anybody read DELIRIUM: Guide to Italian Exploitation Cinema 1974-79, the backphoto of the book (the red devil with horns & a whip + the naked nun) is from "Play Motel".

What kind of fetish do you have? No I don't need you to answer, the movie might have what you need though. Also if you are into Giallo movies with added nudity (and some explicit sex), this also is for you. Although the real stuff is in the deleted scenes department on the disc I have - if the mayhem in the movie wasn't enough for you that is.

The plot is pretty easy to follow, although it begins quite light and gets quite dark quick. Who could be the killer and why? Maybe you can figure that out quick, maybe you don't care. Maybe you just like to watch ... the movie gives you the option how to "enjoy" watching it. Overall decent, if you are into that sort of thing, but nothing with much essence

After finding the dead body of a woman in the trunk of their car, aspiring actor Roberto Vinci (Ray Lovelock) and his girlfriend Patrizia (stunning blonde Anna Maria Rizzoli) are recruited by the police to investigate a motel where the rich and powerful go to indulge in S&M themed sex games.

Play Motel's weak murder/blackmail plot-line just about qualifies this shameless smut-fest as a giallo, but the movie is far removed from the more acclaimed examples of the genre, films that frequently fused sex with violence but rarely allowed the nudity and nookie to be the driving force. Here, death, intrigue and suspense definitely play second fiddle to the abundant bumping and grinding, with even the occasional hardcore shot thrown in for good measure. Argento this is not! Needless to say, the stylish visuals, bloody set-pieces and snazzy soundtracks synonymous with the giallo are completely absent, replaced by an excess of writhing naked flesh, a couple of pedestrian strangulations, and a wonderfully cheesy theme song that kicks in every time the characters get jiggy—which is a lot.

The movie's dreadful narrative and shoddy direction mean that it is unlikely to appeal to serious connoisseurs of the giallo genre, but if the Euro-sleaze of Joe D'amato and Jess Franco has somehow found a way into your collection, then Play Motel, with its bevy of gorgeous babes and copious scenes of kinky sex, should be a no-brainer.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Wow, this movie sucks. Take all of the least desirable attributes of the Giallo sub genre and you get this steaming pile of crap. The characters are gross and boring. The dialogue is cheesy, cheap, and weak. The sex is entirely uninteresting. There are good and bad Giallo films. This is no Argento. Not for me. No thanks.

A blackmail is the spark that starts this movie which, however, turns out to be rather weak even if not completely to be thrown away. Something is saved from the direction and the actors but overall the movie does not reach sufficiency.

"Play Motel" is a very sleazy giallo – a good thriller with generous doses of sex.

"Play Motel" is the name of a motel located in Rome. There's a complex web of deceit and blackmail linked to this motel. People belonging to the upper levels of society are attracted to the Play Motel and are photographed while they are engaged in their "games". Suddenly things get out of control and mainly "models", somehow linked to the blackmail scheme, begin to get murdered.

The investigations are led by Detective Inspector de Sanctis (Anthony Steffen), and he's aided by a couple, Roberto (Ray Lovelock) and Patrizia (Anna Maria Rizzoli).

The film is not just sleazy (featuring even some hardcore scenes), but funny and thrilling as well, featuring the always acid Italian humor. There are many pretty women and the sex scenes are very good (and funny too!). I also like the soundtrack (and in particular the film's theme song – "Play Motel").

Stop by the "Play Motel" and have a lot of fun!

You hear that? That's the sound of the giallo scraping the bottom. Actually, this is part of what had become a general trend in the giallo genre by the late 1970's--rampant softcore (and in some versions, hardcore) sex in the place of the traditional thriller or mystery elements. Gialli always had a lot of sex in them, of course, and as early as "Slaughter Hotel" in 1971 some of them had pretty much crossed into softcore porn territory, but by this time the genre had pretty much passed the point of no return and eventually would be come indistinguishable from the dismal "erotic thriller" genre that is still with us today in Italy and America.

That being said, this movie still has a few things going for it. It does have a genuine plot(even if it's brought to a dead halt periodically for a long sex scene or nude modelling scene). The action centers around the titular "Play Motel" where wealthy customers are being secretly photographed during their rendevouzs and blackmailed, which of course, as it always does, leads to murder. After a body is dumped in the trunk of their car while they're enjoying some "afternoon delight" in the motel, an attractive young couple (Ray Lovelock and Anna-Maria Rizzoli) decide to go undercover and investigate (with the active encouragement of the police--I guess they do things differently in Italy). We thereby get to witness such perverted spectacles as a guy dressed as devil giving it to a prostitute dressed as a nun, and a guy dressed as a priest getting it on with the voluptuous Patrizia Webley (from "Malabimba"). The hardcore version also features Maria Franjese aka Marina Lotar doing what she does best. The plot does hold together surprisingly well, however, given all the momentum-killing sex scenes. This is a better movie than the the similar "Sister of Ursula", released the same year (although, for better or worse, it does lack the tasteless "death by dildo" plot). It's certainly better than the vast majority modern-day erotic thrillers even if it's pretty damn lame for a giallo.

This is probably Ray Lovelock's worst movie, but it is a rare chance for non-Italians to see Anna-Maria Rizzoli, who otherwise appeared only in obscure Italian sex comedies that never made it out of Italy. She has a great body,of course, but also is genuinely pretty--more in the class of Edwige Fenech or Femi Benussi than that of her sexy but skanky co-stars Webley and Lotar. The movie is definitely sleazy, but not THAT sleazy, which might be good or bad depending on what you're looking for.

Following a series of scandalous revelations, a high-ranking member of society enlists a police officer to get to the bottom of a potential blackmail plot enacted against him, forcing him to look into a particular motel renown for their sleazy goings-on where a killer is lurking to knock off the clientele.

This may work as an immensely kinky and sleazy sexploitation-filled giallo but there's not much else to this one. As that demonstrates, the film serves as pretty much a constant cavalcade of bare flesh and elaborate, ornate kink-styled sex scenes upon which a murder mystery takes place on the outskirts of the story. Most of the film's sense of energy and enthusiasm is spent on the scenes at the particular motel where the couplings feature a devil and a nun, a lion-tamer and a lion, and various other getups that are based on explicit sexual fantasies. That extends to the hardcore nature of these scenes as well, with full-on penetration visible in many of the scenarios while the vigor and enthusiasm expected are matched by the performances given there even if the laughably unerotic licking and tongue-flapping that constitutes the film's idea of kissing to come off immensely unerotic. Even with the photoshoots and adult content frequent throughout here for even more full-scale nudity and eroticism, it's clear that was the main goal here. This is a bit unfortunate as there's the potential for more fun to be had here but it comes up somewhat short. The main setup here, involving the couples being blackmailed and targeted for their visits and preferences for what went on at the motel, has the potential to be a patently fun commentary on the hypocrisy of morality against the elite of society. However, this is glossed over for a weak murder mystery where this idea is never really explored as the endless sex scenes eat up the chance to fix that as this forgets the blackmail plot for large sections of time. Even worse, as a murder mystery, this one comes up short as there's not much in the way of a body count which means very little blood or gore is featured as the somewhat half-hearted stalking scenes never get the chance to build up a head of steam. With an infectious if inappropriate song over the top of the sex scenes ruining the atmosphere further, these factors are what bring this down.

Rated X: Continuous Graphic Full Nudity, Hardcore Sex Scenes including toy-play and penetration, Language, and Violence.

"Play Motel" is a very rare giallo that features Ray Lovelock in a tale of a Motel that has a playroom designed for more interesting sexual liaisons.The place also makes a habit of photographing the sexual encounters and blackmailing the parties involved.Add to this a black gloved killer and some hard core inserts and you have one of the weirdest giallos your ever going to see."Play Motel" by Mario Gariazzo mixes giallo,crime and comedy with plenty of hard core sex.The music is pretty bad,however the addition of black gloved killer is a nice touch.Ray Lovelock and Annamaria Rizzoli are very enjoyable as the two lovers.Overall,I loved this ultra-sleazy giallo and you should too,if you are into Italian smut.9 out of 10.