La bestia uccide a sangue freddo (The Beast Kills In Cold Blood) was made by a director — Fernando Di Leo (Blood And Diamonds) — who claimed that he “didn’t have Dario Argento’s talent of believing in the absurd” and claimed that as he written the script himself “…I knew it would not be a good movie, also because I was dealing with topics that were unusual for me and that I didn’t care about.”
We got it in the U.S. from Hallmark releasing, who first put it out as Asylum Erotica and then Slaughter Hotel, playing on bills with Don’t Look In the Basement and A Bay of Blood. In France, it played as Les insatisfaites poupées érotiques du docteur Hitchcock (Dr. Hitchcock’s Unsatisfied Erotic Dolls), complete with explicit sex scenes cut from even the Italian version. In the UL, it was Cold-Blooded Beast and was 22 minutes shorter.
Blending the moody, black-leather-gloved aesthetics of the post-Argento giallo wave with unbridled Euro-cult sleaze, this movie treats its cast of gorgeous, troubled women and unhinged staff as living art.
It starts with the doors of a sprawling rural estate-turned-psychiatric clinic swinging open. Ruth (Gioia Desideri) is committed by her husband, but little did anyone know that there’s also a hooded killer using whatever historic weaponry happens to be lying around. Even without that killer, the asylum is a pressure cooker of secret desires and psychological torment. We meet Cheryl (Margaret Lee), a patient targeted by her seemingly supportive husband, Mr. Hume (Piero Nistri). While the kindly clinic director Dr. Francis Clay (Klaus Kinski) tries to navigate his growing feelings for Cheryl as she approaches a clean bill of health, the body count starts climbing at an alarming rate.
From an unfortunate nurse decapitated by a scythe outside the greenhouse to a chauffeur locked inside an iron-maiden-esque doom device, the killer works their way through the staff and residents. Nymphomaniac patient Anne Palmieri (Rosalba Neri, obviously not her in the explicit jilling off scene, as that body double has a large scar Neri never had, marring her perfect form) sneaks off for trysts; Nurse Helen (Monica Strebel) indulges in secret romances, and agoraphobic resident Mara (Jane Garret) meets her fate at the bad end of a crossbow. When the authorities finally get involved, the doctors’ disastrous idea to use Cheryl as bait sets off a jaw-dropping finale.
And now, spoilers for a movie that’s 55 years old.
The masked maniac is unmasked as Hume himself, who cooked up an elaborate serial killer cover story to murder his wife, leading to a frenzied, mace-swinging massacre before the police finally put a stop to him.
I love this movie, but come on. What’s not to like? Neri being deranged, Kinski working in a combination mental ward/rich woman getaway, a hospital of sorts with weapons in nearly every room, an iron maiden, Carla Mancini (maybe) as a nurse? It has it all. Italian reviewers said that it was “a despicable film, a true viral agent of moral pollution,” devoid of any meaning” and “grim and pornographic.” Don’t threaten me with a good time!
