Hotel Inferno

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!

Hotel Inferno has massive faults, let's not kid ourselves. It's get terrible foley work, audio dubbing, abysmal dialogue, overacted death sequences, satirical levels of gore (which combined with the overacted death/combat sequences creates an extreme sense of low-budget campy shlock) and pacing that could have been drastically improved with improved editing. But for all of it's flaws, Hotel Inferno is a hell of a horror film that shows glimpses of what it could have been were it put in more capable hands and with a better budget.

Hotel Inferno is like a cross between Hardcore Henry, Doom/Painkiller, Smokin' Aces (but in reverse (imagine it as Buddy Israel trying to escape from the penthouse and going through the hotel floor by floor engaging in CQC with the hitters contracted to kill him, instead of the hitters trying to infiltrate the hotel floor by floor to make it to the top to kill Buddy Israel)), Dante's Inferno, Grotesque, and the Japanese Guinea Pig/American Guinea Pig series.

There's an absurd amount of blood, gore, viscera and violence. Much of the violence is very obviously digitally edited, but there's also a bucket load of practical FX which are actually quite impressive compared to a lot of the type of ridiculous stuff you often find in most 'transgressive' cinema movies like Visceral, ReGOREgitated Sacrifice, Serbian Film, August Underground,Todesking, Schramm, Necromantik, Begotten, films by Marian Dora, et al. etcetera etcetera. Unlike those previous movies though, Hotel Inferno has a very video game-like presentation, execution, and narrative. It's all done entirely in the first person like Doom, Painkiller, Agony or even the Outlast games, and much like those various titles it's about a person engaging hordes of hitmen/grunts/demonic entities/zombies/monsters/eldritch terrors and trying to survive them as said person makes their way out of the hotel they find themselves trapped in after a contract doesn't go at all as initially planned.

Despite the poor dialogue and bad accents, Hotel Inferno is an addictive watch because it shows a lot of great potential and much of the gore and effects are definitely adequate enough to sate any true gorehound's cinematic bloodlust. This is the type of bloodfest you invite your friends to watch with you, and unlike films like Visceral or Serbian Film where there's aberrant sexual behavior involved, you don't have to feel weird or awkward at what you're watching around other people. There's an excellent shotgun sequence at the 50-51 minute mark of the movie as well as a lore/exposition monologue in the 'Room of Flies' shortly after at the ~53 minute mark that are two of the most memorable parts of the film and will definitely have you and your peeps talking about them long after the movie is over.

6/10, looking forward to the sequel and honestly I'd like to see this same movie done by a studio with a bigger budget and a better script. It's definitely aching for that Triple AAA high-dollar indie treatment, and in the right hands this could be horrorcore's answer to everything Hardcore Henry failed to deliver (as dope as Hardcore Henry may be, i think most of us wish it was a tad more 'hardcore' and would live up to its titular adjective).

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.

Everything about this is bad. The acting, the lighting, the sound, the camera "work", the "special" effects, the props, the costumes, the dialog, the script and the entire basic idea for this "project". Another reviewer mentioned the soundtrack and while that didn't stand out for me as being as horribly bad as the rest of it, never once did I think "hey, pretty cool soundtrack".......... The only people who should ever see this are those who participated in making it and they should be made to watch it over and over again for the rest of their lives. This item has no redeeming qualities unless you are a fan of very bad attempts to make something worth watching. I am running out of ways to describe this without using the words "film" or "cinema" or "movie" because it is none of those things. If some 4th grade kids made it I would give them an A for effort. If 5th grade kids made it I would flunk them. There is absolutely no reason why anybody should watch this. There are far more entertaining "bad productions" to watch. I sat through this so you don't have to. Believe me now or you will regret wasting your time and you will say "Yep, that guy on IMDb was right. I really wish I would have listened to him".

Clearly inspired by Hardcore Henry (2016). This is a first person view flick the whole time were we follow a killer going on a hunt in a hotel but becomes the hunted.

The director Giulio De Santi is known for his gory cult flick Adam Chaplin (2011) but this one here is a rather boring flick. The story is very simple and the last twenty minutes it's all talking and explaining. So for people who want to see a good old horror, forget it BUT of course this flick do deliver on the gory stuff.

To be honest, you only watch it for the gore, smashing heads, shooting heads, stabbing, breaking bones, explosions on bodies, you get it, one for the gorehounds.

Sadly, I don't have a prob with ultra gore but you need a story to keep you attracted to the screen but as I said, gorehounds will love it. For me it didn't deliver what I thought it would e, weak story, strong on gore.

Gore 5/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 0/5 Comedy 0/5