A Priest's Tale

Did you like A Knight's Tale? Like, did you LOVE A Knight's Tale and think, in your wildest fantasies, that most of the cast and crew should reassemble for another movie, only this time, it should be a super serious Catholic-themed thriller with terrible CGI?

Boy is it your lucky day!

Quick Plot: Alex (William Thatcher, I mean, Heath Ledger) is a sad priest, possibly because he's forced to be celibate but is also Heath Ledger and therefore one of the most handsome men in the world who should be able to have sex with anyone in the world. When Father Dominic, his mentor, commits suicide, Alex is sent to Rome as one of the last of the Carolingians, an order (or, excuse me, THE Order) specializing in demons and the supernatural. 

Alex is joined by his fellow Carolingian/squire, Thomas (a pre-Robert Baratheon Mark Addy) and Mara (Shannyn Sossamon), a woman Alex once successfully performed an exorcism on. Mara has spent the last few years recovering in a mental asylum, but that's done nothing to dampen her good looks or artistic ability. Also involved in Alex's case is a cardinal named Driscoll, who just so happens to be next in line to be pope.

So what exactly is a ridiculously handsome and moody priest looking for? Why, a SIN EATER, of course.

Yes, I said "sin eater," and you should get used to it because a LOT of people in this movie say "sin eater" and it never quite sounds right, no matter how seriously they say the words "sin eater."

A sin eater (not gonna stop) is a man/demon who can relieve someone on their deathbed of their evils (or, you know, EAT THEIR SINS), thereby granting a non-worthy heretic a bypass into heaven. Because of his handiness with the supernatural and presumed ridiculous good looks, Ledger's Alex essentially becomes headhunted to take over the position (that of sin eater). 

Written and directed by Brian Helgeland (yes, the guy who did A Knight's Tale), The Order is a movie in desperate need of a sense of humor. Casting one of Hollywood's leading heartthrobs only to saddle him with a priest's collar and moodiness that makes Jon Snow look like a party boy isn't the best place to start, and the "are they serious about this?" levels of CGI incompetence doesn't help. 

Things do admittedly perk up int he film's final act, with the introduction of an underground zany devil's playground and unleashed Peter Weller. It's unfortunately too little, too late to make The Order any kind of real fun, but it does justify having the film on in the background while you fold laundry or eat cheese or stream A Knight's Tale on another device. 

High Points

It's completely unreasonable, but I'm giving this movie 9000 bonus points for casting John Karlsen in the role of "Eden's Manservant". Karlsen, you see, plays the king in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure but more excitingly, plays Blossum, the manservant to Phinneas T. Prune in the best/worst Christmas movie ever made (and now featured, finally, on Mystery Science Theater 3000), The Christmas That Almost Wasn't. 

Low Points

I forgive the octopi-like CGI because it at least adds some laughs to the otherwise extremely blah pace, so my low point? the otherwise blah pace

But I mean, that CGI...

Lessons Learned

Being in a mental asylum should never hold your eyebrow grooming back

Only doctors can identify if something is a birthmark

Never drink wine with Caravaggio

Rent/Bury/Buy

I watched The Order via HBO Go, but it really feels like the kind of flick best viewed with commercials on TNT. It's not good, but I guess it's somewhat different from what you might expect of the time. And you know, if A Knight's Tale is your jam, I would guess this was made to be your peanut butter, only without a Queen soundtrack holding it all together. 

Loony Bin? More Like a BOOBY Bin

My Netflix DVD queue has become something of a weekly grab bag. With over 300 films on the list and full access to both Instant Watch and Amazon Prime, I tend to just shuffle the rarer, harder to find or "Very Long Wait" titles to the top and let myself be surprised by what arrives in the mail. More often than not, I have no memory of adding something to that queue, possibly because in my 34 years, I've slaughtered quite a few brain cells watching, well, the kind of movies like Slaughter Hotel.

Is that such a bad thing?

Quick Plot: Welcome to Europe's sexiest mental asylum, aka a "rest home" for attractive women with lots of money, some mental issues, and very little clothes. Among the scantily clad patients are:

- a shy young woman trying to get better and counting on the help of a sexy new nurse

- a nymphomaniac who seduces the resort's gardener as a way to help her deal with being madly in love with her brother

- an unhappy wife whose brutish husband stops the car just long enough for her to exit before speeding away without a word

- a married business owner whose relationship is in question due to her newfound, totally professional, totally understandable love of her psychiatrist, played by Klaus Kinski

Yes, you are correct in immediately saying, "You know your mental hospital isn't quite the best if the doctor in charge is played by Klaus Kinski." The fact that the entire place is decorated with medieval torture devices is an additional clincher, one made even better by the presence of John Karlsen.

I know, most of you are swooning with glee, providing you paused long enough to read this in between chapters of your John Karlsen erotic fan fiction. For the few out there who don't recognize, the name or soul-piercing eyes, John Karlsen played Blossum in 1966's The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, easily one of the weirdest/greatest holiday specials to ever include a plot about Santa Claus not paying his rent and singing a not creepy at all song called "What Are Children Like When They're Wide Awake?" More fittingly, Karlsen played the English king in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Yes, the same man who ordered that titular pair to be put in the IRON MAIDEN.

Guys. This movie has an iron maiden. And John Karlsen opens it. 

I can't adequately express how happy this makes me.

Anyway, patients and nurses are brutally slaughtered (mostly in their naked sleep) by a cloaked figure. We have boobs (many), we have blood (a fair amount), and indeed, we do have black gloves touching both. Slaughter Hotel (or any of its other more fitting titles) is indeed a giallo. A very messy, occasionally quite labia-filled one. 

Thankfully, the film and its director, genre regular Fernando Di Leo, are well aware of its shortcomings. It never feels like Slaughter Hotel is trying to do anything but shove attractive women and grisly murders in your face. You don't realize there's a mystery about the killer's identity until the final act brings in a not-so-genius plan to unmask the murderer, and even then, the reveal is less rewarding than the continued chaos and violence that comes after it. Bava, this ain't. Fun trash, it certainly is.

High Points
Between aforementioned iron maidens, ancient swords, arrows, and a handy mace, Slaughter Hotel's murders are quite a varied batch

Low Points
Oh come on. The movie is terrible. What more do you need to know?

Lessons Learned
In the 1970s, it was totally acceptable for a nurse to seduce a mental patient providing foreplay involved a two-hour bath and extended dance party

One can still shed tears after being shot in the head

When trying to trap a violent serial killer in a hospital filled with dozens of civilians, consider blocking all exits or at least hiring faster police officers so that you don't end up with another half dozen murder victims thirty seconds AFTER you've caught the serial killer

Rent/Bury/Buy
Listed as Slaughter Hotel on RareFlixx DVDs, this was a "Very Long Wait" on Netflix's DVD portal. Was it worth it? Not particularly, but if you're a giallo completist or just really like female breasts, this is certainly one to find. I found myself chuckling through most of it, so it's certainly entertaining in one way or another.