The Film (4/5)

    I first read about Play Motel only a few short months in Richard Glenn Schmidt's excellent giallo exploration Giallo Meltdown: A Moviethon Diary.  He essentially described the film, as ridiculous, violent, and sleazy affair. He also pointed out that Play Motel had it’s own theme tune, with lyrics (reprinted in the book, seriously buy that book). Needless to say it sounded like the kind of weird crap I am usually in the mood for, and thus was excited to discover that Raro Video would be putting it out to Blu-ray the month after I read about it.

    The film doesn't have much of a story, but basically the "Play Motel" is a motel used by high class individuals to have explicit and kinky sexual adventures outside of the prying eyes of the world. It is owned by Max Ligori (Marino Mase), who secretly photographs his sleazy guests, and then blackmails them with the evidence of their deeds.  The cops are sort of aware of what is going on at the motel, but until a series of murders occurs related to the place, they are not willing to get too involved.  One night, Roberto Vinci (Ray Lovelock, Queens of Evil, Murder Rock) stays there with his wife, and upon departure discover a dead body in the trunk of their car.  They call the police, who get them involved in the investigation in an undercover capacity in an effort to expose the motel for what it is.

    Play Motel is a gleefully sleazy film, if I had to time it, about every ten minutes there is either a murder of some kind, or weird sex. In one particularly memorable scene we have a man dressed as the Pope, having sex with a woman who is acting like one of his parishioners. He ends up covering her genitalia his his beanie.  Seriously, I've seen people complain about a lack of plot in the film, but honestly if you as a viewer are into sleazy Eurotrash, than Play Motel is about as good as it gets. It is slow in parts, but makes up for it with the raunchy strangeness on display.

Audio/Video (2/5)

    Raro Video’s visual work on Play Motel is largely inconsistent, the transfer has some of the DNR related issues that are present in some of Raro's other transfer, but only in certain moments, in other scenes, we have a lot of noise, and black crush, but other scenes have excellent detail, grain structure, and color.

    The Blu-ray comes with an LPCM 2.0 track in Italian, the track is quite solid for the most part. The dialogue is audible throughout, as is the score, and theme tune. There are instances of hissing and popping throughout, however.

Extras (3/5)

    We get a documentary on the film's distributor that once added hardcore bits to the film. We then get the hardcore bits that were excised for a more legitimate released. There is a booklet of liner notes, and a trailer.

Overall

    Play Motel is a fun and sleazy piece of Eurotrash. The Blu-ray has an inconsistent look throughout it’s visaul presentation, and the audio is decent. The one thing I can say is that a lot of the films that Raro releases aren't likely to get legit releases anywhere else. I just wish the wax would stop. Regardless, I have to RECOMMEND the film, that recommendation is a little less so for the disc itself.