WIP Flick: Hotel Paradise (1979)

Hotel Paradise (1979)

HOTEL PARADISE stars Anthony Steffen, Christina Lai, and rumored transexual she-male Ajita Wilson in the sister flick to ESCAPE FROM HELL (both movies were made at the same time with a lot of the same cast and crew). HOTEL PARADISE is an Italian/Spanish production from which parts were used along with parts from ESCAPE FROM HELL to make the U.S. released movie SAVAGE ISLAND which also added scenes starring Linda Blair.

HOTEL PARADISE is the story of a group of female prisoners who join ranks with a group of revolutionaries to infiltrate a jungle prison camp for women used for emerald mining by a corrupt government. The revolutionaries plan, with the assistance of the prisoners, to overthrow the camp and use the gems to finance their revolution.

" Sir, the prisoners are revolting!"

" Then make them take showers."

HOTEL PARADISE, while trying to build an albeit basic story, gets lost in its pacing. It takes too long to build to any kind of satisfactory plot and the poor editing and horrendous dubbing deliver a chaotic story slowly. The sleaze factor expected in WIP flicks, and promised is this, falls into the category of too few and too far between.

Since there are variations on HOTEL PARADISE available on VHS and DVD-R, there could well be sleazier and/or better edited versions available. My viewing was from a DVD-R that had a runtime of 85 minutes. I have seen other DVD-Rs and VHS tapes available that claim to be ten minutes longer.

Overall, I was quite disappointed with HOTEL PARADISE. I would recommend ESCAPE FROM HELL over this easily. ESCAPE FROM HELL is also more generally available and much cheaper.