Park Hotel Villa Grazioli

Park Hotel Villa Grazioli in Grottaferrata, near Rome, is a historic villa hotel in the Castelli Romani area. The villa stands on the Tusculum hill, surrounded by gardens and views towards Rome, and combines the atmosphere of a noble country residence with the formal interiors of an old Italian estate. Its frescoed rooms, entrance court, terraces and secluded hilltop setting have made it useful for productions needing aristocratic interiors, a period residence, a care institution or a Gothic villa outside the city.

Park Hotel Villa Grazioli has appeared in several Italian productions, including Kill, Baby, Kill (1966), The Marquis of Grillo (1981), Nosferatu in Venice (1988), The Dew Point (2023) and the Italian television drama The Long Night (2024). The location has been used in very different ways: as a haunted Gothic residence, as part of a historical comedy, as a residential care home and as a stand-in for a political residence connected to Fascist-era Italy.

In Kill, Baby, Kill (1966), Villa Grazioli is used as Villa Graps, the sinister residence connected to the ghostly curse haunting the village. The villa’s façade and interiors give Mario Bava’s Gothic horror film an aristocratic and decaying atmosphere, turning the elegant country house into a place of fear, secrets and supernatural menace. Its rooms and exterior help create the film’s dreamlike horror style, where beauty and death are constantly close together.

In “The Marquis of Grillo” (1981), Villa Grazioli appears in scenes connected to the aristocratic world of Onofrio del Grillo, played by Alberto Sordi. The villa’s entrance court and frescoed interiors fit the film’s 19th-century setting, giving the comedy a real historic backdrop for its mixture of privilege, satire and social games. The grandeur of the location works well with the film’s portrait of noble status and absurd behaviour.

In Nosferatu in Venice (1988), Park Hotel Villa Grazioli is used as Nosferatu’s derelict villa on the Isola dei Cani. Late in the film, the story moves to this decaying refuge, where Nosferatu draws Maria into his world and the vampire plot reaches its tragic final stage. The villa’s then-dilapidated condition gives the scenes a genuinely ruined and haunted atmosphere, with the old aristocratic building appearing far more abandoned and menacing than it does today. This makes Villa Grazioli especially effective in the film, not as a polished noble residence, but as a collapsing Gothic hideout where Venice’s supernatural curse reaches its end.

In “The Dew Point” (2023), Villa Grazioli is used as Villa Bianca, the residential care home where the young characters are sent. The villa’s historic exterior and interiors give the institution a distinctive and slightly removed atmosphere, far from an ordinary modern facility. This makes the location feel both beautiful and controlled, which suits a story about isolation, punishment and the difficult emotional world of the teenagers placed there.

In the Italian television drama The Long Night (2024), also known as La lunga notte, Park Hotel Villa Grazioli is used as a stand-in for Villa Torlonia, Benito Mussolini’s Roman residence during the final days of Fascist power. The villa’s formal rooms and historic atmosphere help create the sense of an official private residence, where political collapse is seen through domestic and institutional spaces rather than only through public events.

Kill, Baby, Kill (1966)

Nosferatu in Venice (1988)

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