Death Smiles On A Murderer [Blu-ray]

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The production of Death Smiles on a Murderer is top notch and the Arrow Video release looks stunning. The film is filled with atmosphere, due in no small part to beautiful costumes and set pieces. The movie takes place at the start of the 20th century and everything captures the essence of the period. The movie does not just rely on visual cues as seemingly innocuous moments are indicative of the time. Italian horror movies are known for their excellent use of color; director Joe D’Amato instead decides to use historical accuracy and succeeds in setting the mood for the movie.

Meanwhile, Doctor Sturges is working in his underground laboratory. The medallion's symbols contain a formula for the creation of life. Just as Sturges succeeds in bringing one of his corpses to life, he is strangled by an unseen assailant, who also kills the corpse and the doctor's deaf lab assistant. Smiling on the Taboo: Sex, Death and Transgression in the horror films of Joe D'Amato, new video essay by critic Kat Ellinger In some ways Massaccesi was making zombie films long before his more celebrated entries, and it is interesting to see Greta as somewhat of a forebear of George Eastman's almost immortal monster in Absurd, both created in obscure ways and then unleashed on the countryside to wreak havoc! And in both films it is kind of unclear as to what the killers get out of their actions except in a way simply to fulfil the needs of the film for spectacular death scenes! Even Greta's seemingly understandable quest for revenge is complicated by encompassing so many other tangentially related victims, such that it seems out of control and rather broad in scope, and maybe prepares us for the brother's actions unleashing this but finding his creation bearing its own grudge against him (so in a way the incestuous brother here is like the rather ineffectual priest in Absurd, feeling a responsibility to chase after the monster after apparently having created it, but unable to do anything more than arrive at the scenes of the crime too late to be of any use. Though Edmond Purdom's priest in Absurd is just as much a version of Donald Pleasance's, again mostly ineffectual, character from Halloween). Before Joe D’Amato became Joe D’Amato, he was Aristide Massaccesi, a respected cinematographer and camera operator. As such, he was largely responsible for the look of films ranging from low-budget spaghetti westerns to gialli such as Umberto Lenzi’s A Quite Place to Kill and, most famously, Massimo Dallamano’s What Have You Done to Solange. Massaccesi first co-directed several small films before directing the war film Heroes in Hell as well as the giallo Death Smiles on a Murderer, both in 1973.Death Smiles on a Murderer (aka La morte ha sorriso all’assassino) is a complicated film. With one foot in expressionistic storytelling and the other in straight narrative (however broken it may be), the two don’t necessarily mix all that well. It’s an interesting film in that you spend much of your viewing time trying to make heads or tails of the plot with one curve ball after another being thrown at you, but it takes some time to try and piece together, even requiring multiple watches to do so. This girl is, of course, Greta. Is she alive? Is she dead? What is clear is that she came like an angel of death. Her arrival will unleash a death carnival. What could have been a tawdry piece of European horror/thriller cinema is instead fighting hard to be seen as a work of art. Death Smiles on a Murderer may not be on most genre fans’ radars, but it’s certainly one of the more interesting films that its director ever made. Arrow Video’s Blu-ray release of it is certainly a major step up above all others before it, offering an excellent A/V presentation and quality bonus materials. A haunting and dreamlike gothic horror/giallo hybrid, Death Smiles on a Murderer is a compelling early work from the legendary sleaze and horror film director Joe D Amato (Anthropophagus, Emanuelle in America), here billed under his real name Aristide Massaccesi. A man discovers an ancient Incan formula for raising the dead, and uses it for a series of revenge murders.

Great comments M Sanderson, especially on the mournful atmosphere! It is interesting that both this and Beyond The Darkness are about people being unable to let go of someone long dead, and end up being destroyed by their memories of their cruelty to a person almost as much as by the monster itself! Which is why despite its general irrelevance to the rest of the film I quite like the material with Kinski and especially the truly tormented by weirdly tangible memories of some past trauma (with the shotgun to the face bluntly literalising the threat!) maid. After Eva's funeral, Herbert stays behind to visit Greta's grave. Greta comes up from behind and reminds him of their baby's prenatal death. When she asks for a kiss, her face again suddenly turns rotten. Herbert, terrified, attempts to escape. He seeks refuge inside a crypt. When the door suddenly shuts tight, Eva's freshly laid corpse slowly gets up and walks towards him. Ewa Aulin as Greta is really perfect for the role of the strange girl who continues to suffer ill fate even after her death. Aulin has a unique look—pretty, but not the classic beauty of an Barbara Bouchet or an Edwige Fenech. It’s a strange look, perfectly suited to this strange character. Luciano Rossi also has a strange look. Indeed, it is so strange as to stretch one’s imagination that he would be able to carry on a love affair with a pretty girl, sister or not. Then there is the ancient Incan ritual, completed by the use of an amulet to raise Greta from the dead. But Klaus Kinski, as Dr. Sturges, who looks after Greta until her death, discovers an alternate method via mysterious chemical concoction, as opposed to needing the mystical amulet. With five words I describe the overall plot, the scene writing, the acting, the sequencing, love scenes, violent scenes, special effects, music, and all else and everything in between. The halfway mark rolls around and whatever advancement there has been in the narrative up to that point has been not just minimal in the first place, but further feels flat, hollow, and flimsy in light of the film's craft from all angles. D’Amato’s camera work is also great. Shots are framed beautifully, allowing the audience to see the full scope of the movie’s beauty. Even the typical mysterious killer point of view shots are done in a way that showcase how the movie looks. D’Amato does occasionally do more than what is needed. There are some rapid cutscenes that are more headache inducing than fear inspiring, but overall it is a good job of directing.

There are some fantastic shots in this late section of the film that feature 'in camera' time transitions. One is at the end of the manservant being killed in the grain silo as we get a shot of him falling onto the (fantastically artfully pre-composed) blood pool and then in the same shot pan up to see the police inspector standing there. The other is after the brother is clawed to death and we get a shot of Greta pulling her hood up and smilingly walking out of the tomb, before the police inspector walks into the now cobwebbed three years later tomb to see the dessicated corpse of the brother lying there. Perhaps this is a different spin on a technique used with some of the shots earlier in the film which Tim Lucas in his commentary notes start off as seemingly objective and the become subjective (and I love the way that Lucas notes that second transition from the tomb past to present "spans the timeframe of the entire film in a single movement"). It is an interesting technique and one that interestingly had a bit of a resurgence recently with the parallel action, past and present action, pristine past versus cobwebby grimy present time period swapping going on throughout the Saw series! Questions, questions, questions – you’ll be filled with them throughout this film and even by the time it finishes if you’re not paying attention. Even if you’re able to put the pieces together – and that’s not too easy to do because its story is told in a sometimes non-linear, even obtuse fashion – you my still ask yourself “how”? and “why”? with regard to a few details. One of several Italian Gothics made during the early 1970’s that brought in elements of the giallo to try to revive a declining-in-popularity form [I reviewed Arrow Video’s release of The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave a while ago], Death Smiles On A Murderer is a decidedly arty venture, rich in dreamlike atmosphere, unusual editing and stylised camerawork, which for me makes it something of a surprise that the person credited with directing and co-writing this film is Joe D’Amato. D’ Amato is probably best known for the ‘video nasties’ The Anthropophagus Beast and Absurd, though I have fonder memories of sitting through his soft porn Eleven Days Eleven Nights trilogy as a teenager [so what, I was privileged to be able to hire out anything I wanted from my local video shop, they just didn’t seem to care]- again – and again – but enough about that. He’s more known as a sleaze merchant than a good filmmaker, but Death Smiles On A Murderer may surprise you with its quality and certainly with its artistic inclinations. It certainly surprised me and may have caused me to re-evaluate this director whom I’d previously placed scarcely higher than Jess Franco. Maybe Arrow or a similar distributor will bring out some more of his work? But in the meantime the very curious, if occasionally frustrating, Death Smiles On A Murderer certainly has a great deal to interest the viewer. A police inspector wonders if he'll ever add up the case, as he finds the corpse of Greta's brother near her empty grave. She's gone and he wonders what ever happened to her. The person he has been telling the story to? Greta. This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. ( August 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Part horror film, part murder mystery, and wholly weird, Massaccesi’s film is an interesting amalgamation of literary gothic and gore. It’s not my favorite of Massaccesi’s films, but it does make for an interesting mish-mash of Eurohorror themes. Smiling on the Taboo: Sex, Death and Transgression in the Horror Films of Joe D Amato (21:34, HD) – A new video essay about D’Amato by critic, Diabolique Magazine contributor, and editor of Daughters of Darkness (pub: 2018), Kat Ellinger. Ellinger specifically explores the director’s work in horror and where his films fit in the larger context of Italian genre filmmaking, but also covers his earlier erotic work and, most importantly, cinematography.

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And then we are left with nobody really except the police inspector who is left forlornly trying to figure out why all these people were killed and finding nothing but a missing brother of a missing girl who was exploring 'Incan reincarnation rituals'. So the brother must be behind this, right? Yes and no, since in the best final twist the brother did resurrect Greta to do his bidding and murder the man who seduced her (and presumably his whole family line too), but Greta was still apparently bearing a grudge for that whole 'incestuous rape' thing that passed by with only the briefest of comment at the very opening of the film, and turns into a cat to spend a minute or so clawing his face and eyeballs out in graphic detail, before smilingly walking off.