La morte ha sorriso all'assassino (1973) watch online HD

You have to see this movie more than once to understand and figure out what's going on.In short,after being reanimated from the dead,Greta Von Holstein(Ewa Aulin)seeks revenge on a lover who jilted her by faking a carriage accident and causing the death of its driver on the estate of the son of the man who impregnated her.She is in cahoots with the butler of the estate,who helps with a lot of her dirty work(then meets his end after she uses him).A doctor(Klaus Kinski)finds out her secret after ministering to her after the buggy accident and copies an Incan formula off of her gold pendant for his own use and fame.The pendant was made for her by her brother(with whom she had an incestuous relationship with)who brought her back from the grave after a miscarriage and inscribed her name,the year of her rebirth,and a mathematical formula for reanimation on the pendant.Greta causes the death of almost everyone in the cast,but you won't really understand anything until about halfway through the movie.And she makes sure no one is left to tell her tale!Surrealistic sound track by Berto Pisano keeps the movie on it's feet in the tradition of Phantasm.Definitely a must see!

This early D'Amato film bears some affinity to the work of Mario Bava, being a 19th Century Gothic horror long on style and atmosphere if short on coherence. The basic plot involves a brother who raises his sister from the dead (using an old Incan ritual) in order that she gets revenge on those who were responsible for her death; a number of gory murders ensues.

D'Amato attacks the story is a very strange way, deliberately I would presume to emphasise the tale's strangeness and put the audience in a similar position of mystification as the characters find themselves under. This approach is not entirely successful, although the dizzying maze of Dutch angles, stalking and spying POV shots, extreme close-ups (especially of eyes) makes the film constantly compelling. Klaus Kinski gets star billing for what is essentially a bit part as a scientist in a sub-plot (which links with the Incan ritual) and his early demise is problematic, as his appearance and then disappearance have the stench of a red herring.

The film seems to be an extended riff on the idea that human relationships are an unhealthy brew of thwarted desire, jealousy and rage. The most effective moments have the characters stalked by the dead sister, who turns from ravishing beauty to mouldering corpse from shot to shot. The party with masks and the idea that beauty can suddenly turn rotten lead me to suspect that the film is an unacknowledged inspiration for some scenes in Kubrick's The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut.

The finale, with the dead sister being revealed as the old woman cohabiting with the detective, is half-hokum and half inspired derangement of time; like Nicholson's final Shining moment, frozen in a picture from the 1920s, this reveal suggests that the detective has been doomed timelessly to follow a case which is in some ways a re-enactment of is own marital relationship, a reflection of the deadly tortures which seemingly ordinary married people wish to enact on each other. The story bears some similarities to the work of Poe, and like D'Amato's Emanuelle's Revenge, it uses the images of immolation behind a wall from that storyteller's A Cask of Amontillado.

1906 - Greta (Ewa Aulin) is raped by her brother, the hunchback Franz (Luciano Rossi). They become lovers. One day she meets Dr. von Ravensbrück - it's love at first sight. Her brother Franz sees it all with bitter eyes. Greta gets pregnant from Dr. von Ravensbrück. Greta and her son die during childbirth to Franz's great grief.

Three years later Walter von Ravensbrück (son of Dr. von Ravensbrück) and his wife Eva are drinking tea in the garden of their mansion. A black carriage led by black horses driven by a black-clad coachman is arriving - it is going very fast. Accident! The carriage flips over and the driver dies impaled on the wheel axle almost in front of their eyes. They discover an unconscious girl inside the carriage. She doesn't remember anything from the past, she doesn't even know her own name.

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.

There are other characters in this film - Dr. Sturges (Klaus Kinski) is making a research on resurrection. Inspector Dannick (Attilio Dottesio) is trying in vain to make sense of what is happening. There's a prying servant maid - Franz or Franz's ghost (Greta's brother) is haunting her. She will be the first to suffer a horrible death. Other deaths will follow and in-between a lesbian affair (one woman tries to kill another and then they both laugh and make love to each other - oh me oh my!), ménage-à-trois, parties, dancing , masks and deaths. The film ends with a Mona Lisa smile and a puzzled look.

If Joe D'Amato tried at all to tell a story, he must certainly have forgotten all about it during the process of writing and filming. Anyway "La morte ha sorriso al assassino" is very stylishly filmed, excellent decor and costumes. The camera and editing are very awake and the film's colors are beautiful and soft as the countryside surrounding the mansion. The soundtrack enhances the mystery and mellow beauty of some scenes. Ewa Aulin is surrealistically unconvincing and sweet as the avenging angel that raises havoc all around.

The hype is right: The film is really addictive. See the film and don't try to make sense out of the story, or rather, see and understand the film your own way.

In the mid '70s as a 10 year old I was watching the late show, and during commercials I changed the station to channel 5 in Atlanta, GA. They were showing this little gem, and I caught a few minutes of it. It took me 5 years before I could see it on TV again, and I had to rig a UHF antenna in my bedroom to get the broadcast. I was very struck by this weird tale of the dearly departed being resurrected: the style of the film fascinated me. It took me 15 more years before I finally saw the film uncut. The breakdown is this: a rich young couple, Walter and Eva, take in a young girl named Greta who has been in an accident and has amnesia. Something is not quite right about her, but that doesn't stop these kinky people from both having an affair with her. This affair starts a very sinister chain of events. Ewa Aulin and Klaus Kinski star in the film debut by director Joe D'Amato. The film has many flaws I suppose, but I'm NOT a critic and I love it anyway.

"Death Smiles at Murder" is an excellent Italian horror film.It's a story of a man who uses an ancient Incan formula to raise the dead and uses it for his own series of revenge murders.This film is a bizarre mixture of necrophilia,sexual obsession and gore.It offers some downright hypnotic scenes plus a little bit of gruesome violence.The script is incomprehensible and the make-up effects are pretty terrible.Still D'Amato does create some wonderful imagery.Berto Pisano's soundtrack is hauntingly beautiful.The cast is excellent-Klaus Kinski shines in his rather underwritten role and Eva Aulin is effective as reanimated woman.Highly recommended,especially if you like Italian horror.

"Death Smiles On A Murderer" is a bizarre sort of film that combines romantic and sexual entanglement between a beautiful woman and a married couple (she seduces both partners), and an Edgar Allan Poe-ish tale of murder and vengeance. The result is uneven and flawed, but that isn't always a detriment, and what we have in this film is more of a nightmarish or dreamlike qulaity than a "bad" movie. Holding center stage, however, is the superb music by composer Berto Pisano. Lyrical themes and vocals form an effective counterpoint to the sinister goings on, and in the more obviously creepy musical passages there is a deliberate pacing that works marvellously to reinforce this dreamlike (or nightmarish) quality. The music really pulls the film together. The story (set in the early 1900s) receives a very "now" sound (for 1972!): electronic instruments, organ, timpani, etc. The result is at once beautiful, yet sinister...an apt description for "Death Smiles On A Murderer".............................

This movie seems interesting on paper: it's directed by the infamous Aristide Massacessi (aka Joe D'Amato) and it features overly intense German actor Klaus Kinski and Swedish nymphet Ewe "Candy" Aulin. But fans may find D'Amato being a little too classy, Kinski being a little too subdued, and Aulin being a little too dressed. This movie is a latter-day Italian Gothic but it was made at a time when those films, which had been big in the 60's, were in decline and the more delirious Italian gialli were ascendant. This film is a strange hybrid of the two--it has the period trappings of a Gothic horror but makes even less sense than your average giallo.

The plot (if that word applies here)involves two different doctors who seem to be reviving the dead for some reason--or are they? (I'm not being mysterious here--I really don't know). One of them is Klaus Kinski, but I suspect the famously temperamental actor might have stormed off the set so they gave part of his role to somebody else. Ewe Aulin is the dead(?) woman who seems no worse for wear. After her carriage crashes on the estate of a nobleman (who coincidentally is the doctor's son),he and his wife take her in and they both fall in love with her. The wife, however, is very jealous (although it's not clear of whom) and keeps trying to kill this possibly already dead girl. After an unsuccessful bathtub drowning (which naturally turns into a steamy lesbian sex scene) she seals her in a tomb with the family cat (for yet another Italian homage to Edgar Allen Poe) before the movie sinks completely into incomprehensibility.

This film resembles other latter-day Italian gothics like "The Devil's Wedding Night" (with Rosalba Neri) or "The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave" (with Erika Blanc). I would have preferred Neri or Blanc to Aulin in this kind of movie--they all look good naked, of course, but Blanc and Neri are a lot better in these evil roles. The cinematography here is definitely superior to the other two films, however, and is the best thing about this movie (it's easy to forget that D'Amato was a superb cinematographer before he became a world-renowned pornographer). Fans of virtuoso cinematography, non-linear Eurohorror, and badly-dubbed Eurobabes, who aren't bothered too much by a complete lack of plot will probably like this. Others may not.

Death Smiled at Murder…and horror admirers all over the world salute Joe D'Amato for delivering this film, by which he proves that he's not just an insane and untalented adult-filmmaker. Okay, D'Amato made a lot of meaningless, cheap quickies throughout his entire fertile career but he does know how to tell a creepy and unsettling horror tale. Just look at 'Beyond the Darkness'…or this 'Death smiled at Murder', which is an even better example. The plot doesn't always make sense, but it's beautiful to look at and it's very stylishly elaborated. The settings and photography are mesmerizing and the delightful musical score is almost hypnotic. But of course, this wouldn't be a D'Amato film if it didn't also feature a rather large dose of sleaze and violence. Kinky Joe shamelessly stuffed his film like a Thanksgiving turkey with slightly perverted elements (incestuous lust, an obscene love-triangle…) and nauseating gore (decomposed corpses, a face entirely shattered by shotgun…)

Summarizing the plot of 'Death Smiled at Murder' isn't a very easy thing to do as it handles about multiple macabre topics. A sinister doctor is on the verge of translating an ancient formula carrying the secret of how to raise the dead. A beautiful young girl and her deranged brother seem to be involved in this process as well but they first annihilate the entire population of a countryside mansion. The owners of this mansion, a rich couple, are both romantically involved with the gorgeous girl named Greta. The acting is fairly good as well, with Klaus Kinski on top. His role in the film isn't very essential, but his up-to-no-good grimaces provide the story with an extra bit of eeriness. With this film, D'Amato proved being capable of delivering films that are on the same quality-level as some of the Jess Franco films and maybe some of the weakest Mario Bava films. Recommended to every fan of top-Eurosleaze

Death Smiles at Murder-Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D'Amato) This is not your typical D'Amato movie, if there is such a thing. There's graphic violence, a little gore, but nothing really over the top. But what this movie has, is a little style and maybe even ~~gasp~~ some class. It's very confusing, and includes everything from reanimation, to a three way love affair, to a murder mystery. The basic plot is about a young beautiful woman Greta, who shows up at a Villa and is involved in a horse carriage accident which impales the driver. A couple take her in since she has developed amnesia. There's a series of flashbacks that attempt to cast some Intel on who she is, but not why she is there. Klaus Kinski has a small role as the doctor who attends to her, but has a totally different agenda which deals with a concoction he's working on to bring back the dead. Soon the movie gets even more bizarre and even takes a little from Poe's "Black Cat". Everything looks pretty damn good in this movie, the sets, the actors, and the main thing I noticed is the main theme to the soundtrack is straight out of "Suspiria". In fact, you could pretty much say ~~stolen from Suspiria~~.

Both the Husband and his Wife fall in love with Greta, and the Wife especially turns out to be rather jealous and walls up Greta in the dungeon. After that some even more bizarre happenings occurs resulting in the gruesome death of the Wife. But what happened to the walled up Greta? Well, that little chore is up to the local Police Inspector, and he hasn't got a clue as to what is going on, because Greta has vanished. This all culminates in a fairly good, if not confusing, ending that seems to put most of pieces back in order.

Coming from the man noted for his gory video nasties and the endless amount of softcore and hardcore pornography later in his career, DEATH SMILES ON A MURDERER is a surprisingly tranquil, dream-like horror movie which is more in line with the superb Italian Gothic wave of the early 1960s than the gory giallo antics that the title suggests at. Joe D'Amato (or Aristide Massacessi as he is otherwise known) directs a horror film for the first time as well as handling the photography, so you know straight away that this is going to be beautifully shot, visually appealing viewing experience which makes full use of slow-motion and strange camera angles. The fragmented plot is told in segments and in flashback, with some of the events being pure fantasy, so viewers will no doubt struggle to try and make some sense of the almost circular storyline where there is no sense to be had. Instead, the concentration is on providing a number of memorable eerie sequences, all containing an ethereal atmosphere and highlighted by a truly astounding and haunting score from composer Berto Pisano.

The lead is taken by the baby-faced Ewa Aulin, an object of lust who begins the movie as a corpse on a stone slab. Later revived by ancient magical means, Aulin turns into a ghost-like creature who proceeds to seduce a wife and her husband, scenes which fill out the expected sex quota of the movie. The jealous wife later bricks Aulin up behind a wall (heavy shades of Poe exist throughout the movie) but finds herself haunted at a ball by a masked figure in a gown, who goes on to commit a string of gory murders. But instead of sticking to the mind-numbing slice-and-dice routine of the '80s slasher movies, all of the murders are presented in imaginative and shocking ways - a shotgun blasts the face off an innocent serving girl in a horrible moment, a man is bloodily slashed to death with a straight-razor and even a cat becomes a weapon of death come the gruesome finale.

As well as the strong production values, there are some fine performances to be had from the leading cast members Angela Bo and Giorgio Dolfin, as the husband and wife caught up in events they cannot possibly understand. Aulin is excellent as the woman who may or may not be a ghost and D'Amato successfully contrasts her beauty by cutting to a rotting, zombie-like face in some strong moments of horror. A top-billed Klaus Kinski turns up in a large cameo appearance as a sinister doctor also experimenting with raising the dead and inserts a needle into a girl's eye in one of the many memorable images in the film. Also on hand are Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (CRIMES OF THE BLACK CAT) as a potential victim, and sleazy Luciano Rossi (VIOLENT NAPLES) who actually gives the best performance in the movie as the incestuous hunchbacked stranger. At the end of the day, DEATH SMILES ON A MURDERER provides plenty of atmosphere, suspense and real moments of horror as well as fulfilling the resident sex-and-gore quota, and as such stands as a firm addition to the Italian Gothic cycle; flawed, but at (many) times brilliant.

Decidedly not for all tastes, 1973's "Death Smiles on a Murderer" is an Italian horror film from cinematographer-turned-director Aristide Massaccessi (now better known as Joe D'Amato). Rough sledding for most, but I admired all of the European fright flicks that aired regularly on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater (IMDb lists this film as 92 minutes but my copy runs 84). In 1906 Europe, an incestuous relationship between siblings Franz and Greta (Ewa Aulin) ends abruptly when she falls for a handsome doctor (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) who impregnates her, with both mother and child ending up dead. Her distraught brother has learned the secret of restoring life to the dead and subsequently revives her, with the Incan formula carved onto the back of an amulet which has her name and date of death on the front. In a nod to Edgar Allan Poe (one of many), she shows her gratitude by instantly slaughtering her beloved brother, the sharp claws of a black cat gouging out the man's eyes (shown in flashback only at the very end). Following a passage of 3 years, Greta is planted at the doorstep of a young couple, Eva and Walter (the latter the son of the doctor who had the affair with her), via a gory carriage accident that leaves the driver fatally impaled through the heart. Dr. Sturges (Klaus Kinski) provides the death certificate for the investigating detective, first examining the girl, who remembers neither her name or any recollection of her past. He soon learns that this is no simple case of amnesia (a telltale vertical scar on the side of her neck), proving it by inserting a pin in the unblinking girl's eye (a startling sight left intact on television). Dr. Sturges, already conducting similar experiments in life after death, recognizes the Incan symbols on the back of Greta's amulet, which help him restore life to a male corpse, only to be instantly strangled to death along with his mute assistant (the revived corpse is promptly snuffed out as well). Meanwhile back at the estate, both husband and wife separately declare their undying devotion to the beautiful stranger, with some nude frolicking that doesn't add up to much. The maid makes a sudden exit, haunted by the spectre of Greta's dead brother, only to have her face shot off by the same unseen assailant later responsible for the murders in the lab of Dr. Sturges (climactically revealed to be the couple's manservant). After an initially unsuccessful attempt to drown Greta in her bath, the wife succeeds in walling the girl up in a dark cellar, only to have the deceased return to haunt first the wife then the husband to their grisly ends. Greta then rewards the manservant's loyalty by slashing him to death (no explanation given as to how he knows her or why he protected her). The husband's doctor father (Greta's reason for vengeance) also meets his maker, trapped in the crypt of his daughter-in-law (whose eyes suddenly snap open!), leaving only the baffled detective still alive to try to sort out all the murder and mayhem. When he learns about the Incan symbols and their meaning, we flash back to Greta's brother revealing what he had done for her 3 years earlier, with his corpse only now discovered by the detective (untouched in the same spot). Having learned the identity of the mystery girl, he goes over the facts with his elderly wheelchair-bound wife, who promptly turns around to reveal herself as Greta, the 'angel of death' herself, her face displaying the smiling countenance of Mona Lisa (perhaps Jaibo was right in his review). Intentionally stronger on mood than coherence, it really only drags once Dr. Sturges exits the picture halfway through, with only the deviant love triangle dragged out until the climactic revelations. In what may have been her last role, the lovely Ewa Aulin gives the same kind of detached performance she did in 1968's "Candy," although she may have appreciated being effectively cast against type (her passivity works amazingly well considering the effect she has on all others, exactly like her character in "Candy"). Alas, Klaus Kinski is totally wasted in the sort of take-the-money-and-run kind of part that he nearly always accepted, with only a handful of lines and an unchanging look of consternation. Kudos to the other reviewers who made the effort to journey through the difficult plot line, I trust I succeeded in my own way.

Death Smiles on a Murderer is not your average Joe D'Amato film. The prolific Italian director made a name for himself by directing cheap, trashy productions; and while this film isn't exactly "high quality" (in the usual sense of the word), it's certainly a lot classier than your average D'Amato sleaze. The film mixes Gothic horror, zombies and Giallo elements into a cocktail of the popular genres of the early seventies. As you might expect considering the heavy fusing of multiple genres, the film isn't always coherent; and despite the fact that it could be considered a classy film, D'Amato has still seen fit to insert some trashy gore sequences. The result is a mixed bag. The somewhat confusing plot focuses on a young woman called Greta. She is involved in a coach accident which leaves the driver dead after he is impaled. Greta is then taken in by a couple who seem to become strangely fascinated by her. Around the same time, there's also a doctor working on a formula to bring the dead back to life, and this somehow connects through flashbacks...

The setting and atmosphere are the key element of the film. Death Smiles on a Murderer is very well photographed and every frame in the film is great to look at. This serves the film well as it ensures that it remains interesting even when the plot starts to dry up. The plot itself takes influence from a range of sources, but most recognisably the great Edgar Allen Poe with several themes from the highly influential "The Black Cat". The head of the cast list is Klaus Kinski - but unfortunately, he doesn't appear in the film for long at all and he isn't given much to do with the screen time he does get, which is a shame. The leading ladies are Ewa Aulin and Angela Bo, and while neither of them stand out for their acting; they both look nice. The special effects don't really suit the film and Joe D'Amato probably would have been better advised to cut down on the bloodshed - but I can't complain too much because the gore does make the film more fun. Overall, I can't say I was overly impressed with Death Smiles on a Murderer - it looks nice and has its moments, but it's not put together well enough to be one of the great Italian horror films.

Joe D'Amato is often said to have directed nothing but worthless sleaze, but this reputation is certainly not (completely) justified. I have personally been a fan of the prolific Exploitation filmmaker for years, and though it is true that his repertoire includes a wide range of crap, he is also responsible for several downright great films, and for many vastly entertaining ones. Such as the ultra-gruesome video nasties "Antropophagus" (1980) and "Buio Omega" (1979). Or this stylish little film, in which D'Amato dabbles in the great sub-genre of Gothic Horror. "La Morte Ha Sorisso All Assasino" aka. "Death Smiled At Murder" of 1973 is a stylish, obscure and incredibly atmospheric Gothic tale that is incredibly creepy at times. Even though this is not as nauseating as "Antropophagus" or "Buio Omega", the film is genuinely nasty at times, with a wide range sexual intrigue and perversions as well as a bunch of very gory scenes. The film's arguably greatest aspect is the mesmerizing score by Berto Bisano, which contributes a lot to the film's uncanny atmosphere. The casting of the always-sinister Klaus Kinski in the (sadly small) role of a mad scientist is another highlight that makes this a must for my fellow Italian Horror lovers.

The one weak point of the film is that the story is a bit too confused for its own good. I love convoluted plots, but this one has several huge holes. A proper description would be difficult, as the film handles several topics that are interlaced, and the structure is not always 100 per cent comprehensible. Set in early 20th century Europe, the film is basically is about an ancient Incan formula, which is capable of awakening the dead. A beautiful young woman (Ewa Aulin) is injured in a coach accident near a castle that leaves the driver dead. The castle is owned by a kinky aristocratic couple, Walter Von Ravensbrück (Sergio Doria) and his wife Eva (Angela Bo). The mysterious beauty who cannot remember anything after her accident is first checked by the (equally mysterious) local Doctor Sturges (Klaus Kinski)... A macabre Gothic tale, the film also bears some elements of the Giallo and Zombie genres but it is mainly in the style of 60s Gothic Horror, transformed into a nastier and sleazier 70s style. The great Klaus Kinski (one of the greatest actors ever, in my opinion) gets top billing, but, sadly, little screen time. The man gets the best out of the screen time he has though, he simply was one of the most brilliant actors ever to play madmen. Although not as constantly sleazy as many other D'Amato outings, the film provides female eye-candy. The female cast includes beautiful Ewa Aulin in the lead and the equally sexy Angela Bo. The performances are generally quite good, other than the Kinski and the two leading ladies, the cast also includes two other cult-actors that any fan of Italian genre-cinema will recognize: the hunchbacked Luciano Rossi, who, due to his ugly looks, would mostly play crooks and psychos, who plays another demented role here, and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, who is probably best known for his role in Mario Bava's Gothic masterpiece "Operazione Paura" (aka, "Kill Baby Kill") of 1966. Overall, "Death Smiled at Murder" has only one major flaw, which is that the storyline is too co fused. Otherwise, this is a creepy, atmospheric and vastly enjoyable Gothic tale from D'Amato that lovers of Italian Horror should not miss! My rating: 7.5/10

My grade of 8 out of 10 for this movie is very inflated. I'm under the impression that the reason people say this is Joe D'amato film with some actual class is because Joe D'amato is generally known for making such sleazy garbage. But anyone who has seen films from Jess Franco, particularly that of the 'Venus in Furs' or 'Vampiros Lesbos' variety will see that this is no different from those Euro-trash pictures. Like Franco, D'amato employs something of a slow, atmospheric texture, a convoluted 'plot', copious amounts of nudity that somehow fit within the film, a few choice death scenes and of course, the strongest element of them all: Klaus Kinski!!! If you're a Euro-trash fan, especially that of Jess Franco it's definitely worth a look.

'Death Smiles At Murder' is an intriguing and interesting film for those who like cinema of the strange and bizarre. If anything, it reminds me of Mario Bava's equally strange 'Lisa And The Devil' with its dreamlike plot and sinister and foreboding atmosphere. Beautifully shot by the director himself Ariste Massacessi- (usually known under the pseudonym Joe D'Amato) and featuring a weird and convoluted plot, you will be tempted to re-watch the film to get your head around what indeed the film was about.

This is not to say that the film will be for all tastes. If your one who likes films to follow logic and have carefully spelled out plots then you might give this a miss. The best way to describe it is as a period 'giallo' with the usual beautiful and sometimes naked protagonists thrown in. It's a shame that the director later ended up making hard core pornography because he really was a talented director and cinematographer on the evidence of this film.

I saw it on a Dutch DVD that I picked up from a European export company.

Highly recommended for lovers of strange film or Euro-Cult buffs.

This is a peculiar film made around the time "Dark Shadows" was popular. Its a great story, but the only versions available in America are badly dubbed English ones with Japanese subtitles (?!!). Still this movie about Incan formulas bringing back the dead is fascinating. It is the fledgling effort of Joe D'Amato, and anyone who knows about this director knows that any film from him would be worth a peek. I'd like to see some smart apple remake it with a bigger budget, so the story could be done better justice. Until then this version will have to do.

Joe D'Amato gets a hard time for being a trashy director due to those porn films he made, but he often delved into other genres, and when he got them right, he often blew away the competition. This film, his official debut film (as he did a few Bava-style completion jobs for other directors) is a crazy mix of Gothic Horror and Giallo, and it's a beauty. Also, some people call it confusing, but it's not at all.

At first we see brother Luciano Rossi lamenting the death of his sister Greta, plus we also get a flashback that shows that the relationship was a bit...er...intimate. Next thing you know, Greta's alive and getting involved in a carriage crash outside one of those huge mansions you get in 99% of these films. She's taken in by a sister and brother and examined by doctor Klaus Kinski. Now, Kinski is freaky enough looking, but when he leans over Greta all his veins stick out on his head, and he looks like a Klingon! I digress - Klaus finds a weird necklace on Greta, takes a pin and sticks it through her eyeball, and then leaves, thoughtful. Greta strangely shows no affects of having a pin shoved through her eye and sets her sights on bedding both the brother and the sister.

Around this time it appears that Luciano Rossi is kicking about stalking a member of staff at the mansion who receives a very gory shotgun blast to the face. Yes, someone is out to kill everyone, but is it the creepy butler guy who is spying on everyone? Or the jealous sister, who tries to drown Greta in the bath, then beds her. It's not Klaus Kinski though, because he manages, using something on that weird necklace Greta had, to create a formula that can bring the dead back to life, which not only gets him killed by a mystery person, but also his assistant, and the poor corpse he brought back to life!

I'll stop there with the plot, because what first appears to be a kind of period Giallo ends up being far more sinister. It's like Joe D'Amato thought the genre wasn't strange or gory enough, and packs the film with people with their guts or brains hanging out, others nailed to walls, having their faces slashed to ribbons, or having their eyeballs pulled out by a cat. Being Joe, he doesn't skimp on the sex either, as Greta gets it on with just about everybody. You also get two creepy actors for the price of one, with Kinski and Rossi getting their own space to roll their eyes and be weird. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart looks depressingly aged in this film for some reason.

So once again Joe comes out on top like he did later in the post-apocalyptic genre with Endgame and 2020:Texas Gladiators, and the classic video nasty Anthropophagus. Maybe not so much with Ator The Fighting Eagle, which is a PG rated Conan rip-off that is great for all the wrong reasons.

Surely one of '73's horror highlights, Joe D'Amato's bizarre "Death Smiles on a Murderer" sees the infamous porn/gore director flirting with ethereal giallo atmospheres rather than the smutty, sometimes gut-wrenching delights he would later build his career around. Don't fool yourself, the film is still very much a heavy, nasty piece of work. The packaging however, is more artsy and moody than for instance his famously gritty late-seventies landmark, Buio Omega.

Still obviously less established in the gore department, the essence of "Death Smiles..." is its baffling plot, psychological terror and the extremely effective soundtrack. Shout-out to Berto Pisano! But when violence occurs, don't dare think it's going to be, shall we say, liquid only!

The direction is experimental to say the least. Weird angles, weird lenses, weird editing, weirdly edited staring scenes etc. But I have to say, it all works out! The experimentation complements the story that, I'm going to guess, not all makers of the film had a cohesive idea of. Much less the viewers.

The gist of it, however, involves such things as reanimation, revenge, off-beat romance, another off-beat romance, and a confused detective trying to sort out all of this. Ewa Aulin is great as the mysterious Greta, and the handsome early-seventies Klaus Kinski is an absolute delight to watch. Nosferatu he ain't.

"Death Smiles on a Murderer" is essentially a Joe D'Amato movie for giallo fans. Gore-hounds are likely to fall asleep. Friends of strange Euro-horror, rejoice!

A man discovers an ancient Incan formula for raising the dead, and uses it for a series of revenge murders.

"Death Smiles on a Murderer" was produced by Franco Gaudenzi, who writer-director Joe D'Amato had met through production manager Oscar Santaniello. Their first collaboration led to D'Amato directing "Un bounty killer a Trinità", one of the several films directed by D'Amato with someone else taking credit. This was the first film D'Amato directed himself where he used his real name in the credits: Aristide Massaccesi.

The film credits the script to D'Amato, Romano Scandariato and Claudio Bernabei, though the latter was said to just be a typist by D'Amato. The story is credited to D'Amato, which Scandariato said was "more or less one page". Scandariato stated the film was originally written with more suspense and more of a giallo, but this was changed out of necessity. The film was given a low budget of 150 million Italian lire.

"Death Smiles on a Murderer" was shot between November and December 1972 with a working title of "Seven Strange Corpses". Some scenes which were not in the script were improvised on set. These included a scene where Luciano Rossi was attacked by a cat, which saw D'Amato achieve his desired effect by allegedly throwing the cat against Rossi's face. (I have real doubts about this given the footage that resulted.)

Actress Ewa Aulin was well-known at the time, though has strangely fallen into obscurity. Klaus Kinski is still widely known today, though perhaps more for his madness and depravity than his acting. He became involved purely for the money and had no real opinion of the material one way or the other.

While D'amato is best known for his exploitation work and occasional outright pornography, this film is rather tame. The gore is no worse than your standard horror film of the era, and while there is some nudity and romantic elements, it is fairly restrained, nothing remotely as blatant as we might see from Jean Rollin.

The Arrow Blu-ray is superb, with both English and Italian versions of the film. The incredible Tim Lucas provides audio commentary. Ewa Aulin has a brand-new interview, almost an hour in length. D'Amto is captured in an archive interview (primarily talking about Kinski). And a video essay covering D'Amato's career is worth a watch. An all-around spectacular package for the film.

D'Amato's directorial debut already incorporates his two major concerns – eroticism and gore; another element which, however, comes to the fore here (a pitfall of many a novice film-maker!) is an ostentatious approach to technique – with shots taken from any number of improbable angles! That said, the elliptical plot is nothing to scoff at either (indeed, whenever one thinks of having unraveled the mystery, another twist turns up to mystify the viewer, and this keeps up till the very last image!): to be fair, this was quite a bold move for a first feature and that is why, for all its faults, the film is not one to be easily ignored.

Incidentally, the central theme of resurrection was what linked it with the Christopher Lee vehicle THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM (1967; with which it was actually paired on DVD); while Klaus Kinski's presence (and co-star billing) in this was basically its selling-point, he exits the picture before it is even half over! He plays a Frankenstein-like doctor called in at a country estate to nurse a carriage accident/amnesiac victim played by Ewa Aulin (after years of research, he conveniently discovers the life-restoring formula on the back of a medallion she wears!) but, while he spends minutes on end carefully preparing the potion, is killed off precisely at his moment of triumph!!

As for the girl, she proves not quite the ingénue she at first appears (with a complicated back-story to boot!); seducing both the master and mistress of the house, she eventually drives the latter into a jealous fury which sees her walling up the still-living heroine in the basement! However, she re-appears as a vengeful wraith (with the girl's features occasionally reverting to her true decrepit state for horrific effect) with everybody who had in some way wronged her meeting all sorts of grisly demises (including her crazed and hunchbacked medical student brother – scratched to death by a cat in extreme close-up! – and the young aristocrat's doctor father Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, who had first impregnated the girl and then saw her die on the operating table!!).

Berto Pisano's score, which mixes moody interludes with a terrific romantic theme, emerges as one of the film's definite assets. By the way, this was Aulin (who had shot to stardom with CANDY [1968])'s penultimate effort; since its follow-up – Jorge Grau's well-regarded BLOOD CEREMONY (1973) – proved to be in similar vein, I will also be checking that one out presently...

Bewitching amnesiac Greta (a truly beguiling portrayal by the adorable Ewa Aulin of "Candy" infamy) is given shelter by a rich young couple. Greta triggers the erotic attention of everyone she meets, which in turn sets off a grim series of gruesome and murderous events. Meanwhile, the sinister Dr. Sturges (the ever creepy Klaus Kinski making the most out of a regrettably brief role) discovers an ancient Incan formula for resurrecting the dead. Of course, Greta gets killed, but returns to life as a seductive avenging zombie. Director/co-writer Joe D'Amato does a fine job of ably creating and sustaining an extremely eerie and hypnotic dream-like atmosphere. The rather muddled and elliptical narrative enhances rather than detracts from this film's weirdly compelling gloom-doom mood while D'Amato manages to maintain a surprising elegance amid all the strangeness. Moreover, D'Amato further spices things up with lashings of nasty gore, a dab of tasty bare female skin, and a sprinkling of sizzling soft-core sex, plus we even get kinky elements of lesbianism, voyeurism, and necrophilia. The competent acting by a sturdy cast rates as another major asset, with sound work by Angela Bo as the smitten Eva von Ravensbruck, Sergio Doria as the dashing Walter von Ravensbrock, Attilio Dottesio as the puzzled Inspector Dannick, Fernando Cerulli as helpful eccentric Professor Kempte, and Carla Mancini as snoopy maid Gertrude. D'Amato's handsome widescreen cinematography gives the picture a sparkling bright look and offers plenty of lovely shots of the breathtaking verdant country scenery. Berto Pisano's neatly varied score alternates between the funky'n'brooding and more gentle and melodic. An offbeat and enjoyable curio.

Greta von Holstein (Ewa Aulin) survives a terrible accident, and is taken in by the Ravensbruck family. Dr. Sturges (Klaus Kinski) is called in to examine her. This, somehow leads to his discovering how to re-animate the dead. When someone murders Sturges and absconds w/ his secret, horror ensues. That's the basic, skeletal plot. The rest of DEATH SMILES ON A MURDERER is a series of love affairs, sexual situations, and a soap opera story line w/ an Edgar Allan Poe tie-in, interrupted by gruesome deaths. This may sound cockeyed and absurd, and it is. However, there's something eerie about it that makes it watchable. It's held together by a sort of nightmare logic. Beautifully filmed, w/ haunting set pieces, it doesn't seem to make much sense, but is satisfying nonetheless. Ms. Aulin is both stunningly hot and terrifying! EXTRA POINTS FOR: The graveyard scene!...

There are fans of Joe D'Amato around the world, mostly for the horror films that he crafted and some for the pornographic films he made. With over 197 movies credited to him as director the man was at least industrious when it came to making movies. Not having seen most of this films and with only access to a few I was interested to see what this one would be like. The end result was mixed for me.

The film opens with in Austria in 1906. A young Greta von Holstein (Ewa Aulin) is sexually abused by her brother Franz (Luciano Rossi). We learn this in the opening moments of the film before we see Greta laying on a slab and apparently dead as Franz laments her passing, blaming himself and others like him.

Fast forward to 1909 and the estate of Walter Ravensbrück (Sergio Doria) and his wife Eva (Angela Bo). An out of control carriage overturns in front of the estate impaling the driver and killing him with a young woman named Greta von Holstein inside. Injured they take her up to their home and call Dr. Sturges (Klaus Kinski) to attend to her. Noticing something strange about her he tends to her wounds while noticing a strange amulet around her neck. Suggesting she rest and mend the couple ask her to stay with them for a while.

This leads to an attraction that both feel towards Greta. Walter is the first to act upon this, beginning an affair with her. But Eva isn't far behind doing the same. Unaware to both is the fact that Greta begins killing off the help that they employ.

Greta becomes jealous of the attention Walter pays to Greta and while he's away she walls her into a room in a remote cellar of the estate. When Greta turns up at a masquerade ball later, she realizes that perhaps Greta was not what she seemed. All of this ties into the past when Walter's father arrives for a visit. Dr. von Ravensbrück (Giancomo Rossi Stuart) has his own connection to Greta that no one is aware of. All will be revealed by the end of the film.

The movie does offer some stylish cinematography and depicts what could have been considered sordid encounters at the time of its release in an artistic manner. The use of soft focus cinematography in select sequences adds itself to the air of romance combined with mystery. And yet all of that combined didn't convert me to become a fan of D'Amato.

This was the first film that he directed under his real name, Aristide Massaccesi and made early in his career. For me it showed a lot of potential in film making with this film but at the same time his story telling ability was really off here. Characters and concepts that become clear only at the end of the film are never provided earlier when they would have helped create a bit of suspense or given viewers an idea of what was going on. Instead we have a movie that tosses in murders and situations that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. The biggest example is why Greta would have a reason to even come to the Ravensbrück estate. That reason isn't revealed until almost the final scene and no clues as to the reason are provided throughout. And the fact that this is a ghost story isn't quite clear until late in the film either, once more with no clues to that fact provided until that time.

Kinski's part here is minimal at best and one I would consider a cameo in spite of the fact that his image and famous face were used to promote the film in posters at the time and on the cover of this new release. Aulin would go on to fame and fortune for her stunning looks and will probably be most remembered for her starring role in the counter culture hit CANDY.

Historically there is always a reason to preserve any and almost all films ever made. That would be one reason for this to be a reason to be glad that Arrow has done the amazing job with this release like they always do. The movie is presented here with a 2k restoration from the original camera negative. Extras include a new audio commentary track with writer/critic Tim Lucas, D'AMATO SMILES ON DEATH an archival interview where the director discusses the film, ALL ABOUT EWA a newly filmed interview with the Swedish star, SMILING ON THE TABOO: SEX, DEATH AND TRANSGRESSION IN THE HORROR FILMS OF JOE D'AMATO a new video essay by critic Kat Ellinger, the original trailers, a stills and collections gallery, a reversible sleeve with original and new artwork from Gilles Vranckx and for the first pressing only a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by critics Stephen Thrower and film historian Robert Curti.

D'Amato fans will want to add this to their collections immediately. Those who haven't been exposed might find the movie of interest. Horror fans will want to give it a look. For most others you'll find it confusing but at least it will provide you with a glimpse of a movie outside of the mainstream that led to a long time career for its director.

Once you watch this film, you'll wonder - just how did this play on TV? It was part of the 13 titles included in Avco Embassy's Nightmare Theater package syndicated in 1975 (the others were Marta, Maniac Mansion, Night of the Sorcerers, Fury of the Wolfman, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Dear Dead Delilah, Doomwatch, Bell from Hell, Witches Mountain, Mummy's Revenge and The Witch) and several of these films aired intact on regular television! I can't imagine - nor will you once you read this - what people thought! I even found a mention that the scene where Klaus Kinski inserts a pin into a girl's eye aired uncut on Pittsburgh's beloved Chiller Theater (indeed, it played on July 7, 1979 and December 26, 1981, thanks to the amazing listing on the Chiller Theater fan site).

1906. Austria. Greta von Holstein (Ewa Aulin, Candy from Candy as well as Death Laid an Egg) has been used and abused by all of the men in her life, including Dr. von Ravensbrück, a rich cad who knocks her up and leaves her to die in childbirth.

Three years later. Her hunchback brother Franz, besotten with incestual love, brings her back to life with a magic medallion inscribed with the secret of life over death. He tries to get back into her pants, so she throws a black cat at his face. It eats his eyeballs, because, well, this is a Joe D'Amoto movie. She then escapes into the world where she seeks revenge on the von Ravensbrück's family.

Walter, the son of the doctor who done her wrong, and Eve, his wife, take her in after an accident outside their home. They both fall in love with her, which gives D'Amoto license to shoot long lovemaking scenes. You may know him on one hand for his horror films, like Beyond the Darkness, Ator, Antropophagus, Frankenstein 2000 and Absurd. But you may also know him for his adult films like Porno Holocaust and the Rocco Siffredi vehicle Tarzan X - Shame of Jane. Here, he combines his love of the female form with his eye for murder and insanity.

Eva is becoming jealous of Greta. But what he doesn't know is that her new lover is wiping out people left and right, just for fun. The butler in the gallery with a razor. The maid in the woods with a shotgun. A lab assistant in the lab with a metal club. Even the family doctor (Klaus Kinski, do I need to say more or tell you he was in Schizoid, Crawlspace, Marquis de Sade: Justine and more? Or that he was also maniac who was drafted to the German army, spent time as a POW and drank his own urine to get sick and get home earlier. This is not the craziest Kinski story, by the way) is strangled right after he learned how to use hr amulet to bring back the dead that he had been experimenting on (as you do).

Eva's jealousy wins out, so she walls her up alive in the rooms beneath the castle, killing her. But Greta isn't done yet. She shows up as a ghost at a party and lures Eva toward falling off the roof. That night, Greta's ghost gives Walter a fatal heart attack in bed. And all of this was just to lure her old lover, Dr. von Ravensbrück, to the funeral, where she leads him to a vault and suffocates him.

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.

I was really struck by Berto Pisano's music in this. He also contributed the starnge soundtrack to Burial Ground. Here, his music is jazzy and then atonal, with sharp stings to call out the action.

I feel like I need to take a long shower after watching this movie. Which isn't a bad thing, really. It's an effective mix of giallo and gothic romance, with plenty of sleaze and gore for those seeking those thrills.