Sam Panico 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.

oulamies 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!

Leofwine_draca 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.

Woodyanders 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.