Greek director Costas Karagiannis obviously thought it was about time to cash in on the popular Italian Giallo exports back in 1974 - and this sleazy little thriller is the result! In fact, he did such a good job of imitating Italian Gods such as Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino and Dario Argento that if it wasn't for the fact that I know this film is Greek - I'd never have guessed it wasn't Italian! The film doesn't appear to take influence from any Giallo in particular (or at least not from ones that I've seen), and the plot line allows for gratuitous sleaze, as well as a twisted and effective murder story to rival the best of the actual Giallo's. The plot focuses on a married couple. The man enjoys his wife's money, but isn't so keen on his wife and so has seen fit to take a mistress. His mistress wants him to leave his wife, but he can't live without the money. There has been some raping and killing going on in the local area and, luckily, our man happens to know this rape killer! Naturally, he then devises a plot to have his wife killed by the local murderer, but doesn't count on everything not quite going to plan...
The plot has more than enough about it to keep the audience entertained throughout, and this is very much to Death Kiss' credit. There are plenty of twists and turns and all the central performances are good enough to allow for the audience to believe that all this stuff is really going on. The film isn't all that 'nasty' (especially considering that it's alternate title is 'The Rape Killer'), but director Costas Karagiannis more than makes up for this with the atmosphere, which is completely dirty and provides a more than adequate background for a story of this nature. The film is very short, and not a lot of time is wasted on padding, which is nice. However, on the flip side of this Death Kiss does end very abruptly, and not everything gets wrapped in the way that it should have been. However, it's not all that much of a flaw as the running time that we do have is well used and the film entertains in such a way that anyone who considers themselves a fan of Giallo is likely to be pleased. Death Kiss is rather obscure, but it does have a budget R1 release, and I recommend checking it out!
