A Morte Sorriu para o Assassino

'Death Smiles on a Murderer' is a 1973 horror/giallo hybrid with a rich gothic setting bathed in an unnerving dreamlike atmosphere with stylish set-pieces, a non-linear storyline that's both confusing and intriguing at the same time. The camerawork has a lot of cool yet bizarre shots which adds more to the strangeness of this flick and the direction by Joe D'Amato is really strong with stunning cinematography work which makes every scene pop in the way it should.

The plot set in the early 1900's where a mysterious young woman Greta (Ewa Aulin) whose carriage crashes outside the Ravensbruck mansion and not remembering who she is, is soon taken in by the wealthy couple Mr & Mrs Von Ravensbruck. Soon the three of them enter into a dangerous love triangle, and soon it is revealed that Greta is there to take revenge on the family as the plot further unfolds.

I do admit that if you don't read the plot synopsis before watching this movie, then things get's really confusing due to it's oddly structured storyline that jumps around a lot with quickfire pacing that could allowed more time to breathe which makes the whole thing rather uneven as a whole. But there's enough thrills and surprises to keep you interested throughout with effective set pieces and a great cast of characters thrown together in this rather strange and unique world.

Ewa Aulin is fantastic as Greta who has a wonderful alluring quality to her mysterious character and Klaus Kinski is another firm standout as the mad scientist and gives a wonderfully creepy performance, and actually wanted more of him throughout, but the interesting subplot was cut rather short. Luciano Rossi as the brother Franz is quite effective and terrifying in his short screen time yet makes a firm impression.

Overall 'Death Smiles on a Murderer' is a pretty decent flick with an unusual structure that may not appeal to everyone, but it's an okay effort all round.

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 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.

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.

Death Smiled at Murder (1973)

** (out of 4)

Joe D'Amato directed this extremely bizarre and downright confusing film that tries to mix Gothic horror with the giallo. I'm not exactly sure what the hell the film is about but it goes something like this. After a carriage wreck, a young woman (Ewa Aulin) is left without her memory so she stays with a husband and wife who both take a sexual liking to her. There's also a strange murderer going around and there's also a weird doctor (Klaus Kinski) who is trying to create a formula that will bring the dead back to life. Before long, the wife kills the young woman but soon she reappears. Is it a ghost or something else? As I said, this film makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There are several other story lines that I could have included in the plot but I'm not exactly sure what they had to do with anything either. D'Amato does a good job with the cinematography, which added with the music score makes for some nice atmosphere. Aulin is easy on the eyes and delivers the best performance in the film but overall this thing it too much of a mess to really enjoy. The film's pace, although gets quite tiresome after a while.