Death Smiles On A Murderer [Blu-ray]

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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. 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. 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.

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. 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. The film looks and sounds great, thanks to a 2K restoration from the original camera negative. The Blu-Ray comes with a great deal of extras which are quite entertaining themselves and include a video essay by Kat Ellinger entitled “Sex, Death, and Transgression in the Horror Films of Joe D’Amato,” a new, career-spanning interview with star Ewa Aulin, an archival interview about the film with D’Amato himself, and a very interesting audio commentary by the always-thorough Tim Lucas. The features are rounded out by a stills gallery and a couple of film trailers, and the first pressing comes with a booklet with new writing on the film by critic Stephen Thrower and film historian Roberto Curti. 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.Death Smiles on a Murderer was released in Italy on 11 July 1973. [1] Film historian Roberto Curti referred to this box office as "scarce business" noting its unimportant distributor Florida Cinematografica. [1] [9] In Italy, the film grossed a total of 70,990,000 Italian lire. [1] It was released in the United States as Death Smiles on a Murderer and Death Smiles at Murder. [1] 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. This is definitely more of a supernatural gothic horror than a giallo, in as much as it is a supernatural gothic horror film which happens to feature two kills early on in which we cannot see the killer's face. But, it's usually listed as part of the giallo cannon, so here we go. 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.

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). 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.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.