Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Masterful Cinema

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

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!

In the 1960s, a series of low budget films known as Spaghetti Westerns emerged from Italy; Clint Eastwood starred in a number of these, most notably "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly". The 1970s saw horror films given the same treatment, and one or two of them were not bad. Sadly, this is neither number one nor number two.Set in 1909, "Death Smiles On A Murderer" begins with a fatal crash and what appears to be a rape, then it slows right down to a virtual crawl. There is a lot of background music, which is not a bad thing for a supermarket or an elevator, but not here.This film tries to be all things to all men – and women: Dr Frankenstein meets the zombies with a ghostly theme, detective novel, heck, there is even a hint of lesbian sex thrown in. Finally, it descends into silliness with a murder by what appears to be a supernatural cat, a scene that would have made Ed Wood cringe. It's an old story: jack of all trades, master of none.

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...

'I don't understand. None of this makes any sense!', exclaims one exasperated character towards the end of Death Smiles at Murder. Having just sat through this thoroughly confusing mess of a movie, I know exactly how he feels. The story, by the film's director Aristide Massacessi (good old Joe D'amato using his real name for a change), is a clumsy mix of the supernatural, murder/mystery, and pretentious arty rubbish, the likes of which will probably appeal to those who admire trippy 70s garbage such as Jess Franco's more bizarre efforts, but which had me struggling to remain conscious.Opening with a hunchback mourning the death of his beautiful sister (with whom he had been having an incestuous affair, before eventually losing her to a dashing doctor), Death Smiles at Murder soon becomes very confusing when the very same woman (played by Ewa Aulin, who stars in the equally strange 'Death Laid an Egg') is seen alive and kicking, the sole survivor of a coach accident that occurs outside the estate of Walter and Eva von Ravensbrück. After being invited to stay and recuperate in their home, where she is tended to by creepy Dr. Sturges (Klaus Kinski in a throwaway role), the comely lass begins love affairs with both Mr. and Mrs. Ravensbrück (meaning that viewers are treated to some brief but welcome scenes of nookie and lesbian lovin').'So far, so good', I thought to myself at this point, 'we've had hunchbacks, incest, some blood and guts, and gratuitous female nudity'—all ingredients of a great trashy Euro-horror; what follows, however, is a lame attempt by Massacessi to combine giallo style killings, ghostly goings on, and even elements from Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Black Cat', to tell a very silly, utterly bewildering, and ultimately extremely boring tale of revenge from beyond the grave.This film seems to have quite few admirers here on IMDb, but given the choice, I would much rather watch one of the director's sleazier movies from later in his career; I guess incomprehensible, meandering, surreal 70s Gothic horror just ain't my thing! 2.5 out of 10 (purely for the cheesy gore and nekkidness), rounded up to 3 for IMDb.