This early directorial outing from Aristide Massaccesi succeeds in terms of imagery and atmosphere – Massaccessi's long apprenticeship as a cinematographer paying dividends here – but nevertheless fails to establish the overall consistency of tone it would need to qualify as anything other than a flawed, very minor masterpiece.
At its best Death Smiled at Murder achieves a hallucinatory and fantastical mood close to that of Mario Bava, intermingling objective and subjective perspectives to fantastical effect. At its worst it is as crude and banal as one would expect from a film-maker who later came to specialise in sex/horror hybrids and pornos, including such notorious entries as the necrophile drama Beyond the Darkness and the Black Emanuelle meets the snuff movies entry Emanuelle in America .
This being said, it should be noted that neither the sex nor the gore scenes in Death Smiled at Murder, are as extreme as anything Massaccesi would dish up five or ten years down the line, even if the latter – which include a shotgunning and a multiple slashing, both to the face – are relatively explicit and shocking for a 1972 film.
Regardless, at least Death Smiled at Murder begins more or less as it means to go on, with a confusingly structured opening montage of incidents whose significance will only become (partially) apparent as the main story unfolds:
A hunchbacked figure (Luciano Rossi) mourns the loss of his sister and "only love", promising to restore her to life. Clearly, however, she is – or was – not comfortable with his incestuous attentions, as we then see the pair fighting, followed by her announcing her desire to be free. It then seems that at some point she did escape, for next we see the young woman running through the woods, her deformed pursuer stopping in his tracks as he sees his beloved in the embrace of another man (Giaocomo Rossi Stuart AKA Stuart Ross) – whom she obviously knows – his face changing to a look of jealousy and horror…
With these enigmas planted, we are introduced to the main characters and story.
Eva and Walter von Ravensbrück (Angela Bo and Sergio Doria) are relaxing in the grounds of their mansion when a coach comes racing through the grounds and spectacularly crashes. Rushing to investigate, they find the coachman dead, impaled on a shaft of wood, and the only passenger – the beautiful young woman who we saw in the opening montage – physically unharmed but unable to remember who she is or where she came from.
Dr Sturges (Klaus Kinski) is called in to make a diagnosis. During the examination he notices a pendant around the girl's neck, with the name Greta, the year 1906 – it is now 1909 – and some strange engravings on the reverse. By a truly bizarre coincidence, Sturges immediately recognises these as an Incan formula for resurrecting the dead; the goal which he has been questing for all these years.
Meanwhile the servant Gertrude observes – Massaccessi loads the film with POV shots, sometimes identifying the voyeur, sometimes not – being distressed enough by something she sees to first experience some remarkably vivid nightmares/flashbacks and then announce that she is leaving the household.
Though puzzled by Gertude's sudden decision, coming as it does after three years loyal service, no one seems to particularly mind – at least openly, for Gertrude is then mercilessly despatched by the double-barrelled shotgun of an unseen killer despite her pleas that she "never said anything to anyone"
Some time later Dr Sturges and his deaf-mute servant (one can't help thinking it's never a good idea to be a deaf-mute in a horror film) succeed in resurrecting a corpse only to be summarily dispatched along with their freshly revived subject by an unidentified killer.
Time passes and Greta, now more or less recovered, is ready to leave. The Ravensbrück's have taken a liking to her and won't hear of it, encouraging her to stay on and introducing her to their circle at a ball.
Then each, enchanted by Greta's beauty, embarks on a clandestine affair. Apparently somewhat confused by her lesbian feelings, Eva first half-drowns Greta in her bath, then drops her robe and kisses Greta.
Eva's sadism does not augur well for the future and, after discovering Greta in her husband's arms, she decides that if she cannot have Greta all to herself then no one can have her, walling the girl up alive in an unused cellar.
Worried by Greta's disappearance, Walter contacts the police. They find nothing and, with three weeks having passed, the Von Ravensbrücks are getting used to life without Greta once more.
Then, at a masked ball, the narrative takes another Poe-like twist, with Greta appearing before a terrified Eva…
Even it's not quite the case that "None of this makes any sense," as the Inspector says by way of summary after another 40 minute of mayhem, the inexplicable Carmilla-style coach incident, the unclear story function of servants Gertrude and Simeon – amusingly pronounced as something closer to 'Simian' to my ears – and the subplot with Dr Sturges are enough to make one wonder what Massaccessi and his two co-scriptwriters were smoking when they made Death Smiled at Murder .
Away from the awkward tone and wayward narrative, the film benefits from a surprisingly good period feel, with the cheap yet stylish production design and costuming being hampered only slightly by some of the rather 70s hairstyles on display. (Then again, maybe this isn't too surprising: One of Massaccesi's later specialisations was, after all, the big budget historically set porno.)
Berto Pisano's haunting score, with its use of female vocal, mournful flute and muted trumpet lines and sparse piano and percussion, is another asset, even if it also sounds as if it might be more at home in a straight giallo than a period and hybrid piece.
The performances are variable. Ewa Aulin excels as the seductive angel of death/succubus character, at first coming across all vulnerable and innocent, then turning playful, then nasty. Angela Bo is good as well, her scenes with Aulin having a genuine erotic charge. Klaus Kinski, top-billed with Aulin, is underused in what really amounts to little more than a cameo, but at least delivers some of those trademark intense, vein-bulging gazes. Dorin, Rossi-Stuart and the other male performers are dry and uninteresting, though this does provide a useful counterbalance for Aulin to work her seductive/destructive wiles and might, if one is being charitable, be ascribed to design rather than accident.
Fifty per-cent historical giallo, fifty per cent recycled Poe, Death Smiled at Murder ultimately emerges as 100 per cent Massaccesi in its placing of sex and violence above all else. Yet the lyrical moments amidst the mess also give one cause to speculate on what the director might have achieved had poetry rather than pornography been good box office.
This Region 0 DVD of Death Walks at Midnight is presented by Dutch company Shock as part of their Joe D'Amato (i.e. Massaccesi's favoured pseudonym) collection.
Presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio the visuals are satisfactory enough considering the age and low-budget nature of the film and probably look as good as they have done for many a year. The audio is pretty bad though, with very noticeable hiss, crackle and pop for the majority of the running time.
The extras comprise the trailer, self-advancing slideshow and brief essay on the film (duplicated on screen and as an insert booklet) that offers a fair evaluation of its good and bad points.
Note should also be made of the music on the DVD title screens, which sounds like a passable imitation of a later Goblin score in the Beyond the Darkness vein – until some disastrously cheesy porn saxophone kicks in.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
Rating:
3.0 / 5
(1 vote)
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