Death Smiles on a Murderer (1973)
This intriguing Gothic giallo from director Joe D'Amato is a tale of Incan remedies, ghostly visitations, rotting corpses and murder.
It's a beautifully filmed dream like film aided by a fascinatingly haunting score which gives the film an almost ethereal quality with star Ewa Aulin a delicate presence as she floats across the screen seducing anyone and everyone until she exacts her revenge with feline ferocity as her victims see what she really is - a reanimated decomposing body - as they die in even more gory ways.
However my favourite moment came as Klaus Kinski's doctor removes a tie pin and penetrates Aulin's eyeball with it thus discovering she feels no pain and is in fact dead.
The whole film has that sense of being in a Victorian opium den, half awake, hedonistic waves taking over your mind with Poe, Stoker and MR James as your companions. Lovely.
Death Smiles on a Murderer isn't an easy watch. At times i was a little confused i will admit, but it all comes good in the end and was certainly the best film i've seen so far this Christmas. Enjoyably macabre fun.
/ 5