Death Smiles on a Murderer (Italian: La morte ha sorriso all'assassino; English title sequence: Death Smiles at Murder)[2] is a 1973 Italian horror film directed by Joe D'Amato and starring Ewa Aulin, Klaus Kinski and Luciano Rossi.

In a crypt-like room, hunchbacked Franz von Holstein mourns over the body of Greta, his young sister and only love.

In a second flashback, she teases him into chasing her when she stumbles upon Doctor Herbert von Ravensbrück; they get romantically involved while Franz watches from hiding.

Walter von Ravensbrück (Herbert's son) and his wife Eva are being served tea by butler Simeon when a carriage driving by at high speed is overturned and the coachman fatally impaled.

He hears no heartbeat and discovers her gold medallion carrying the inscription "Greta 1906" as well as mysterious symbols, which he recognizes, perturbed.

Getrud, the Ravensbrücks' servant, having recognized Greta, is haunted in her room by Franz von Holstein, who repeatedly vanishes and reappears and cuts her neck open with a scalpel - a wound that bleeds but disappears.

For the coachman's death certificate, he opens the coffin to discover the corpse's rapid decomposition - an indication that he was undead at the time of the crash.

In disbelief, Eva checks for the body, when the dark cat jumps through the wall opening at her face and runs up the stairs, where Greta appears, smiling.

In the family granary, Greta lures Simeon out of his hiding place, acknowledging that he did not betray her identity and promising him anything he could wish for: money, or better even, love.

Inspector Dannick visits Professor Kempte about the medallion's symbols, who explains that the Incans believed they contained a formula which could bring their king back to life.

When he returns home, the figure he previously addressed as his wife and which hitherto has been sitting with her back to the viewer turns around.

Source: [1] Credited, but not in the picture:[5] Uncredited: Death Smiles on a Murderer was produced by Franco Gaudenzi, whom D'Amato had met through production manager Oscar Santaniello.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla similarly contains a carriage accident that introduces the female character to the household, and there is also a cat connection in that, similarly to Carmilla in Laura's nightmares, Greta either shapeshifts into or controls a cat.

[8] Death Smiles on a Murderer was shot between November and December 1972 with a working title of 7 strani cadaveri (lit.

[1] Film historian Roberto Curti referred to this box office as "scarce business" noting its unimportant distributor Florida Cinematografica.

[10] In Matthew Edwards' book on Klaus Kinski published in 2016, the film, called "trippy, but fascinating", is compared to Jess Franco's Venus in Furs in that its "existential, haunting and dreamlike qualities do nothing to detract from the enjoyment of what takes place on screen".