The Torture Chamber Of Dr. Sadism (1967)

The first film is a period picture that follows a man named Roger (played by Lex Barker) who is on a quest to uncover the mystery of his ancestral origins. As he travels through the area he meets up with a priest named Father Fabien (Vladimir Medar) and wins the affections of a beautiful young woman named Lilian (Karin Dor). What Roger doesn't realize is that three decades before his arrival, a cruel nobleman named Count Regula (Christopher Lee) was put to death for his horrible crimes against the local population of busty young female virgins!

As Roger and his pals travel through the woods, things start to take a rather macabre turn - mysterious horseman pester them and corpses hang from tree limbs. Once they finally make it to the castle, however, things get even stranger. Roger soon learns of his relation to Regula, who has risen from the grave to exact his vengeance on whoever he can get his hands on.... mainly a fresh batch of virgins he intends to murder in order to complete his horrible plan to gain eternal life.

Very loosely adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit And The Pendulum by Manfred R. Kohler, The Torture Chamber Of Dr. Sadism (also known as Castle Of The Walking Dead as well as about a dozen other alternate titles) is a fun gothic chiller with some gorgeous sets and impressive cinematography. It's also a very strange film with a few odd plot points that distance the film from Poe's source material by quite a large margin. That said, despite a few pacing issues here and there (the ending comes up very quickly!), the film is generally a very successful piece of gothic filmmaking thanks to the gorgeous atmosphere that the film contains. Performances from Barker and Lee stand out, with Barker playing the noble hero quite well and Lee doing a fine job as the macabre faced villain even if he's a little typecast here.

The influence of Mario Bava is pretty obvious from start to finish and at times the film borrows from Black Sunday a little too much for its own good even if it never reaches that film's level of success. Regardless, Reinl certainly gets enough right here that the movie stands on its own as a completely enjoyable and thoroughly entertaining horror film.

Death Smiles On A Murderer (1973)

The second feature is one of the notorious Joe D'Amato's earliest directorial efforts. In this period film, Klaus Kinski plays Dr. Sturges, a quirky scientist has a rather strange affection for an amnesiac named Greta (Ewa Aulin). Struges is obsessed with bringing the dead back to life, an unlikely task at which he soon proves successful... sort of. Greta Greta is taken care of by a kindly couple (Sergio Doria and Angela Bo) but her estranged hunchback brother (Luciano Rossi) is running around making things difficult for people. Don't forget the lesbian scene, a couple of strange murders and a cop who wants to figure out what exactly is going on here. It's all very strange and extremely confusing...

Death Smiles On A Murderer is honestly a bit of a mess. The plot jumps around and doesn't make a whole lot of sense (D'Amato co-wrote it with Claudio Bernabei) and despite the fancy locations and 'old-timey' costumes, the period filmmaking fails to convince. On top of that, the gore effects, for which D'Amato shows a knack, are over done here with plenty of prolonged shots and overacting ensuring that their intended impact is not so much diminished as it is completely wasted.

On the surface, Death Smiles At A Murderer really doesn't have a whole lot going for it at all. That said, there is a some nice atmosphere here and the film is very well shot. D'Amato, who got his start as a cinematographer, does an excellent job behind the camera here and everything is very nicely framed and composed which goes a long way to making the film look a lot better than it really is. Berto Pisano's excellent score also helps the picture a fair bit. It doesn't necessarily fit with the time in which the picture is set but it does add atmosphere and mood.

The cast is interesting here as well. Kinski always brought a heavy screen presence to every film he appeared in, from his now legendary collaborations with Werner Herzog to his generally cheap and quickly made work in the Italian exploitation industry. He appeared in a few Spaghetti Westerns like The Fighting Fists Of Shanghai Joe and Shoot The Living And Pray For The Dead as well as war movies like Heroes In Hell and cop films like The Bloody Hands Of The Law prior to this picture so he was no stranger to the Italian film industry of the time. He's very well cast as the mad doctor, and while he doesn't go as over the top as he would in other pictures, all he really has to do is look the part, which he does. He might not look as interested in his work here as he does in some of his other pictures, but a mediocre Kinski performance is still far more interesting than the work of many other actors. Unfortunately, Kinski isn't really in the film as much as the advertising would have us believe.

The rest of the cast are fairly disposable though Ewa Aulin certainly looks nice enough and has a certain dreamlike quality to her acting that fits in with the strange vibe that runs through the film and Rossi is fun as the nutty hunchback.

Ultimately, Death Smiles On A Murderer is an interesting movie, if not a very good one. It foreshadows themes that D'Amato would further explore later in his career and it drips with atmosphere. Had a little more care been put into the story it would probably be better regarded than it is, but as it stands, it's worth seeing for those with an affinity for Giallos and gothic pictures. 

Both films on this disc are presented in their English dubbed tracks in Dolby Digital Mono format. While there's a bit of hiss throughout on the presentation, the dialogue stays pretty clear throughout though the levels fluctuate a bit here and there.

On top of the two commentary tracks, there's also a featurette entitled Gore Beat: Eurotrash Title-Mania! () in which Johnny Legend shows up on camera in front of the New Beverly in Los Angeles where a screening of The Vampire's Night Orgy is occurring. From there he interviews a few people, including Bob Muriowski from Grindhouse Releasing and the late, lamented 'movie geek' from the Beat The Geeks TV show about how and why European films were retitled, sometimes more than once, for their American theatrical releases.

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