La morte scende leggera (1972) User Reviews

Death At 80 Floors.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 6/10 · 24 June 2012]

Being in the mood of watching a Giallo that would be fun,but easy going,I had a quick look at some Giali titles by the side of my TV,and noticed that one starring "Amuck" actress Patrizia Viotti, (who sadly died at just age 44 in 1994) looked like one that would perfectly fit what I was looking for.

The plot:

Getting back from a "business" trip to Milan,Giorigo Darica returns home and is welcomed by the sight of his murdered wife.Terrified by the murder scene and also due to having a worrying feeling that his wife's murder is connected to his "business" relations.Rushing to get urgent advice from his lawyer over how he can stay away from getting implemented with his wife's murder. Darica's lawyer advises him that he should go and stay in a disused 80 floor hotel.Picking up his mistress Liz for company in the abandoned building,Liz and Giorigo soon start to suspect that the hotel is not actually empty,but instead contains things that go bump in the night.

View on the film:

Whilst Stelio Candelli's performance as Darica is disappointingly wooden,Patrizia Viotti brings a great sense of boundless energy to the film,with the terrific scenes of Liz getting in a violent struggle with Darica allowing Viotti to show the full effects of the closed off surrounding's on Liz.For the first half of the movie,co-writer/ (along with Luigi Russo) director Leopoldo Savona makes the first half of the film a supernatural Giallo,as Savona fills the hotel with atmospheric low lighting, smoke,and a surprisingly fun,a head of its time pre-Goblin Rock song by Mark Sigis Porter.Sadly,as the second half of the film brings the supernatural elements to this Giallo crashing down to earth, Savona loses the delicacy which he had been using to build up a good atmosphere,by instead making the end of the film one which leaves a feeling of Darica and Liz's time in the hotel as being a near complete waste of time

Daft even by giallo standards

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 22 December 2017]

Ultra-obscure giallo involving a man in a lot of trouble. He returns home one night after working away to find that his wife has been murdered. Due to the nature of his job, he does not go to the police but instead goes to his lawyer, who arranges for him to be set up in an abandoned hotel while they try and establish an alibi.

You see, our man here is a drug courier and has no alibi because he was up to no good, stayed well out of the road of people, and cannot rely on anyone to say he was out of town when his wife was killed because his associates cannot reveal themselves. The lawyer knows this as he's just as corrupt as anyone else, and has to find out who really killed the guy's wife, although I didn't really work out why they kept the guy alive instead of just shooting him.

So, the guy ends up locked in an abandoned hotel with his mistress and at first it's all 'hey, let's watch a porno and get it on' but soon they are bickering and fighting with each other. Things go from bad to worse when it turns out that someone else is in the hotel with them, then things goes completely off the deep end when someone gets murdered in the hotel and our poor guy has to help dispose of the body! What's going on then?

At first it seems like we're in for a very long, boring film with two people trapped in a hotel arguing and having flashbacks but soon things get very surreal with even our poor guying shouting "What's happened to reality?" while a strange sexy lady has a bath in a bare room while a monkey plays on a perch in the background, loud parties reveal themselves to be recordings, and weird hippy types outside spout absolute nonsense that I guess is supposed to be some sort of comment on the state of Italy in the early seventies.

Also strange is that we often get to hear people's thoughts. Not just the protagonist, but everyone, and usually it's some bizarre comment on someone they've just met. You'll be scratching your head so much you'll have a groove in it by the time things are explained so absurdly you'd think they were just making the thing up as they went along.

Yet it's for these very reasons that this one is worth tracking down. There's little nudity and blood, but enough daftness to keep you going. Good lighting effects too - in a hotel where there's seemingly no electricity, you still get to see what's going on, which can sometimes be the downfall of any horror film.

A monkey!

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 14 May 2022]

Death Falls Lightly begins when Georgio Darica (Stello Candelli) comes home from a crime-related business trip only to find that his wife has been killed. So his lawyer suggests that he grab his girlfriend Liz (Patrizia Viotti, Amuck) and head off to a hotel, but when he gets there, the owner (Antonio Anelli) has also killed his wife, so he asks him to help bury her, but then George remembers that the hotel was abandoned. So is he going insane? Are these people real? Did he actually kill his wife?

The next part of this movie gets absolutely ridiculous in the best of ways, as people appear, get murdered and come back to life, all while someone commits suicide on a Satanic altar, invisible killers attack George, prog rock blasts and a monkey shows up out of nowhere. It also has the absolute dumbest of all giallo police, which is saying something. Like, there's a very low bar for giallo cops and these ones may be the worst.

Director Leopoldo Savona also made Byleth: The Demon of Incest the same year, the same year I was born, which probably means something.

A giallo for giallo fans

[lazarillo · 21 January 2009]

A man returns to Mila from an out-of-town trip to find his wife brutally murdered. Realizing he doesn't have a decent alibi, he doesn't call the cops, but immediately goes to see his lawyer. It turns out that, via the lawyer, he is connected to powerful corrupt men and is helping them traffic drugs. Since it isn't in anybody's interest that the man get arrested, the lawyer puts him up in an eerie, old and nearly abandoned hotel, although he is quite annoyed that his client insists on bringing his sexy young mistress (Patrizia Viotti)along with him. Immediately strange things begin to happen in the hotel: strange music is played at odd hours, the man stumbles upon the elderly owner of the hotel who has apparently just killed HIS wife and needs help burying her, and the owners' strange but attractive daughter keeps trying to seduce him. Perhaps the old hotel is haunted, or maybe someone is trying the beleaguered murder suspect crazy?

I'd recommend this giallo to giallo fans. Everybody else may be a little put off by the bizarre beginning and the rather ridiculous plot twists at the end. Hardcore giallo fans, however, will no doubt eat this kind of absurdity up and ask for seconds. This is not a great giallo by any means. The acting is generally pretty poor, but the sexy Patrizia Viotti will probably make an impression (on male viewers at least). Viotti played Barbara Bouchet's murdered lesbian lover in the giallo classic "Amuck", but she was understandably overshadowed in that one by Bouchet and Rosalba Neri. This is her show all the way though, and while she's certainly no Meryl Streep acting-wise, she does get nice and naked several times. The music by Mark Sigis Porter is also, uh, interesting. The title song is basically a bad Jimi Hendrix imitation, but, god knows, there are far worse people to badly imitate than Hendrix.

Casual viewers may want to pass on this, but giallo fans should definitely seek it out

this film is pretty awful, try to avoid it!

[daliang1 · 1/10 · 5 September 2008]

This is a pretty slow going thriller which is absolutely not a giallo. The story is very boring and there is absolutely no gore no black glove killer. The plot is absurd and unengaged and sometimes stupid. I am a giallo fan who watch 70 giallos total, some good , some bad, but this is maybe the worst so called giallo I have ever seen(I still doubt it is a giallo) I am sincerely suggest all euro shock and giallo fans there is no need to track this trash down, believe me it is not worth it, you could save 75 minus of your life. This film definitely not a good example of my favorite genre-giallo. 1 star because no lower grade at IMDb.

Death Falls Lightly - and lands on its feet!

[The_Void · 7/10 · 10 July 2008]

Death Falls Lightly is a Giallo of the ultra rare variety, and while it has nothing on the best of what the genre has to offer; Leopoldo Savona's film is still a very solid genre entry. The film takes on an almost dreamlike atmosphere and presents a very isolated and focused mystery inside a deserted hotel building. Director Leopoldo Savona, who made Byleth also in 1972, was clearly hampered by a low budget which comes through in the overall 'cheap' atmosphere of the film, but he triumphs over this well with his story and characters. Our main character is a man named Giorgio Darica; a criminal who finds himself in a tight spot when someone murders his wife and he doesn't have an alibi. His lawyer suggests that he hides out in an abandoned hotel, and he takes his mistress with him. At first the pair is happy to make good use of their surroundings by having as much sex as possible; but pretty soon the tension starts to mount between them and things get worse when George stumbles upon a woman with her throat cut and begins to believe he may be going insane.

The main location in the film is the hotel, and while the director succeeds in making it feel very small and isolated; it has to be said that it's not the most exciting place for a film to take place in. However, this is made up for by the characters and the situation which is always at the forefront and the director does not concern himself too much with things going on outside of the central point of the film. Unfortunately this does mean that the murder scenes suffer - there are a few, but they're practically bloodless and not what I've come to expect from a Giallo. However, while there was ample opportunity for plenty of sex; thankfully the film doesn't just turn into a soft-core porno, and that's to its credit. The soundtrack is interesting and really not bad at all. Parts feel like they've been pulled from Spaghetti Westerns while the main theme is a cheap seventies rock track; but it does at least go with the film. The ending is really quite good and the film gives a good twist on what is probably the most clichéd ending you can get. Overall, Death Falls Lightly is likely to remain in obscurity; but it's worth tracking down and I do recommend it.

absolutely wonderful nod to Bird With a Crystal Plumage

[christopher-underwood · 7/10 · 21 April 2013]

From the same director and indeed the same year as the similarly hard to categorise, Byleth comes this strangely hypnotic blend of thriller cum ghost story cum giallo. I have seen this categorically denied as a giallo and yet I beg to differ. There are many a wide eyed moment, plenty of kills amid the sex and more than a hint that someone may be going mad. In addition there is an absolutely wonderful nod to Bird With a Crystal Plumage, and this scene with the locked glass doors probably ranks as the film's best. There is also, in this movie set within a hotel a scene most reminiscent of The Shining, though this might well have inspired the writer Stephen King, rather than Kubrick. Well worth a watch, if you can find it.

This oddball giallo plays out like an odd dream

[Red-Barracuda · 7/10 · 17 April 2013]

A drug trafficker's wife has been murdered. He has no alibi and will certainly be the chief suspect. Trouble is he is connected to various high flyers and they do not want their man implicated so they hide him and his mistress temporarily in a deserted hotel. Soon, strangers appear in the night and bizarre events begin to escalate out of control.

Well this one sure qualifies as one of the more obscure gialli out there. It has an odd feel to it that can best be described as surreal and off-kilter. I think the setting has something to do with it. Most of the movie is set within the confines of the hotel. This ensures that there is a claustrophobic feel to this giallo. Almost everything seems to happen in the dead of night and there is an impressively consistent dream-like tone to proceedings once the strange events get underway. An elderly man matter-of-factly asks for assistance in disposing of the body of his wife who he has just murdered for a trivial reason; there is a strange room where a girl bathes alongside a monkey; enigmatic women drift through the corridors of the hotel and say ambiguous things. The movie really gets going once these strange hotel guests start appearing and I think its this whole dream-like section in the dead of night in an abandoned hotel that mark this giallo out as a little distinctive from its peers. Of additional note is the theme tune which is a blues-rock number – it's not exactly normal to have the likes of that score one of these flicks – it only adds to the oddball feel to this one. Unusual stuff on the whole, which is a good thing of course.

You wouldn't want to stay in this hotel.

[parry_na · 6/10 · 3 March 2019]

After Coriolano Gori's stirring rock musical intro, we are introduced to rough and ready Giorgio (Stelio Candelli) who returns home to find his wife has been murdered. Due to the murky nature of his business, he declines to report the incident to the police and goes instead to his extremely shady lawyer, who places Girogio and his girlfriend Liz (stunning Patrizia Viotti who died at the tragically early age of 44 in 1997) in a hotel. He is a drug dealer, and the move is presumably for his own protection. Once inside this spacious new prison, things become very surreal indeed.

Writers Luigi Russo and Leopoldo Savona must have had a good time developing this. Taking full advantage of the trippy sensibilities that were still prevalent in the mid 1970's, bizarre incident follows bizarre incident and creates, as they roll along, a genuine feel of delirium and unease. Gori's terrific music is sometimes aggressive guitar rhythms and other times more psychedelic ambience and helps to sell this atmosphere. That nothing appears to make sense only heightens the desperate situation the two find themselves in.

Candelli's ongoing expressions of bewilderment and exasperation are understandable - in fact, for much of the film, his unease is about the only thing that is understandable. But as long as you are not in the mood for some intricate, satisfying linear story-line, it is very easy to get immersed in this. There are enough ghostly and horrific images to keep the confusion from getting irritating.