La Morte scende leggera

Giorgio Darika (Stelio Candelli) is in big trouble. Returning to see his estranged wife Irina following a trip to Milan on criminal business he finds her dead. Without an alibi, his lawyers (Fernando Cerulli and Tom Felleghy) – and, we soon learn, criminal associates – suggest Giorgio lie low for a while and make arrangements for him and his girlfriend Liz (Patrizia Viotti) to hide out at what should be a deserted hotel. Giorgio soon discovers that the place is not empty, however, as he encounters the caretaker – along with the body of the caretaker’s wife, her throat slit with a straight razor…


The face of a murderer?


Sleaze with a splash of giallo

This 1972 giallo from Leopoldo Savona is at times reminiscent of a sleazier hybrid of Four Flies on Grey Velvet and Spasmo, as a paranoiac psychodrama where motives are obscure and nobody, least of all Giorgio’s lawyers, with their penchant for mysterious telephone calls to film directors (whose latest project, La Matassa disfatta, is identified as a giallo) and certain members of the police, can be trusted.

Where the film differs from Four Flies on Grey Velvet is that we never know if Giorgio is in fact innocent of his wife’s murder until the end. The film opens with a subjective stalker cam shot entering her apartment, followed by a nervous-looking Giorgio exiting out the front door, donning his dark glasses and driving off, but there is no indication of the amount of time that has passed between the two images.

Sharing an isolated central location replete full of people acting strangely with Spasmo, La Morte scende leggera differs its more 'political' subtext, as we gradually learn fragments of the criminal conspiracy and how high up it goes. Crucially, however, this never causes the film to shift its focus, which always remains on Giorgio rather than the investigation slowly closing in on him.

Savona does a reasonable job of building atmosphere, countering the relative difficulty in empathising with Giorgio and most of the other characters on account of their general unpleasantness. One telling moment here is when Giorgio, Liz and Felleghy’s lawyer are driving to the hotel. As they come across an accident, with bodies strewn across the road, Giorgio’s instinctive response is to stop the car and going to help but the cooler-headed lawyer prevails: someone else will surely be along in a minute, and it’s best not to get involved in any case.

There’s some nice use of yellow within a number of the compositions, though the nightmare and flashback sequences are somewhat crudely rendered with colour filters and shock zooms predominating.




The obligatory women in mirrors shots


Tips for a murder suspect #1: Don't pick up the straight razor unless you intend to use it!

Most obviously, however, the filmmakers’ focus is on sleaze, with some gratuitous shower scenes featuring Viotti – not that one is complaining – and a love scene between she and Candelli that Savona amusingly intercuts with the porno loop playing on the 8mm projector that Giorgio had for whatever reason had the wherewithal to bring along.


Couples porn?

Then again, he and his associates are marked out as the loop’s producers, with Giorgio also commenting that Italy is one of the world’s leading producers of said material. (The famed porn director Lasse Braun, despite his Scandinavian sounding name, is in fact Italian and was born Alberto Ferro.)


Another splash of giallo, as an official inquires what's in the box

Mention must finally be made of the scoring, which comes courtesy of Lalo Gori and rock group the Mak Sigis Porter Ensemble. Though the Ensemble are credited only with the acid freak out title theme, which is enjoyable in its own right until the singing starts and then becomes enjoyable in a what-the-hell-does-that-mean sort of way, many of Gori’s cues present gentler variations on it, with others having a slightly incongruous spaghetti western flavour.

Byleth – il demone dell'incesto

Having been away from the family estate and his beloved sister Barbara for a year, handsome young nobleman Lionello (Mark Damon) returns to a shock: Barbara (Claudia Gravy) has married the older Giordano (Aldo Bufi Landi) in his absence.

The issue is more than one of brotherly concern; in any case Giordano is a suitable husband in every respect, cultured, considerate and embodying all the virtues of his class. Rather, it is that Lionello, whose nerves have always been somewhat fragile in any case, has incestuous longings towards his sister.

It may be merely a coincidence, but Lionello's return also coincides with a series of murders, beginning with a prostitute, Dolores, in town and continuing with one of the family's own servants, the maid Gisella. In both cases the killer's modus operandi is the same, the victim having been killed by a precise strike to the neck from a distinctive three bladed weapon.

Coupled with a number of other signs – the sight of a white horse, a tremor – it leads the local priest to suspect that a demon, Byleth, may be abroad on the earth and in their midst.






Lionello the voyeur #1

Meanwhile, Barbara and Giordano have invited the beautiful Floriana (Silvana Pomilli) to come stay with them, in the hope that a romance with Lionello might blossom or, if not, that her presence will at least keep him from brooding on things...




Lionello the voyeur #2

Written and directed by the enigmatic Leopoldo Savona, Byleth – il demone dell'incesto is one of the more ususual possession-themed films to come out of Italy in the 1970s on account of its historical rather than contemporary setting and the nature of its victim. Both these distinctions can presumably be put down not only to the film's pre-Exorcist origins but also its somewhat more aspirational nature, whereby the sex side of the sex and horror material is often framed in the context of Lionello's sickness and voyeurism in a way that makes us aware of our own 'sinfulness'.




Lionello the voyeur #3

The evocation of period detail is effective, with some nice details like the investigator's suspicion that the prostitute's murderer may be one of the Carbonari or Barbara's discussion of the thrill of travelling on a fast-moving train and of visiting Venice and Rome.

Thought at times reminiscent of Bava's Kill Baby Kill, with Savona also using zooms and close-ups to underscore key moments, the film lacks the same kind of clash between modern and traditional beliefs, with the idea of demonic possession being accepted more matter of factly after it is raised – a distinction that can be attributed to the film's being set 70 or 80 years earlier, at a point in history where the connections between madness and religion were that bit stronger, even among the educated elite.

Although Byleth also lacks Kill Baby Kill's more obviously expressive use of colour, its own colour palette seems somewhat worked-through, with natural shades predominanting to cloak many scenes in a sepia tone equally suggestive of hazy nostalgia of Barbara and Lionello's childhood games and the suffocating weight of the same past in the present where they are now forbidden, taboo.






From innocent play to something more serious in two minutes – Lionello and Barbara

Another obvious point of comparison is Joe D'Amato's undeniably muddled but haunting Death Smiles on a Murderer, with which the film shares its incest theme and that general air of decadence and malaise.


Giallo or gothic imagery?

Though perhaps inconsistently directed overall – a set-piece friendly duel turned competitive between Lionello and Giordano is full of dynamic camera movements and cutting, whereas expository scenes tend to remain bland and by the numbers – and lacking in a strong detective subplot or central character to engage the less committed viewer, Byleth works nicely when taken as a mood piece in which atmosphere is prioritised over shock and suspense.