Death Falls Lightly

1972
5.2| 1h25m| en
Details

A drug trafficker discovers his wife dead with her throat cut. He has no alibi so he takes his mistress to an abandoned hotel. As they become claustrophobic, the panicked criminal discovers more murders, one after another until strangers appear in the night and a sinister web of lies and secrets escalate out of control.

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

All Prime Video Movies and TV Shows. Cancel anytime. Watch Now

Trailers & Clips

Also starring Veronika Korosec

Reviews

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.
Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
christopher-underwood 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.
morrison-dylan-fan 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
lazarillo 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
The_Void 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.