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Giorgio (Stelio Candelli) returns home from a "business"-trip
(he's actually a drugrunner for a group of politicians) to find his wife
murdered. He knows right away he'll be the prime suspect in this, so he
asks his lawyer Sawara (Tom Felleghy) - a member of his drugring - for
help, who arranges for him and his girlfriend Liz (Patrizia Liotti) to be
holed up in a hotel closed for the season for the time being. The stay at
the hotel proves to be a bit of a strain for Giorgio and Liz as well as
for their relationship, basically because it's a very creepy place, has no
electricity, the windows have to remain barred up at all times and the
like. Then Liz starts to see and hear other people in the hotel, not very
clearly, just shadows. Giorgio thinks she's just stressed out, but he goes
check it out and stumbles upon - the hotel owner (Antonio Anelli). The
hotel owner has just killed his wife (Lella Cattaneo), and since he knows
about the predicament Giorgio is in, he manages to persuade him bury her.
After that, he invites Giorgio to join him and his new girlfriend
(Rossella Bergamonti) in the hotel bar for some drinks. Somehow that never
materializes since the hotel owner and his girl soon vanish, instead the
hotel owner's daughter (Veronika Korosec) starts wandering the hallway,
but more like a ghost than an actual person. Giorgio and Liz are soon
scared shitless, and then Giorgio stumbles upon a woman killed exactly as
his girlfriend was, picks up the knife her throat was slit with and tries
to make an escape ... right into the arms of the police. What has
happened was that lawyer Sawara has set up this elaborate haunted hotel
scheme to prove the guilt of innocence of Giorgio, and the hotel owner and
his clan were mere actors in his employ - and he is ruthless enough to
even accept the death of one of his actors as collateral damage. Now that
Giorgio is found with the murder weapon in hand and a broken man that he
is very much the killer, and in his state of mind, he would confess to
everything actually - but there's a problem: The killer was left-handed
and Giorgio is not ... and soon enough, Liz - the only person besides
Giorgio who could have wanted his wife's death - slits a policeman's
throat in exactly the manner the throat of Giorgio's wife was killed, and
... well, you can figure the rest. In its concept and its best
moments, Death Falls Lightly seems to anticipate Stephen King's
novel The Shining, which wasn't released until 5 years later, and I
certainly would not put it beyond Mr King to have looked to this film for
inspiration (though there is no proof for this) - however, Death Falls
Lightly's best moments are unfortunately few and far between, as most
of the film is just made up from stereotypical shocks and overly clichéed
scenes. And the plottwist at the end comes as as predictable as it is
disappointing and even pedestrian. That's not to say Death Falls
Lightly isn't at least some kind of fun, in a retro-giallo sort of way
at least, but it seems the film is quite a few yards away from developing
its full potential.
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