Tag: Mario Bava

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Kill, Baby, Kill

This is a review of Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby, Kill. Mr. Bava was an influential Italian director in the 1960’s and 1970’s who also directed horror classics such as Blood & Black Lace and Black Sabbath. My review of Blood & Black Lace is here. I thought I’d reviewed Black Sabbath as well, but I guess not.

I do not consider Kill, Baby, Kill to be a giallo; since it has supernatural elements, I’d call it a ghost story with gothic overtones. The movie takes place in a village in the Carpathians in 1907 (thanks, Wikipedia!). Our main character is Dr. Eswai. He’s a sharp dresser, that Dr. Eswai. Young women are dying of mysterious causes, and he has been summoned to the village to do an autopsy of the latest victim. Unfortunately, the villagers view autopsies as violating the will of God. Their solution to this knotty theological problem is to try to murder Dr. Eswai, because killing someone you disagree with is absolutely the will of God.

I should note that the more enlightened characters in this movie view the villagers as superstitious morons, but in their defense the villagers a) know exactly what’s going on; b) are right to be terrified. What’s unspoken here is the idea of divine retribution; i.e., the belief that they deserve what’s happening to them. Interestingly, there are no priests or overt religious imagery in this movie, meaning that the concept of forgiveness is absent.

Kill, Baby, Kill doesn’t have much gore, or violence, or sex – the holy trinity of horror movies. However, the visuals are striking. There’s a sequence with a spiral staircase that looks awesome. The plot is nothing special – young girl killed due to the negligence of the townspeople haunts said townspeople. The cast includes a crazed Baroness and a healer who drives coins into people’s hearts. Dr. Eswai is a certified skeptic and impeccable dresser. His co-star and potential love interest Monica doesn’t have much to do, as she’s just arrived at the village.

A nitpick: since the girl in question is a tween, and not a baby, maybe the title should read Kill, Tween, Kill! Or are we take ‘baby’ to refer to a nubile young woman? Perhaps it’s a reference to the Baroness, who has wild bed head and chews the scenery with great vigor. Anyway, Kill, Baby, Kill is available on Shudder. It’s a solid horror movie that looks great, but don’t watch if you don’t like older horror movies. By today’s standards, it’s tame.

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Blood and Black Lace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UMNNQqurwc

Watching Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace reminded me of an episode of Charlie’s Angels. The music sounds like TV show music and the girls look like TV show actresses. In a way, that makes the violence that much more shocking. This is a very pretty movie with a few very ugly moments, including a short but nasty torture scene.

A man wearing a cloth mask over his face strangles a fashion model and dumps her body in a closet. When the dead girl’s co-workers discover her diary it sets off a daisy chain of murders. The killer stalks his prey through mansions stuffed full of rugs, fancy furniture, exotic art and marble statues. I never knew modeling paid so well! Maybe the killings are the work of a sexual psychopath, but the slayings seem too calculated for that. The modeling world has a seamy side, with drugs and money and sleaze, and the killer seems right at home.

Blood and Black Lace is a giallo, and thus has both mystery and horror elements. What this movie doesn’t have is a protagonist. None of the characters in the ensemble cast are all that likable. The players display a distinct lack of morality, or perhaps it’s personality. Since they live in a superficial world dominated by looks, that’s not much of a surprise. But it is a fairly sophisticated bit of writing/filmmaking.

I saw Blood and Black Lace on Fandor, where it was advertised as ‘retro VHS style,’ not a selling point for anyone who remembers VHS. Despite this, Blood and Black Lace is still a very pretty movie. It’s dubbed, and the dubbing is good, but don’t look at the characters’ lips when they are talking. Despite all the positives, to me this movie gives off a Charlie’s Angels/Murder Mystery of the Week vibe. There are classics that don’t age well, but perhaps that isn’t fair. Blood and Black Lace was influential and it’s not Mr. Bava’s fault other directors imitated him.