Un hacha para la luna de miel

John Harrington runs a model agency specialising in bride gowns. He likes model railways and occasionally dressing up as a bride. The latter means he's in killer mode doing what he must do or, as he puts it, 'continue to wield the cleaver' until his 'issues' are resolved. The title suggests a similarity to Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers but in reality the films are far apart. Kastle's film is gritty, almost documentary-like and contains the massive presence of Shirley Stoler, while Bava opts for a style flamboyant even by giallo standards and has a handsome cast to match.

The spirit of Psycho looms large, though Bava's lightness of touch offsets the potentially gruesome subject matter - there's a very funny scene in a kitsch disco (with terrific music) where the cleaver wielder is thrown out for suggesting a threesome involving one of the dancers and his dead wife. It's true to say that it's style over substance, but that's the point

Mario Bava giallo about a guy who runs a wedding dress design and manufacturing company in Paris - whilst having a sideline in murdering young brides whilst they're wearing their wedding dresses. That's not a spoiler; unlike most gialli, in this one we know who the killer is right from the start. The mystery is more involved with his motivation. We know that each killing helps him piece together some long-forgotten childhood trauma, and that he's compelled to keep killing until he's got the whole picture - but exactly what that trauma is we don't know until the end. Canadian actor Stephen Forsyth plays the killer, who in character feels like a cross between Norman Bates and Patrick Bateman, whilst looking like a cross between Clint Eastwood and Timothy Dalton (Forsyth only made 10 movies for some reason, of which this was his last). It's a bit lighter on blood than you'd expect from the title, and there aren't too many onscreen kills. But it does have a real switch-up halfway through when it becomes a ghost story! It's not as gripping as some of Bava's stuff, but it's still fun. 6.5/10.

It's sort of like Psycho, only not, and it's sort of like any number of other serial-killer movies, except you know who the bad guy is from literally the first scene. But we don't watch Mario Bava movies for the intricate plots or, as in this case, for the strong acting. We watch them for the grisly visuals! Man's a maestro of mayhem when it comes to presenting blood. Very stylish movie, very well shot. Forsyth is positively wooden, though.

I say strange because I'm not quite sure what exactly "Hatchet for the Honeymoon" was supposed to be (but enjoyed it nonetheless). It features many of the traditional giallo elements - a black-clad killer, lots of beautiful young women who may as well have "Murder Victim" tattooed on their foreheads, incompetent detectives, childhood psychological trauma, spooky childhood toys... Yet it also diverges from the giallo blueprint in some ways by incorporating an odd, Twilight Zone-style supernatural element into the plot, and also a wry commentary on bourgeois married life. There are clear elements of both Psycho and Peeping Tom in the story, and it also predates both the 1980 slasher film He Knows You're Alone, and the Bret Easton Ellis book (and later film) American Psycho.

As usual with Mario Bava, the cinematography, production design and lighting are all beautiful to look at, and there are two great suspense set-pieces: the scene where the killer waltzes with his next victim to the eerie tune of a music box in a shadowy, elegant store-room full of creepy plastic mannequins in wedding dresses; and the scene where he talks to the suspicious cop while his dead wife's arm is hanging from the staircase and dripping blood onto the carpet.

It's also a surprisingly funny film in many ways. Special mention must go to Laura Betti's hilarious performance as Mildred, the evil wife from hell.

All in all, "Hatchet for the Honeymoon" is an intriguing and often underrated addition to Mario Bava's formidable canon. Stylish, entertaining and darkly funny.

A note: Was this movie ever called in English HATCHET FOR A HONEYMOON, rather than the awkward HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON? I seem to recall this from a Leonard Maltin book circa 1978. Or am I as cracked as Bava's protagonist?

For my money, this is primo vintage Bava--which is to say Dario Argento in top hat and tails, Jess Franco with a finishing-school diploma, or, to look at the glass as half empty, Richard Lester after three hits of dirty windowpane acid.

To top this voiceover narration, you'd have to go either to BARRY LYNDON or, on the other hand, MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE: "My name is John Harrington. I'm thirty years old. I am a paranoiac. Paranoiac! What a marvellous world. So delicate. And full of possibilities. The fact is, I'm completely mad." And so is Bava's odyssey through the crazy-straw-shaped brain of J. Harrington, Esq., a hunky sociopath whose sexual fires are only stoked by burying a hatchet in the flesh of virginal-looking brides in their white-veiled drag--and, when they have the ill fortune to be there, their bridegrooms.

The hyper-lusciosity of Bava's style suggests a Bertolucci blissfully unconcerned with agrarian collectivism. Mate that rococo with Nicolas Roeg's brand of kaleidoscopus maximus and you have an inkling of what Signior Mario is up to. Note to Greil Marcus: as a sequel to "Lipstick Traces," how about a book tracing the parallel histories of canonical surrealism (Bunuel-Dali-Aragon-Bataille) and Italian horror of the seventies?