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I wonder was Mario Bava ever head-hunted by Hammer? This film is so gorgeously shot, the set-designs so perfect, that the film has the look of a fairy-tale nightmare. The gorgeous art-direction serves the story, pacing and director's style very well. This is a very moody piece, that demands your patience and attention. It gave me goose-bumps and in one scene towards the end, made my blood turn cold.

The ghost of a dead child is doing the rounds in a small Carpathian village, killing the inhabitants, who are reluctant to speak about it when a coroner turns up to investigate. He ends running foul of the one in control of the ghost.

I really can't praise the cinematography, set-design and directing enough. This was my first time meeting Mario Bava, and I look forward to watching more of his work, and even watching this one again. The gothic horror is exceptionally done, finely complemented by the set-designs and imagery, that give a nightmare quality to it all.

I was fortunate to see the original Italian version of 'Kill, Baby..Kill!' last night, with subtitles and not dubbing. Some of the dubbed versions of 60s and 70s European horror movies available, by Bava, Argento, Franco, Rollin and other notable directors, are badly done and make the movies seem silly and amateurish, so I was very glad to see this in its original language. I don't think this movie is as impressive as Bava's classic 'Black Sunday', but it is an excellent Gothic chiller full of atmosphere and style. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, from the underrated Vincent Price post-apocalyptic thriller 'The Last Man On Earth', plays a doctor sent to perform an autopsy on a woman who has died mysteriously. The villagers are cagey and uncooperative, and he soon finds himself in the middle of similar unexplained deaths which seem to have some connection with the nearby Villa Graps. The lovely Erika Blanc ('The Devil's Nightmare') plays the doctor's love interest, and the sexy Fabienne Dali a local witch. Martin Scorsese has admitted that this movie was an inspiration for one sequence in his 'The Last Temptation Of Christ', and Tim Burton is a card carrying Bava nut ('Sleepy Hollow' is as much a homage to Bava's work as that of Hammer studios). With each Bava movie I see I am further convinced he is quite possibly the most underrated director in movie history. Why he is not a household name is difficult to fathom. Put this one on your "must see" list, directly behind 'Black Sunday' and 'Lisa And The Devil'!

This colour-drenched Gothic horror film from Italian master Mario Bava is full to the brim with atmosphere and style. A doctor travels to a remote village to perform an autopsy on a woman who has died in mysterious circumstances. He immediately finds himself in the midst of a series of similar unexplained deaths. Everything seems to be connected to an ominous nearby house, the Villa Graps. While the malevolent ghost of little girl terrorises the vicinity...

Kill, Baby...Kill! May sport a title that makes it sound like it should be a Russ Meyer sexploitation flick but to all intents and purposes this is pure Bava. It contains most of the elements that are associated with the great man's work: terrific fluid cinematography, beautiful use of colour and light, and strong atmospherics. It benefits too from a pretty good cast. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart is solid as the doctor while there is strong support from the beautiful and very Gothic Fabienne Dali as the local sorceress. Carlo Rustichelli pipes in too with a good score that sounds very like his soundtrack to Blood and Black Lace. But it also has an eerie section that accompanies the ghostly girl. This latter presence is well used throughout the picture. She appears in the night looking through windows, while her bouncing ball follows her around and adds splendid macabre detail - the ball led to the girl's death in the first place.

Like all Bava films, this one is an exercise in cinematic style. Mostly, visual style. Many of the compositions are beautifully conceived and lit. Bava's camera gracefully captures it all and the sets are awash with striking colour and lit to perfection. In a couple of standout scenes the director puts together sequences of surreal splendour. One features a spiral staircase and the other has a man chase a figure through a maze of identical rooms until he finally catches him only to discover it is himself he has been chasing.

Like many of Bava's films the story isn't really very great. Its serviceable and no more. But this is ultimately only a minor point as it's the style in which the story is told that is the main draw. And this is a great film from a master of visual cinematic style.

In a small town in Transylvanian, police detective Kruger calls upon Doctor Paul Eswai to perform an autopsy on a woman who died a violent death, but the unusual thing is that a coin was embedded in her heart. When Dr Eswai arrives in town he discovers that the town is paralysed by fear of a dreaded curse of a spirit of a young girl who died 20 years earlier and the towns folk aren't all to happy about doctor interfering in their business.

Breathtaking! Yes, breathtaking indeed. It's only my third viewing of a Mario Bava film and what a talented and versatile director he is. This film breathes Gothic atmosphere and chills, with air of mystery to keep you glued to this subtle nightmare. The remote nature of the film adds to the spooky sets with dark shadowy pathways, creepy graveyard, a misty town with its eerie ruins and a downright unnerving Villa Graps, where the locals fear to tread! The whole surroundings come across as rather forbiddingly stark and very alienating. With a colour scheme that jumps out at you and that only Bava can create. What compensates the visual flair is the horrifyingly tense, but mystical score and effectively jittery sound effects. Damn that hissing wind! Also profound camera work that's incredibly vivid and swirling panning all over the place helps convey such a brood mood. There always seemed to be lurking danger even if it wasn't evident on screen. With all that, we are put into a whirlwind of such unease, which bleeds with a high amount of tension and frights.

The odd plot builds on the superstition and the dialogue was rather interesting. Performances were so-so, no one really stood out, but they fit the buck. Really, Bava was the real star here and it shows. Even the special effects were well used, but the make-up of child spirit was damn freaky. Especially those scenes with those hands going pitta padder at the window seal. Shivers ran down my spine! Although, saying that it does have some weak spots in the continuity of the plot and I thought ending was all a bit too convenient. Anyhow, this didn't damaged my experience of this menacing chiller that grows on atmosphere, not violence. The story might be your standard run of the mill, but it's Bava's direction that makes it visually impressive and immensely spooky. Also, what a great title!

Highly recommended!

This is a surprisingly effective horror film, since I got it on a collection of 10 old horror movies for $15. I have three or four other ten horror movie collections and have only seen one or two films from them. I wonder how many more are actually worth watching? I have a love of really old and even really bad horror movies, For some reason terrible old horror movies can be a ton of fun to watch, while terrible new horror movies just come off as exploitative and stupid (Cabin Fever, Wrong Turn, House of the Dead, etc.).

In Mario Bava's 1966 horror classic, Kill, Baby, Kill, there have been some mysterious deaths in a small village, the isolation and pure strangeness of which reminds me of the town from The Wicker Man. Evidently a seven year old girl burned to death 20 years earlier and continues to haunt the town. Anybody that she reveals herself to almost immediately dies a terrible death which will look like suicide to any subsequent investigation. As was also the case in The Wicker Man, the outside detective assigned to the case gradually questions his certainty that it's all just some kind of superstitious hysteria.

He initially explains the phenomena as poverty and ignorance, combined with superstition. A dangerous combination, to be sure. Bava takes this premise and does all kinds of cinematic trickery with it, much more than is common in horror. He makes psychological use of lighting and color, expertly frames his shots within outstanding sets (seriously, even the bad ones are good), and delivers the surprisingly complex story with a level of skill rarely seen in the genre. He makes good use of the quick zoom lens and such ever-effective horror film tools as children and hallways (Kubrick was surely influenced by this film when he made The Shining, we have the ghost of a little girl, the creepy hallways, even the ghostly bouncing ball) and does some great things with a spiral staircase.

I expected the movie to be terrible, at least because of the collection in which it is contained, although I guess I should be careful about assuming that a 10-movie horror collection that comes out to $1.50 per movie will be full of bad ones. One of my other collections has the original House on Haunted Hill and Night of the Living Dead, for example, but I didn't expect many more that would be any good. Kill, Baby, Kill, though, is certainly an overlooked gem.