Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (Dr Paul Eswai), Erika
Blanc (Monica Shuftan), Max Lawrence (Burgomaster Karl), Fabienne Dali
(Ruth), Piero Lulli (Inspector Kruger), Gianna Vivaldi (Baroness Graps)
PRODUCTION:
Director – Mario Bava, Screenplay – Mario
Bava, Romano Migliorini & Roberto Natale, Story – Romano Migliorini
& Roberto Natale, Dialogue – John Hart, Producers – Luciano
Catenacci, Fabienne Dali’ & Nando Pisani, Photography – Antonio
Rinaldi, Music – Carlo Rustichelli, Optical Effects – S.P.E.S
(Supervisor – E. Catalucci). Production Company – FUL Films. Italy. 1966.
SYNOPSIS:
Dr Paul Eswai travels to a small village
to conduct an autopsy at the request of the local police. There he
finds that the villagers live in fear of a murderous ghost child.
COMMENTARY:
Italian director Mario Bava made considerable distinction with his Black Sunday/The Revenge of the Vampire Woman/The Mask of the Demon (1960), a film that essentially created the continental Gothic horror film. Black Sunday inspired other directors like Riccardo Freda and Antonio Margheriti, while Bava himself revisited Gothic horror several times with Black Sabbath (1963), Night is the Phantom/The Body and the Whip/What! (La Frustra e il Corpo) (1965), this and Baron Blood (1972).
Kill Baby ... Kill
is an interesting effort. It has only the barest whisper of a plot.
Nevertheless, Mario Bava accumulates a wonderfully haunted atmosphere.
The film is filled with striking images such as the child’s face looking
in through the window, her ball eerily bouncing along corridors and
swings emptily swinging. There is one nifty scene where the hero is
caught in a loop running into a room and out a door on the other side
that keeps bringing him back to the first door he entered where he then
starts to run so fast that there are two of them running in and out at
once until he catches up to his other self. The film is ravishingly shot
in golden hues
Mario Bava’s other genre films are:- the Gothic classic Black Sunday/The Mask of the Demon/The Revenge of the Vampire Woman (1960); the Greek muscleman fantasy Hercules in the Center of the Earth/Hercules vs the Vampires (1961); the giallo The Evil Eye (1962); the Gothic horror anthology Black Sabbath (1963); the Gothic horror Night is the Phantom/The Whip and the Body/What? (1963); the psycho-sexual thriller Blood and Black Lace (1964); the sf/horror film Planet of the Vampires (1965); the spy comedy Dr Goldfoot and the Girls Bombs (1966), Bava’s worst film; the masked super-thief film Danger Diabolik (1967); the giallo Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970); the giallo Hatchet for a Honeymoon/Blood Brides (1971); the giallo Twitch of the Death Nerve/Bloodbath/A Bay of Blood/Carnage/Ecology for a Crime (1971); the Gothic Baron Blood (1972); the giallo/haunted house film Lisa and the Devil/House of Exorcism (1972); and the possession film Shock/Beyond the Door II (1977).
Nice post. If you like Italian gothic films I would suggest you a recent film called Italian Ghost Stories (2011). I have worked on this and our Italian DVD features English subtitles. It is heavily indebted to Bava's Kill, Baby, Kill!, just have a look at this screenshot:
ReplyDeletehttp://i50.tinypic.com/10y3y9l.png
If you have a trailer, we'll review it for you, Simone!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much.
ReplyDeleteHere you can find our international trailer:
http://youtu.be/WHINk-ojfkM
The DVD is available on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Fantasmi-Italian-Ghost-Stories/dp/B008EADI3E/
...and Amazon.it:
http://www.amazon.it/Fantasmi-Italian-Stories-Primo-Reggiani/dp/B008EADI3E/