KILL BABY KILL Review

KILL BABY KILL (1966) After the death of a young woman in an isolated village in the early 20th Century, coroner Dr. Iswai is brought in by the inspector to do an autopsy, to try and determine if the death was suicide, accident, or homicide. Circumstantial evidence rules out suicide, but the townsfolk are terrified to speak about what has happened. The town's burgomeister intonates that the supernatural is involved, and that there is a conspiracy surrounded the local Villa Graps. After Dr. Iswai performs his autopsy, much to the towns' disapproval, he returns to the inn he is staying at, and witnesses a magic protection ritual performed on a young woman, who claims to have seen the ghost of the dead girl that haunts the village.

After seeing the sorcery performed, Dr. Iswai becomes obsessed with bringing logic and reason to a town he believes is merely by being crippled by poverty, ignorance and superstition. Meanwhile, the inspector has gone missing after taking a trip to Villa Graps, and Dr. Iswai follows in his footsteps to the crumbling mansion. It is there that he crosses paths with Melissa, a little blonde girl who seems to disappear before his very eyes. When he once again returns to the village, the story of about the little girl is finally revealed. And as the night slowly slips by, with death floating through the foggy air, Dr. Iswai soon discovers that not all things can be explained with science and reason.

Filled with classic imagery of gothic horror, from cobwebs to candelabras, and drenched in shadows and yellow light, KILL BABY KILL (originally released as Operazione Paura, which translates to Operation Fear) is made unique by director Mario Bava's use of color schemes and perpetually moving camera, which swirls around, pans and dollies through the scenes like an ghost, which is quite fitting for this picture. Bava also filmed mostly on location in several small Italian villages, which adds a level of creepy authenticity to the period piece, in that such places do exist, and such events could very well take place within the cracked and crumbling buildings.

Beyond the set-piece atmosphere, subtle practical effects play an important part generating and maintaining the uneasy mood that drifts along in the picture. Mario Bava's father, Eugenio, was a cinematographer and the father of Italian special effects. Mario, who worked for Eugenio before making a name for himself, uses the many secrets of the trade he learned as a cameraman to create the full array of effects that seep into all of the viewer's senses, from reverse photography to swinging cameras, and colored gels to warped glass. They are cheap, yet effective tricks that create a very unnerving feeling.

Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, whose long and lustrous career has taken him across all of Italy's trademark genres from spaghetti westerns to gialli, is right at home here in the lead role. His crisp and striking features, coupled with the character's modern suits, fits the bill perfectly as the supernatural skeptic as he is set against his co-stars dirty peasant-like appearance. As the film goes on, he subtly brings out a spectrum of emotional nuances as his logic begins to lose out, before going for broke in the final sequences.

Much like SLEEPY HOLLOW would do almost thirty-five years later, the story here pits a man whose heels are firmly dug into science and logic against a town where curses and the supernatural do exist, and it is hard to deny that this film had an effect on Tim Burton. Likewise, it is hard to deny that the story here, which was co-written by Bava, was influenced by 1963's THE HAUNTING. Indeed the first half of the film here is set-up with masterful ambiguity, so that it is quite unclear whether there is anything supernatural happening at all.

For those unfamiliar with Bava's work, KILL BABY KILL may be an ill-advised place to start. Despite the title, there is very little killing in the film, and despite the fantastic and grisly opening murder, almost no gore. Bava's more "accessible" BAY OF BLOOD or BLOOD AND BLACK LACE would be a good place to start, before returning to and appreciating this one. What this film does offer, however, is pure atmosphere that will have fans of ghost stories and slowly-unwinding plots sleeping with their lights on. Bava himself was a firm believer in ghosts, and his love of the supernatural permeates each oddly-angled scene and multi-layered image.

Whatever title you may know this film as, it is an important piece of cinematic history, and an influence of filmmakers from the last quarter century. Much of Bava's work was steeped in the supernatural and the unexplained, and among them this can easily be ranked as one of the highest. Bava made films that he would personally enjoy as a viewer, and thus was able to turn his movies into personal art pieces, regardless of the finance gain or loss. For that, he is truly to be respected and remembered as a filmmaker.

BAY OF BLOOD (1971)

BAY OF BLOOD (1971)

On a grand estate on a bay, an elderly woman is clinging desperately to the land so that it will not be bought and turned into a resort. However, her murder sets off a chain reaction that brings all of the potential heirs to the estate out of the woodwork, and more disturbing, an unknown killer who begins to systematically murder each of these heirs. The situation takes another turn for the worse when a group of teenagers decide to trespass on the estate, and are quickly targeted by a killer who knows no remorse, sympathy, or limits to their cruel imagination for slaughtering their next victim.

In 1970's Italy, the murder-mystery, also known as a giallo, was coming into its golden age, soaking the screen in blood, filling it with red herrings and sleazy sexuality, and generally confusing the hell out of the audiences with complicated plots. But when famed director and writer Mario Bava brought BAY OF BLOOD to the screen, it was like nothing anyone had seen before. Starting off from a generic storyline that could be found in any run-of-the-mill giallo, Bava quickly amps everything up, from the almost insane weaving of all the characters' relationships, to the one-after-another murders that are each committed in a more horrific way, to the gratuitous and graphic sex and nudity.

This film has become known as the very first official slasher film, and is (or at least should be) the water mark to compare all other films that compete for the slasher subgenre label. In America, it can be debated whether BLACK CHRISTMAS or HALLOWEEN was really the first US slasher film, though both owe all their screen credit to Bava's masterpiece. The early FRIDAY THE 13TH films in particular pull from this work, right down to first-person POV to some of the signature murders in the series. For better or worse (and for most fans it is probably the better), due to BAY OF BLOOD, sex and violence will always be married in the slasher genre.

It is not just that the film is the very first slasher, but also that it is a great slasher, and can still to this day hold up against any would be film adversary. The groundbreaking murder sequences within the film alone still make the film worth seeking out, even if you are passive fan of the genre. The make-up special effects, helmed by Carlo Rambaldi (who would later work on E.T. and ALIEN among others) can still hold up today, which is testament to their realism. It is truly a crime that as the years pass, this film has become more obscure, fallen off the "must see" lists of some horror stalwarts, and may even be unknown to younger and newer faces to the horror scene.

This was the second to last film that Mario Bava made, and it is a culmination of a lifetime of work. Even though the final picture can be boiled down to a horror shocker, each of the film's individual parts are given the respect and professionalism that would be seen in a high art or dramatic picture. Bava has always been known as one who uses color to manipulate and enhance his films, and it is no exception here. The music plays a critical part in setting moods and building up suspense. Bava's camerawork pulls from the well established "unknown killer" motifs and makes them his own, which sets the stage for future directors and cinematographers to mutate to their own needs.

Any horror fan owes it to themselves to give this film, and Mario Bava, the full credit and respect that it deserves, and that even if it doesn't become a permanent part of your home collection, that it is seen at least once for historical purposes. When watching this, try to keep in mind when it was made, and that practically no one had done anything like this before. And guaranteed, no one will see the ending coming, nor has anyone had the balls since to make an ending quite like BAY OF BLOOD. That alone is worth the price of admission. The couple being double-impaled on the bed while having sex is just icing on the bloody cake.

DJANGO (1966) Review

DJANGO (1966)

When Django, a lone gunslinger who drags a coffin behind him, rescues a woman from being attacked by bandits, he sets himself up at odds with the merciless desperados. After the encounter, he wanders into a desolate, dirty, and muddy town that can only be describe as physically looking like Hell on earth. He soon discovers that the bandits he previously encountered also have the town under their thumb, and Django acts in the only way he can - with a gravely-voiced wit and violence. The townspeople, in a strange turn of events, try to stop Django from saving them, but his mind has been made up, and even if it means killing every bandit and allowing innocents to die in the crossfire, he will accomplish his goal.

In the wake of A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, the European movie market became a monster with an insatiable appetite for spaghetti westerns. Production companies were spitting out rip-offs of Sergio Leone's work as fast as they could get the film negatives processed. Then, a director named Sergio Corbucci set off to Spain with a young actor named Franco Nero who would play the title character, and brought back to his homeland of Italy a spaghetti western that would completely change the expectations of the sub-genre.

At its heart, DJANGO is nothing more than another rip-off of A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (and thus a remake/rip-off of Kurosawa's YOJIMBO), as a lone wanderer happens into a corrupted town, through trickery and bloodshed kills the oppressors, and then wanders off again. However, what makes DJANGO stand out is its much darker tone, a gritty style that is as much a product of the film stock as it is the actual sets and characters, and the shocking graphic violence for the time. Innocents are brutally gunned down, a hapless ear is sliced off, and in a grueling sequence Django's hands are trampled and crushed by horses.

Franco Nero, whose performance would create an iconic character symbolic of spaghetti westerns, may just be rehashing the stoic and squinting Man With No Name previously brought to the screen by Clint Eastwood, but there is something about the way he does rehash it that makes him a more "dangerous" character. While the Man With No Name may have tried to act hard, he was a hero and just at heart. Here, Django's vision of good deeds, heroics, and bravado are twisted and skewed, and even cowardly. Perhaps it is these elements that caught the public's eye, and caused what can only be described as an insane amount of unofficial sequels featuring the character of Django (none actually played by Franco Nero) and even more spaghetti westerns being rechristened with the Django moniker depending on where they would be exported, even if Django wasn't even in the movie! Nero would make one official sequel, 1987's DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN, which also starred Donald Pleasence.

Corbucci, who also wrote the story and screenplay, brings several crucial, genre defining sequences to the screen in DJANGO, which have been stolen, reused countless times since. Those include the sequence in which Django faces off against the entire group of bandits armed with a machine gun, a heartwrenching sequence featuring quicksand, and the all-important final shoot-out, where Django coaxes the bandit leader into a graveyard. This scene in particular is symbolic of where Django feels most comfortable, and his acceptance of death as both an ally and enemy. This downbeat embrace of death is also an element that would make DJANGO stand out against its cookie-cutter competition.

In America, save for the die-hard and dedicated fans, spaghetti westerns basically begin with and end with Sergio Leone's output. And agreeably, for the casual fan this is enough as Leone's work morphed the sub-genre to what we know it and remember it as today, and has unequivocally defined it major themes, character arcs and storylines. For the adventurous and curious western fan though, DJANGO is an excellent place to start diving into the rich and abundant amount of films that were churned out in the heyday of the spaghetti western.