Kill, Baby... Kill! (1966)

***SPOILERS*** Ever since the tragic death of little Mellssa Graps, Valero Valeri, some twenty years ago a number of strange and unexplained deaths have occurred in the little Transylvanian town of Carnecea in the Caparthian Mountains.

With the latest death of a girl Irena Hollander, Mirella Pamphili, working as a maid at the Graps Villa the local authorities have had enough and send to the town Insp.Kruger, Piero Lulli, and Dr. Paul Eswai, Galcomo Rossi-Stuart, to get to the bottom and find out whats behind these strange and mysterious deaths. All Insp. Kruger and Dr. Eswai run into when trying to find out what happened to Irena is a wall of silence and outright fear from the local townspeople.

The death of Irena as well as some ten other villagers over the years seem to have some connection to the somewhat mad and infirm Baroness Graps, Glanna Vivaldi. The people in the town of Carnecea are terrified of her and never go anywhere near the Graps Villa for fear that what happened to Irena would happen to them. The deadly secret of the Graps Villa and the dead Melissa Graps would be exposed with the help of local town sorceress Ruth, Fabienne Dali, as well as Monica Schuftan, Erika Blanc. Who was drawn to visit the little out of the way town to pay respects to her parents who are buried there. Monica is far more connected to the dead Mellisa and Baroness Graps then she even knew. With Monica the curse on the town and it's people will finally be broken but at a very heavy cost in the lives lost of the people there.

Eerie ghost story that has some of the best photography and atmospherics ever seen in a horror film. The story itself is a bit uneven and not that original but the stylish direction of Mario Bava as well as the aforementioned atmospherics make "Kill Baby Kill" a must to see for everyone, horror or non-horror movie fans alike.

Fmovies: Mario Bava may well be the most influential horror director of all time. His works have admittedly served as inspiration not only among horror directors, but well-regarded auteurs such as Federico Fellini, Tim Burton and David Lynch. He's basically responsible for how horror films are made today, as his "Twitch of the Death Nerve" and "Blood and Black Lace" single-handedly spawned the whole slasher craze of the 70's and 80's.

In the case of "Kill Baby, Kill", Bava created the footprint for all ghost stories/haunted house films that came after, ranging from Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and Bava's own "Lisa and the Devil" (where he would elevate a similarly structured story to an art level) to almost every single Asian horror movie being produced nowadays (without Melissa Graps there would be no Sadako), and it still is one of the best of it's kind, even if the years that passed did affect it a little.

The story, which follows a doctor who comes to investigate a mysterious death at a remote village cursed by an evil spirit, starts out slowly but menacingly, with a unrelenting sense of dread that builds up every minute. Something lurks in the dark, patiently waiting to attack, and gradually making it's terrifying appearance as the secret behind the strange murders become more and more evident, all building up to a deliriously nightmarish and gorgeously photographed final act, with Bava's demented, colorful visual style at it's terrifying best.

The film's dream quality is further enhanced by the rather stiff performances, and whether it was intentional or not, it certainly works for the best. Giacomo Rossi Stewart does his best as a sympathetic, suave hero, and has great chemistry with Erika Blanc, who performs a more 'virginal' role for a change.

Carlo Rusticelli's score is not as memorable as his other works for the director, and is often overused in the picture, but doesn't truly damage it. Only one could only wish a better soundtrack was used to make it's hypnotic tone, well, even more hypnotic.

Much like in Argento's "Inferno", some have complained about the lack of action in the final 5 minutes or so, as it would've seemed obligatory that there would a more epic confrontation in the end. That being said, the ending does not bother me, and though it could've been slightly more elaborate, it perfectly matches the rest of the film - a near-perfect ending to a near-perfect classic.

Overall, a flawed, but truly unique and throughly fascinating supernatural opus from the all time Maestro of Fear.

The American title suggests a serial killer knocking off bouffant-haired go-go dancers in a whiskey bar, but this is really a rather old-fashioned Gothic ghost story. Rossi-Stuart (resembling an auburn-haired Hugh O'Brian at times) plays a coroner, brought to a desolate village where citizens keep killing themselves, apparently against their own will. It seems that the place is cursed because of some long ago wrongdoings and now people are taking their turn at hurling themselves off of walls onto sharp fences or slicing their throats with rusty old weapons. Even more oddly, Rossi-Stuart finds gold and silver coins imbedded in the dead people's hearts! Before the victims commit their acts of suicide, they always see and hear a little girl in a frilly dress who laughs a lot and bounces a ball around. Blanc plays a young woman who has only recently returned to the village following a long tenure at school. She takes a particular interest in the situation and in the doctor when she's assigned to assist him in his autopsies. Also in the mix are a police inspector, a town official, a sorceress, an innkeeper and his daughter and a haunted-looking baroness. The actual plot of this film is pretty simple and straightforward despite the various odd touches and aspects of it. What makes it stand out for many people is the overriding atmosphere and the creativity of the direction. Much attention is paid to setting a mood. There are unnaturally colored lights throughout, heavily detailed sets, creative camera angles and a somewhat hypnotic musical score. These things, to some viewers, help make for a moody and haunting film experience. To other (possibly less patient) viewers, these make for an interminable and boring experience. Regardless of one's acceptance of all the atmospheric elements, the film does offer a few memorable and striking scenes. In one, Rossi-Stuart chases the little girl through room after room until he catches up with himself! Another makes exceptional use of a spiral staircase. It isn't easy, when watching a dubbed version of the film, to accurately gauge the acting, but overall it seems rather solid. This film (along with others by it's director Mario Bava) has influenced and inspired many filmmakers in their own works (amongst them Martin Scorcese and David Lynch.) The deranged baroness (Vivaldi) is clearly a template for Grace Zabriskie in David Lynch's TV series "Twin Peaks". Much of the business of the film has since been cribbed and reworked, so it doesn't always come off as particularly startling now, but that's hardly the fault of the creators, who were among the first to utilize the various ideas. Fans of vintage horror should find themselves entertained for its relatively brief running time.

Kill, Baby... Kill! fmovies. the movie starts off wonderfully, a woman gets chased through the grounds of a villa, and jumps to her doom. Then a doctor shows up to do the controversial new medical procedure, the autopsy. The film pace suffers at this point, where the film is introducing characters. Once the film moves into the baroness's mansion, the film runs at full speed. The film gets insanely bizarre, with wonderful creepy imagery, such as graps' ghostly daughter, the repeating room, and the disturbing portrait of the daughter with a skull. The movie is gloomy, and downbeat, but the pace is wonderful at this point. This is one of the best movies bava made.

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 vicinityÂ…

Kill, BabyÂ…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.

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.