Mario Bava is one of the most influential directors in the history of Italian Horror. Often credited with having kick started the genre in Italy with his 1960 film Black Sunday, a gothic horror film inspired by British Hammer Horror films, but upping the levels of on screen violence and putting much more emphasis on dark atmosphere and less campiness. He is also often cited as the originator of the “Giallo”genre of Italian Horror with 1964’s Blood and Black Lace. And boldly explored sadomasochist themes in The Whip and the Body, long before this was very common in Horror. The man is of the utmost importance in the development of the horror genre, not just in Italy but in general with echoes of his films being present in more famous and widely watched films from the states such as Halloween and Friday the 13th, which both borrowed heavily from Bay of Blood. But despite all this influence, his films do not seem to be as widely talked about or appreciated as the films of John Carpenter, Wes Craven or Dario Argento. So like I did with Ken Russell a few months back, I’m going to review a couple Bava films that I had not got around to watching previously in this article. The films I chose were both from the 60’s: The Evil Eye (aka The Girl who Knew Too Much from 1963) and Kill, Baby, Kill from 1966. I will mention, that while these are the two films I chose for the article, if you have never seen a Bava film, start with Black Sunday or Blood and Black Lace. With these double feature film reviews, I like to write about movies I’m watching for the first time. It makes it more fun for me, but I wouldn’t recommend either of these as your first Bava experience.
I’m not going to do a whole biography on Mario Bava, but it is worth noting that he was originally trained as a painter and began working in film, initially as a cinematographer, as he was unable to earn a living as a painter. His films are very stylish and visually aware. His films are usually praised for the visuals, and sometimes criticized for unevenness in plot or storytelling, with the story taking second tier to the visuals. For me, this isn’t too much of a problem. Horror in general, but especially Italian Horror, could be described as Expressionist in style. It seeks to convey emotions more through visual communication than dialogue. Argento and Fulci are often criticized for the same thing. My personal take on this is horror fans don’t really care too much about the story, we’re all about the visuals. Let’s be real, the stories in these movies are usually pretty similar to one another, what makes a horror movie exciting or enticing is atmosphere and aesthetic. That’s what seperates a Bava or an Argento from a lesser horror filmmaker. They have an excellent sense of style and visual flourish, which makes their movies fun to watch, despite inconsistencies in storytelling. For other types of film fans this can be frustrating, but horror fans usually don’t care.
The Evil Eye (1963)
Evil Eye stars Leticia Roman as Nora, a woman vacationing in Rome, who witnessess a murder, but when no corpse can be found investigators conclude that she must have imagined it, and she spends the remainder of the film trying to figure out what it is exactly that she witnessed. You spend the movie trying to figure out if this film is a psychological or supernatural horror film. I liked the tension created by these two elements in conflict with each other throughout the film. It reminded me of similarly themed films such as Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, but moreso than that what this film reminded me of was American Film Noir and Hitchcock, particularly his film the Man Who Knew Too Much (the original title of the film was the Girl Who Knew Too Much, but was changed to The Evil Eye for the American release.) I was also reminded of the first 1/3’d or so of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
While there are many interestesting paralleles that could be drawn with the films mentioned, it does need to be stated that there were two cuts of the film made, the original for Italian audiences and a second for American audiences. When the film came out in Italy, it was not a great commercial success, so the producers wanted to change things, in hopes that it would be more popular among American audiences. Any references to Marijuana were removed from the film, many scenes were ommitted with more lighthearted comedic scenes being thrown in and the original jazz score was replaced with a new one by Les Baxter. I mention this because as there are a lot of interesting stylstic things going on in the film, it did feel a little uneven. I believe this is because the version I saw (the one on Shudder) is the re-cut American edition, which is too bad, as I feel the film must have suffered from these alterations. I would like to compare the original cut, but I have not seen it in all honesty.
This is not uncommon in Italian horror, with films frequently being shot without sound, so that audio could be dubbed for foreign markets, and certain things could be altered for this or that audience. This was common practice in the Italian film industry in general at the time and alternate titles and cuts are all too common with the films of this era. The problem is that this cut is really less than stellar.
The comedic elements make the film feel more like something like Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn, and these elements don’t flow well with the horror elements. I could see some people liking the comedic elements, and I will admit that it gives the film a surreal almost Fellini-esque vibe. The film is at it’s best when it is in horror mode for me though and the comedic elements don’t really flow well with them. It feels like two different movies that were forced together, which it kind of is.
With that being said there is still a lot to like about this film stylistically. Bava makes great use of lighting and shadows to evoke a dark atmospheric horror vibe and there are quite a few sequences that were very good. Apparently Bava himself wasn’t too enthusiastic about the story itself and was more interested in the stylistic elements, and it shows. As a whole this film was just uneven and I wasn’t fully able to get into it. Like I said though, I would like the see the original cut as I feel most of my issues here are with the American cut, but at the time of this writing I can’t really compare the two. If you intend to check this movie out, I guess just be mindful.
Kill, Baby, Kill
While I had mixed feelings on The Evil Eye, I don’t have much bad to say about Kill, Baby, Kill at all, it was a great film, from start to finish. When a young woman dies under mysterious circumstances, a big city doctor is called in to figure out what happened. He quickly finds that the locals believe supernatural forces to be at play. See, quite a few years earlier, a young girl died in this town due to the drunken negligence of the locals, and they believe that the girl has been haunting their town ever since. The big city doctor is of course a rational man of science, and has no use for the silly superstitions of these country bumpkins, but as bizarre events continue to unfold and the bodies continue piling up, his faith in the rational world of science is pushed to it’s limit.
Comparisons could be drawn here between two film’s that immediately came to mind while watching. The first is Twin Peaks, which would make sense as David Lynch has cited Bava as a major influence on his work. The other is Friday the 13th. I don’t want to give too much away as it would spoil both films, but the mother characters in both films are very similiar to one another.
I would also note all those spooky ghost girl movies like Ringu and the Grudge that were coming out of Japan at the turn of the century. I sense that a lot of influence was taken from here in those.
Kill, Baby, Kill, is in lavish color, so Bava get’s to really go all in on the visuals here, which is where he is the most happy. It doesn’t have the film noir stylings of the Evil Eye, instead leaning much more towards technicolour psychedelia. One nightmare sequence in particular feels a lot like an acid freakout sequence. There is a lot of inventive camera work going on throughout. Quite a few hokey extreme close ups, but I had fun with those.
Yeah, not much more to say, than that this is a horror masterpiece, and I would say is required viewing for anyone into Horror in general.
I recently made music for two Bava trailers, Planet of the Vampires and Black Sunday, on Twitter that kind of inspired me to write this article so I’ll throw those in here, because why not.
The music has been going good. While I would still say that my tracks are rough around the edges I do feel I’ve been getting better and I’m still having a lot of fun with it. I’ve actually been collaborating with Edging on Death and his wife on some music recently, and I’m happy with how that has been going. I’m holding off on releasing any of it, until we have enough material together for a release, but that is coming soon. Basically, my more aggressive, beat-driven music is going to be used for that project, and my more horror inspired ambient material will be released solo. I’m hoping to have a release out for both projects by the end of the year, so that’s been keeping me busy lately. Looking forward to sharing more of it with you guys soon.
Anyways, in conclusion, Mario Bava is fucking awesome and you should all watch more of his movies. This isn’t meant to be an overview of his entire ouevre, but just a brief sampling of two of his films that I hadn’t got around to watching yet. I have fun with these double feature articles, and will likely continue doing them every now and again. Till next time…
Mario Bava is fkn great!