Bava's first film as solo director Black Sunday (1960), and the follow up Black Sabbath (1963) were worldwide commercial successes, and as a result he was rewarded with a level of creative freedom he had rarely experienced (albeit on a tight budget). The producers were expecting a routine 'Krimi' type Edgar Wallace type Psycho type murder thriller. However, Bava found the whodunit concept tedious, instead turning the murder sequences into wild set-pieces, playing up the violence and sex in ways that had only been hinted at before. The mixture of eroticism and murder would prove a potent template for 'Giallo.''Blood and Black Lace' is considered the seminal 'Giallo.' Stylistically it introduced the ubiquitous masked murderer, shiny weapon and black leather gloved hand. American slasher / body count films borrowed the concept of concealing the murderer's face, but in the case of the 'Giallo' this hearkened back to the "commedia dell'arte," which used fixed character types and masks to bring theatricality to the performance. Bava uses a prowling camera and throws deep shadows over baroque sets that are illuminated only by brilliantly lurid primary colour's, creating an otherworldly atmosphere. Tracking shots whisk around mannequins and whip us through doors, all boosted along by wonderful bongo music reminiscent of Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil (1958)… it's all wonderfully artificial. However, in Italy the film made back only half of the production cost. Surprising, for such an ultimately influential film… but not terribly unusual; think Night Of The Hunter (1955), Peeping Tom (1960) or Blade Runner (1982).

With the Girl Who Knew Too Much, Mario Bava gave us what I guess was the first giallo, only with a few pieces missing from the template, but with Blood and Black Lace he gives us the giallo as a fully formed product with every single aspect intact. Except naked boobs and fannies.You've got the attractive fashion model/victims, the loud, campy sets with over-use of primary colours, obvious red herrings, a masked, gloved, and be-hatted killer who stalks his victims, over the top violence, many plot twists, crappy police investigation, sexualised violence, kitsch, and other adjectives, like garish! It's all here, and it's all directed by Mario Bava! And he gets bored with the clichés about an hour and ten minutes in and turns the film on its head! We get a wonderful credits sequence to this film too, what with all the key players being introduced while posing with some loudly coloured dummies (and being equated to said dummies). We also get a lot of Bava's patented 'messing with the audiences head' which makes his films so enjoyable to enjoy, in an enjoyably enjoyable way.Three paragraphs and no plot? That's a good sign. Basically, some girls at a bitchy Roman fashion house are being carved up by a masked killer, and the police have no clue why. There are plenty of suspects, however, from jealous boyfriends to blackmailers to etc. Interestingly the first girl who was killed had a diary and immediately half the cast want to get their hands on it.Bava here dispenses mostly with the police and concentrates on the murder sequences, and it's here I guess where the film truly takes off and where I'm guessing Argento, Lenzi, and Martino had their notebooks out. Some are truly brutal here, and although he doesn't resort to nudity, most of these girls are offed in a kind of sexual fashion.So, a standard giallo would have a bunch of suspects and then the killer unmasked, but, this early in the genre Bava doesn't even bother with that and unmasks the killer without ceremony about an hour in, but even then he's messing with us, because the killer was in jail when another murder happened! Ah...this is what makes the best of these films.Only problem is that the killer is played by an actor with such a distinctive face (and nose) you'll peg them almost right away, but don't let that put you off, this is another great film from Mario Bava, and is easily 85 million times better than Season 7 of the Walking Dead, which my wife made me sit through instead of watching this

I don't know why it took me so long to see this little gem, considering that firstly it was made by one of my favourite Italian directors Mario Bava and that it's considered one of the most important Giallo films and now that it has been released on Arrow films with a restored print, instead of trying to view with a not so great picture quality, and after viewing it I was pleasantly surprised by firstly at how beautiful it looked in its rich vivid colours and considering it was made in 1963, it doesn't look dated at all and very stylish.The storyline here is that on one stormy night a young model is murdered outside a lavish fashion house where she works with a group of other young models and this sparks a chain of events when her diary goes missing which reveals the sordid details of what's going on with the people who work there and not long after more women start to get murdered.This movie is definitely entertaining and relies heavily on its camera-work, set designs, artwork and lighting, all of which creates the perfect atmosphere. I have no complaints with this, only that I would say that the first half of the movie where the majority of the murders takes place is definitely stronger than the second half, which does have a neat little twist at the end which most Giallo's have and given that this movie was the one that started that started that trend, so that was pretty neat and makes this one of the strongest and influence shall of the genre.With a strong cast including Cameron Mitchell and Eva Bartok, 'Blood And Black Lace' is a very beautiful and violent movie where Bava really excels himself as a director and showing off his unique visual style on what otherwise would be a sub-standard script, and okay this may not be the best or most riveting of the genre, but it is very decent and it does pull you into this manic world that Bava has created within this universe.

A vicious killer who's looking for a diary knocks off various beautiful female models who all work at a swanky fashion salon. Acclaimed Italian horror maestro Mario Bava, working from an absorbing script by Marcello Fondato, does his customary expert job of creating and sustaining a profoundly spooky and sinister midnight-in-the-graveyard gloom-doom atmosphere, makes exceptional use of garish colors and striking lighting, generates a considerable amount of tension, and stages the brutal murder set pieces with startling savage aplomb (one victim has her face pressed against a hot stove in an especially gut-churning scene!). Cameron Mitchell contributes a fine performance as smooth and sneaky heel manager Max Marian; he receives sturdy support from Eva Bartok as his equally treacherous mistress Contessa Cristina Como, Mary Arden as the sensitive Peggy Peyton, Thomas Reiner as the persistent Inspector Silvester, and Franco Ressel as the slippery Marquis Richard Morrell. Veteran character actress Harriet Medin has a nice small part as housekeeper Clarice. Ubaldo Terzano's vibrant cinematography delivers a wealth of breathtaking visuals. Carlo Rustichelli's swinging jazz score radiates a cool'n'sleazy lounge vibe. But it's Bava's trademark gorgeously lurid, yet classy and arresting style and remarkable grasp of a certain divinely creepy flesh-crawling mood that in turn makes this honey so special and praiseworthy.