RELEASED IN 1966 and directed by Mario Bava, "Kill, Baby, Kill" takes place in a Carpathian village in 1907 where Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) arrives to perform an autopsy at the request of the inspector (Piero Lulli). The evidence points to the hamlet being cursed with a mysterious ghost girl that compels those who see her to kill themselves, which the doctor thinks is rubbish; at first anyway. Erika Blanc plays a visiting medical student who assists Eswai while Fabienne Dali appears as the village witch and Giovanna Galletti as a bitter baroness. Luciano Catenacci is on hand as the burgomaster (mayor) and the witch's lover.The movie has a colorful and haunting Gothic/Horror ambiance, which can be traced to earlier films like the B&W "The City of the Dead" (aka "Horror Hotel") (1960) and, more so, "The Terror" (1963), which was one of Francis Ford Coppola's early works, although he only directed part of it. Like those flicks, "Kill, Baby, Kill" features mysterious manors, dilapidated churches, ghosts, cobwebs, witches and bell towers in the mold of Hammer flicks of the era, such as the contemporaneous "Dracula, Prince of Darkness" (1966). As far as spooky MOOD goes, "Kill, Baby, Kill" is superb, but the story isn't as compelling as "The Terror," except for the last act. Nevertheless, the movie has influenced many artists and their works.Rossi-Stuart makes for a stalwart protagonist in the mold of James Bond (looks-wise) while Erika Blanc and Fabienne Dali work well on the other side of the gender spectrum, both striking in different ways.The title of the film is cheesy and recalls Russ Meyer's "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" from the year before. It was obviously used to give the film a "hip" edge and sell as many tickets as possible. In 1971 it was retitled "Curse of the Living Dead" in the US, which was a 100% improvement. Here are several other sample titles that would be an upgrade, as well as more accurate: "Village of the Laughing Dead"; "Night of the Laughing Dead"; "Child of Vengeance"; "The Ghost at the Window"; "Child Cursed Village"; "Forgotten Daughter"; "Make them Pay"; "Sorceress' Regret"; "Melissa"; and "Melissa's Curse."Okay, now for a few joke titles: "Melissa and her Sissa"; "The Graps of Wrath"; "That Damn Ball" and "Ghost Boy in Drag." That last one is due to the fact that the ghost girl was played by a boy, one-shot actor Valerio Valeri.THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour, 23 minutes and was shot entirely in Rome, Lazio, Italy. WRITERS: Romano Migliorini, Roberto Natale and Bava.GRADE: B

Mario Bava Directs another Influential Gothic Horror Film. The Producers ran out of Money after 2 Weeks of Filming and the Cast and Crew Worked Without Pay and Finished the Film.It is Truly Amazing what a True Artist can Achieve with Virtually No Money, just Inspiration and Talent. Bava is in a Category of the Considerably Creative Auteurs Making Movies in the 20th Century.His Name can be Invoked, Without Apology, with the likes of Fritz Lang, James Whale, Alfred Hitchcock, Val Lewton, Roger Corman, Hammer Studios, Dario Argento, Stanley Kubrick, and David Lynch.One only needs to View this Film to Recognize Immediately its Influence on Today's Filmmakers. Scenes, Shots, and Sets from this Bava Blast of Gothic Grotesqueness are Stolen and Imitated Freely by Moderns.The Film is Draped and Framed with Excessive Atmosphere and Iconography of the Imagination and the Spiritual. Fog, Cobwebs, Gargoyles, Tombstones, Ghosts, Crucifixes, Corpses, Bell Towers, Dolls, Mirrors, Windows, and More.Surreal, Dreamlike, and Foreboding the Movie Drips with Dread. It is Claustrophobic and You can Cut the Air with a Knife. It is 86 Minutes of Murky, Methodical Mayhem as the Horror and the Uncanny Unfolds to the Final Shot of a Sunrise.It is a Brief Few Seconds, the Only Few Seconds in the Film, where the Light Finally Finds its way to this Netherworld where Superstition and the Supernatural Compliment and Completely Control the Living and the Dead.Note...Until recently the prints available have been in the Public Domain and are awful representations of this artistic achievement. Please seek out the newly released DVDs and Blu-rays. If you have only seen one of the aforementioned cheapies, you haven't really seen the Film.

Now THIS is old-school Italian horror. This is the kind of horror movie where you got the old late 19th century/early 20th century village in Europe where there is some sort of "horror" going on plauging the townspeople, everyone is on edge and/or paranoid, and the one outsider (usually a detective or in this case a doctor) comes into town and horror-wackiness ensues.In Kill, Baby, Kill (a mostly more apt title than the previous Bava feature, though it's more of a child than a baby), Dr. Paul Eswai comes to the village by order of an Inspector, who seems to be hard to find. There's a woman who is deceased after jumping to her death in a well, and at first there is much resistance to her being autopsied - and why, of course, because of an odd object (a coin) found near her heart.From here we get the murder-mystery part of the horror, where a very creepy (which is redundant) woman with gray raggedy hair and less-than-fair complexion Baroness Graps (perfectly cast and made-up Giovanna Galletti) who once had a little girl named Melissa. Indeed Melissa turns up a lot in this community, and there have been a rash of murders that have occurred to usually healthy-normal people. One of them, as it turns out, is Inspector Graps. Meanwhile Melissa keeps turning up, not least of which to one of the local women in town, Monica, who may be next on the death-list that has no real writ to it. Funny how that works out really; but then what does one expect in a village loaded with dark alleys spiked with shadows and little light, funky fog, spider-webs, and of course that little girl.Is there a curse on this town? Well you'll have to watch to find out, won't you? Bava isn't interested really in keeping the audience on edge with whether it's a full-on curse and this little girl is causing these murders, or if it's all an illusion and most of the townspeople are nuts. No, that would be too logical. This movie is all about bringing out the dread of horror with the cinematic eye.It doesn't matter even if a moment may not make total sense, or if a performance such as the Doctor's isn't totally up to snuff. How does a girl plagued by nightmares and kept "safe" by her parents by strapping thorns to her body is most important for her? Hey, what about what she 'sees' in her dazed delirium, how she gets out of bed, comes close to a knife's edge and sees the little girl outside the window looking in, her hand making an imprint. That's what counts.I have to wonder what kind of magic Bava could work at today; he could take a script that would be made into horse-manure by Uwe Boll and make it at least watchable in the atmospheric sense. One of the most memorable things, in any horror movie, is the way he shoots a spiral staircase.It comes at two points in the film; the first time it's remarkable if only for one over-head shot looking down as the Doctor goes down it after what he thinks is something like the girl. It's lit, composed and the characters move like in no other movie with a spiral staircase. The second time around it's even crazier, as we get the over-head shot, we get a shot looking upward, we get a zoom-in and zoom-out and zoom-in AGAIN, and it's all remarkable. I was on the edge of my seat more during these moments more than any other (and another involving the Doctor trying to find Monica through the Sorceress' home, only to chase himself, literally, through an endless loop of the same room and door).This isn't to say that all of Kill, Baby, Kill is incredible. The story itself and some of the acting, despite having some over the top charm and edge, is still like a good many other old-school horror movies, either from its period or going back to the 40's.All the Doctor would have to do is leave and come back with some no-funny-business people and all the problems could be solved in quicker time. But then again, where's the horror-fun in that? The joy of this movie is seeing how people react to things, and how Bava gets the "shock" of something like the little girl appearing, or a dead body as a surprise, and pulling real terror out of cinematographic technique. It's a work like this, along with other Bava films from the early 60's, that should be seen by any aspiring DP looking to shoot horror movies - or that is anyone looking to shoot them with a sense of horror.So, in short, watch it for how the director moves us through this paranoid-cursed village, or how the little girl makes her movements or how a person dreams in delirium. The script one could take or leave. There's no other word for it except as 'Gothic'. Or a 'Gothic Gem' to be more precise. If only it were an overall great film then it would be unstoppable.

Despite a very poor print from Netflix streaming, despite the film being dubbed instead of subtitled and despite some occasional bad acting, "Kill Baby, Kill" is a dandy Gothic horror piece. This is because director Mario Bava successfully has created a moody film that will keep you on edge.The film is set around 1900 and begins with a doctor and a police investigator coming to a remote village to investigate a very suspicious death. However, this is all complicated by the townsfolk--who do NOTHING to help with their efforts. Eventually, however, the story SLOWLY unfolds and you learn that the fear of the town is because MANY healthy young people in town have died suspiciously and some crazy Baroness and her dead child are somehow responsible.This is clearly a film you need to see and force yourself to keep watching. That's because the film is talky and slow and it takes a while for the film to unfold. But it IS worth it. So, look past all the moaning women, silly cobwebs and slow plot--it IS scary, moody and worth it.