Christopher Lee plays one of his most scary characters here as Kurt, the black sheep of a family living in one of those numerous scary castles you get in Italy. He's been banished for some time, but the family are still suffering from his antics.At the request of his father, Lee's brother has now married his old love Navenka, even though he's really in love with his cousin Ida Galli. Even the servants seem to have suffered, with the old maid cursing Lee's name as he seems to have caused her daughter's suicide. She even keeps the dagger her daughter used to kill herself in a jar.As you would expect, Lee returns from his exile to everyone's horror, and it looks as if he's out to get revenge on the family that hate him until someone sticks a knife through his throat. Death of course is a kind of mild hindrance in a Gothic horror, so shortly afterwards Lee's ghost starts appearing everywhere...so far so normal, right?It would be your standard Gothic horror if Lee didn't like whipping the crap out of his old girlfriend Daliah Lavi. When he returns he manages to get her down on the beach, and even though she protests, Lee states in his loud Shakespearean voice "Yeah, ya like that, dontcha bitch?" which gives this film a weird S&M flavour way ahead of the pervy excess of Jess Franco. This being a Mario Bava film the cinematography is probably better than any film of it's time, with every frame looking like some demented oil painting. This just adds to the atmosphere, however, as does Lee's huge, hunky, evil frame.Bava always found some angle to make his films stand out from others and although I wouldn't put this among my personal favourites of his films, it's another example of him being way ahead of his time, and a true master of Italian cinema. I would have gone mental at all those muddy footprints everywhere. There's only so much Shake N Vac can do.

It's pretty clear that director Mario Bava took a leaf from Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe films, for Corman's Gothic look is faithfully replicated in a shimmering and lushly coloured period piece. There are some similarities of plot, too - particularly from Pit And The Pendulum. It's mostly left up to the viewer to decide if the return from the grave of Christopher Lee's Byronic villain is just in Nevenka's imagination or real. The end could be read as her lapsing into madness - or is she really possessed? Daliah Lavi plays Nevenka, whipped and seduced by Lee's Kurt, and possibly then haunted by him after he has been stabbed. Lavi is superb - just as she was in The Demon, an Italian pre-Exorcist movie about an exorcism which actually has a "Spider Walk". Lavi is astonishing in that movie and she's just as good here. Lee's greenish and ghostly appearance at a window, appears to have been modelled on Peter Wygarde's in The Innocents, but this stately Gothic hangs together extremely well. Bava directs with a moody and atmospheric hand, and the film is beautifully lit.I avoided seeing this for a while as I assumed it was an over the top S&M flick. Glad to discover I was wrong! Yep there are a couple of flagellation scenes, but these too, are somewhat poetically handled. I watched the English dubbed version, so I don't know if the original Italian film is more graphic.I enjoyed this movie; it's slightly heavy going in places, but like Corman's early Poe films it's all in the aid of mood. Stylish and memorable.

A Gothic tale of depravity and horror with some exquisite scenery to enjoy along with perfectly selected music.Kurt Menliff (Cristopher Lee) has been banished from home, and when he returns, fear sets in everywhere. As it should, given that his fiancé (Daliah Lavi) married his brother (Tony Kendall) and is sleeping with his father (Gustavo De Nardo). He has some unusual sexual tastes and preferences, which Nevenka (Lavi) shares.A classic ghost story in a spooky setting with some very good performances. An expected ending did not diminish the enjoyment of the film one bit.

Made around the same time as Mario's classic horror anthology BLACK SABBATH, this deserves the same accolades as his other more famous work. Upon release, WHIP was unfairly neglected, hacked up, censored and critically frowned upon for the subject matter (sexual violence). Next to RABID DOGS (1974), it was also the most difficult of Bava's genre films to acquire in America; I'm not even aware of an accessible home video release until just recently. All but forgotten for decades, but now finally available in a gorgeous restored cut on DVD from Sinister Cinema, WHIP is an absolute must see for Bava fans and very highly recommended for aficionados of Gothic horror. It is also a film that demands to be seen by any person interested in film-making as art - in set design, costume design, lighting schemes, color, shadow and music used for the creation of atmosphere and mood. Every single frame is composed with the utmost care and every inch of the screen exhibits such astonishing attention to detail that it almost begs to be watched in slow motion to soak it all in. Bava is a rare cinematic artist; a true visionary who uses celluloid as his palate; painting all the colors of the dark on drab, dank and dreary castle walls and corridors. Even though the story slips into the routine at times, it also is above average; progressive, serious, entertaining and even extremely ballsy for the 1960s in that it dares to romanticize sexual violence and sadomasochism.Christopher Lee (who considers this one of his best films) is perfectly hateful as Kurt Menliff, a cold-eyed sadist who returns home to his family's seaside castle after being banished years earlier. His ailing father (Gustavo De Nardo as "Dean Ardow") calls him a serpent, his brother Christian (Tony Kendall aka Luciano Stella) has since married Kurt's beautiful raven-haired ex-fiancé Nevenka (Daliah Lavi) and the loyal housekeeper Giorgia (Harriet Medin), whose daughter, Tanya, had taken her own life after being seduced and abandoned by Kurt, quietly plots her revenge. Also in the house is a pretty, but plain, young cousin named Katya (Ida Galli as "Isli Oberon"), who is actually in love with Christian and would undoubtedly make a much better mate for him. No one exactly welcomes Kurt home with open arms, so when he's found dead with a dagger driven into his neck (the same fashion Tanya ended her life) it isn't a surprise, though it does create a shroud of suspicion over every person in the castle. Even worse, Kurt seems to have returned from the dead to haunt, terrorize and inflict damage via the lash on poor, emotionally fragile Nevenka.The most interesting and complex character in the film turns out to be Nevenka herself. Her love-hate relationship with Kurt is unique and memorable. Though Christian is handsome, gentle and devoted to his bride, she obviously has the strongest passion (and love) for the cruel Kurt, who claims the reason he came back to the castle in the first place was that he heard his brother had married his former lover. Kurt's return has nothing to do with guilt over his immoral actions, but everything to do with control over Nevenka. It is made very clear during a beach love scene right before Kurt is murdered that the two do share a deep personal bond and a sexual secret. Right before his death, Nevenka is reminded by her former lover, "You haven't changed... You always loved violence!" before he alternates viciously whipping her with his passionate kisses. And she likes it so much you get the strong feeling that her 'straight' life with Christian was miserable for her. Kurt and Nevenka's love is a love of pain and mutual violence, but also of understanding that their mutual love for the sadism is a hard thing to come by. Their love is forbidden, but it is still distinctly, uniquely theirs... even into the grave.As he proved in THE HORROR OF Dracula (1958) and other horror films, Lee is a tall, towering, menacing figure, even when given little to no dialog. He's killed off fairly early here and appears sporadically throughout the film as a silent 'ghost,' but is all the more effective in his elusiveness. Dark beauty Daliah Lavi, who was a former Miss Iran, is excellent in the role and should have gone on to a career similar to that of Barbara Steele, who in many ways she resembles. Both ladies are able to embody Gothic horror to a T. The entire supporting cast, especially Medin, is very good. And Bava's mastery of the medium, like I said, really make the film incomparably intoxicating. He offers up twisting doorknobs, disembodied voices, creaking floorboards, secret passageways, muddy footprints, hands reaching out at you from the darkness, horse rides along the beach and other Gothic trappings with his exquisite flair for the visual, making this a painfully underrated gem of Euro-shock cinema.Some notes: * Bava used aliases all around - "John M. Old" for director and "Dick Grey" and "David Hamilton" for his cinematography. * A scene of Lavi moaning in ecstasy as she's being whipped by Lee was so controversial that it was excised from most prints when originally released * It was filmed on location in France * Co-writer Ernesto Gastaldi also wrote THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK, THE SCORPION'S TAIL, TORSO and many other notable Italian horror films from the 60s, 70s and 80s. The DVD comes with a few trailers for Bava films (including the French version of WHIP), four bios, photo and lobby card gallery, soundtrack access and the original U.S. main titles (under the name WHAT!).