Blood and Black Lace (1965)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Please don't spend money on this.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

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).

Isabella (Francesca Ungaro), one of the lovely young models at a fashion house, meets a gruesome demise in this films' opening minutes. When her former co-workers rifle through her belongings, a diary is discovered. And many characters are mighty anxious to find out what Isabella might have written in there. Meanwhile, people continue to be murdered, and there's no shortage of suspects."Blood and Black Lace" was an early example of that beloved Italian genre of murder mysteries known as "Gialli", and as such, it's pretty good of its kind. Some viewers could find it a little hard to stomach, because it's rather brutal. Our murderer employs various methods, but always displays a certain sadism. The story & screenplay (by Marcello Fondato, in collaboration with director Mario Bava and Giuseppe Barilla) are not great, but they are reasonably involving and do try to keep you on your toes. The real drawing card, as with any film by Bava, is his visual style. His creation of images, and the colorful lighting and props, rank right up there with the best of his work. Things begin on an effectively ominous note, with a close-up on a sign that comes loose due to a heavy storm. As Bava well knows, dark and stormy nights are a classic trope of the entire horror genre.The acting is generally acceptable, with American actor Cameron Mitchell in the lead. Standing out among this cast are the sultry Eva Bartok as the Contessa, and Dante DiPaolo as drug-addicted Frank Sacalo. Other familiar faces include Luciano Pigozzi (the Italian Peter Lorre), Lea Lander ("Rabid Dogs"), and Harriet Medin ("The Whip and the Body"). As fans of the Giallo come to expect, much of the female cast is strikingly sexy and used to full advantage.Some Bava fans regard this as his true masterpiece.Seven out of 10.

****SPOILERS****Filmed in lush and dazzling colors and mostly, some 90% of it, at night the late Mario Bava's "Blood and Black Lace" set the slandered for all the likewise Italian as well as US & European Giallo slasher movies that was to follow it. Set in an Italian boarding house for fashion models run by Contessa Cristina Como, Eva Bartok, and her American lover Max Marian,Cameron Mitchell,a crazed and masked killer targets the woman staying there starting with Isabella,Francesca Ungaro,whom he strangles to death within the first 10 minutes of the movie. As we soon find out it was Isabella who knew the killer's identity who she was blackmailing for embezzlement money of the boarding house's way of doing business.The film goes on to have the masked killer knock off some half dozen of the woman at the boarding house until with almost a half hour to go in the movie to no one's surprise-It was very obvious right from the start- that his identity is revealed as well as the person-Which wasn't that obvious- who's involved in his string of murders! Trying to throw the police off his scent the killer forces his accomplice to murder another one of the women, by drowning her in a bathtub and slashing her wrist, staying at the boarding house, to provide him with an alibi and then have him or her killed so to have the police case on his crimes closed. It was too bad for him that it didn't quite work out that way and it was that mistake, in his accomplice surviving, that ended up doing him in! ***SPOILERS**** It was police Inspecter Silverster, Thomas Reiner, who smelled a rat in all these killings and the real reason for that is the late Isabella's secret red diary that a number of pages had since gone missing. It was what's in it that implicated a number people who were embezzling the funds of the boarding house and the fashion salon connected to it which lead to the killer's murderous rampage. This at first was just a simple money issue that escalated into serial murder and ended up with the deaths, by them killing each other, of those involved in it.

Mario Bava's acclaimed masterpiece of murder and mayhem is widely considered to be the first real "giallo" film. That is, the sub-genre of films which consist of a series of murders perpetrated by a masked villain who is unmasked at the end of the film. These films always have detectives investigating the cases too, and Dario Argento was very fond of this particular type of movie. However, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE is the one that started it all back in the early sixties.Any fan of murder mysteries should watch this film as the twists and turns are very good, enthralling even, and keep the viewer's mind working overtime to figure out who the killer actually is. There's a fair share of red herrings and suspects to contend with, all lensed with Bava's famed stylish camera-work and brimming with sinister atmosphere - the screen is almost always full of shadows, where killers lurk unseen. Watching this film today, I'm reminded of many later films which consciously or not resemble this movie. The killer's blank white face is very similar to that of Michael Myers in HALLOWEEN, except more effective because there are no features, there is no face - it's just blank and expressionless, devoid of humanity. This makes the killer a very frightening and mysterious one indeed.The cast all give it their best and are commendable. The women do their bit and act terrified accordingly. The men are all shifty and suspicious looking, so it's very difficult to spot who exactly is the murderer. The murders are violent and almost always include the victims in their underwear, perhaps giving the title meaning and at least providing some lurid attractiveness - while not gory, we still see the agony of death, the throes of pain. They're very brutal for the time too.A quiet yet effective score provides some suspense, as well as the dark and shadowy sets. The plot weaves all over the place, yet it never becomes absurd or over the top - instead, remaining believable and exciting. BLOOD AND BLACK LACE is really a great Italian thriller, made by one of the masters of horror, and should be seen by any self-respecting mystery, thriller or giallo fan.