Mario Bava

Blood & Black Lace

Though the original Italian title translates to "Six Women for an Assassin," the American title, Blood and Black Lace, is far more evocative of the psychosexual nature of this elegant slasher picture. The thin plot concerns a respected Italian fashion house, a murdered model, cocaine, and a tell-all diary that seems to implicate just about everyone connected with the house of style. The disappearance of the diary initiates a wholesale slaughter of the remaining models. Mario Bava's stylish exercise in mayhem lovingly delivers every elaborate killing with dreamy assurance. As the stalker, a faceless figure wrapped up in a trench coat, makes a move for his next gorgeous victim, Bava's prowling camera snakes through sets, rushes down hallways, and generally takes off like a low-budget Hitchcock flick on speed. By contrast, Bava runs through the police investigations with a perfunctory air--the lifeless scenes, which aren't helped by the flat English dubbing, feel like he's marking time between the murders--and when the identity of the black-clad killer is revealed it almost seems beside the point. As the narrative melts into a near abstract display of choreography and color (with an often troubling misogynist edge), exposition and psychological explanations seem oddly out of place in this elaborate dance of death. As a traditional thriller it lacks any genuine thrill, but as a piece of cinematic spectacle it has moments of dreamy, disconnected beauty. --Sean Axmaker

An unscrupulous business operating under the guise of a top fashion house with exotic models running sexual favors, cocaine dealings and blackmail, becomes a murder scene—after someone is pushed to the edge. The saga begins when a beautiful model is brutally murdered, and her boyfriend, a known addict supplying her drugs, is suspected of the crime…but is he guilty or is someone waiting in the shadows setting him up? Languages: English, French & Italian. Subtitles:English & Spanish. DVD extras: Motion menus, Photo Gallery, Biographies, Commentary by Tim Lucas (Editor of the Video Watchdog), Interview with Mary Dawne Arden, Interview with Cameron Mitchell by David Del Valle, Bonus Music Tracks by composer Carlo Rustichelli, Original Theatrical Trailer, Dolby Digital 5.1, DVD-9/DVD-5.

Black Sunday

The reigning masterpiece of Italian horror cinema, Mario Bava's Black Sunday remains one of the most stylishly photographed of all horror films, ranking with any other black-and-white film of lasting repute. This was the master cameraman's official directorial debut, and his striking compositions are the work of a genuine artist in peak form. Loosely adapted from a story by Nikolai Gogol, this chilling vampire tale begins in 17th-century Moldavia, where the evil Princess Asa (Barbara Steele) is executed for witchcraft and vampirism, along with her brother Javutich (Arturo Dominici). Two centuries later, a pair of traveling doctors discover Asa's crypt and inadvertently revive the evil princess, whose scheme of vampiric revenge is aimed at her own identical descendant Princess Katia, an innocent beauty (also played by Steele) whose lifeblood will ensure Asa's immortality.

Influenced by Universal's classic horror films of the '30s and British Hammer films of the late '50s, Black Sunday (released in Italy as The Mask of Satan) is a dark fairy tale, with horror queen Steele as the definitive embodiment of erotic horror. With shocking violence (tame by today's standards) and visual emphasis on tombs, secret passages, ominous castles, and unseen forces, the film offers a wealth of memorable imagery and inventive technique. Redubbed, rescored, and harshly edited for its American release in 1961, Black Sunday is presented on DVD in the original English-language director's cut of The Mask of Satan, never before available in the U.S. The perfect movie to watch on a dark and stormy night, this timeless classic is the Citizen Kane of horror films, entirely worthy of its lofty reputation. --Jeff Shannon

The Mario Bava Collection, Volume 1 (Black Sunday / Black Sabbath / The Girl Who Knew Too Much / Kill Baby Kill / Knives of the Avenger)

Black SundayA vengeful witch and her fiendish servant return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant. Only the girl's brother and a handsome doctor stand in her way.Black SabbathA trio of atmospheric horror tales about: A woman terrorized in her apartment by phone calls from an escaped prisoner from her past; a Russian count in the early 1800s who stumbles upon a family in the countryside trying to destroy a particularly vicious line of vampires; and a 1900-era nurse who makes a fateful decision while preparing the corpse of one of her patients - an elderly medium who died during a seance.Coltelli del vendicatore I After the apparent death of her husband King Arald a viking peasant woman named Karin takes her son Moki into hiding from Aghen King Arald's enemy. But a mysterous stranger named Rurik begins acting as Karin's guardian which evetually leads to a brutal showdown between Rurik and Aghen.Kill Baby KillDr. Eswai is called by Inspector Kruger to a small village to perform an autopsy on a woman who has died under suspicious circumstances. Despite help from Ruth the village witch Kruger is killed and it is revealed that the dead woman as well as other villagers have been killed by the ghost of Melissa a young girl who fed by the hatred of her grieving mother Baroness Graps exacts her revenge on them. Dr. Eswai along with Monica a local nurse are lured into a fateful confrontation at the Villa Graps.The Evil EyeNora is a young tourist traveling through Rome which takes a sudden turn when she witnesses a murder by a serial killer that the police have sought for years for the so-called Alphabet Killings and Nora soon finds herself in way-over-her-head trouble when the police want her cooperation to catch the killer while the mystery killer soon targets her for his next victim.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR UPC: 013131485493 Manufacturer No: DV14854

Five of Mario Bava's best films are included in this box set, minus his forays into eroticism, like Blood and Black Lace. Still, the lines between sexual pathos and violence blur in these selections that influenced not only other famed directors of Giallo, such as Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, but also spawned the American golden age in horror, led by directors such as John Carpenter. Three black and white films here exemplify Bava's trademark use of chiaroscuro mixed with suspense-building cinematography first developed in early horror classics like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In the Hitchcock-inspired Evil Eye (1963), tourist Nora Davis (Leticia Roman) witnesses a murder but can't convince police of the crime. Kill Baby Kill! (1966) is the prototype for all little girl-ghost films. Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) is recruited to solve the mystery of Villa Graps, where Baroness Graps (Giana Vivaldi) reanimates her dead daughter, Melissa, by killing innocent villagers. In Black Sunday (1960), the witch Princess Asa Vajda comes back from the dead to inhabit her look-alike, Katia, both played by Barbara Steele, the original femme fatale to which all brunette vamps, like Soledad Miranda (Vampyros Lesbos) and Elvira, are indebted.

In Technicolor, Bava's fantastically rainbow-lit films underpin the director's fascination with connections between our world and those imagined. Black Sabbath (1963) is a trilogy hosted by Boris Karloff, who also stars as a Russian vampire in its segment, "The Wurdalak." "The Telephone," and "The Drop of Water," in which a nurse, Helen Correy (Jacqueline Pierreux), steals a ring then fears that her dead medium patient seeks revenge, are acute studies of guilt and paranoia. The Viking saga, Knives of the Avenger (1966), like Bava's Hercules in the Haunted World, spawned several sword and sorcery films, while protagonist Rurik's (Cameron Mitchell's) knife-throwing is indeed entertaining. Screened back to back, these films provide evidence of Bava's influence in the horror genre. Moreover, they reveal Bava's deep understanding of horror's many facets, whether sexually, psychologically, or physically based. —Trinie Dalton

Planet of the Vampires

Italian horror master Mario Bava brought his considerable skills to bear on this hypnotic genre hybrid, creating one of the most eerily atmospheric science fiction films ever made. A spaceship is lured to a mysterious planet, where members of its crew are slaughtered, and their bodies possessed by a near-extinct alien race--a minimalist plot, to be sure, but in the hands of Bava and cinematographer Antonio Rinaldi, Planet of the Vampires (the best-known of this film's many titles) is a near-masterpiece of style over substance. The simplest sets and backdrops are composed with a perfect eye for perspective and color, with sensible spaceship design and memorable costumes that look like they sprang from the futuristic fantasies of an S&M biker gang. Performances are secondary but effectively low-key, serving to enhance Bava's painterly use of matte work and miniatures. With a surprise twist ending, POTV is an essential addition to anyone's sci-fi collection. --Jeff Shannon

Hatchet for the Honeymoon - 1969

John Harrington (Stephen Forsyth) is a successful, handsome, somewhat vain young man who runs a fashion studio. He's also, unfortunately, quite insane. Driven by an overpowering Oedipus complex and the recurring image of his dead wife, Harrington has a compulsion to kill women after dressing them in bridal gowns. With each murder, the root cause of his psychosis is a little closer to being fully revealed, until a long-repressed memory finally comes clear. As with many movies of the giallo genre, Bava's film is somewhat short on plot and long on style. The director's questions about a shifting surface of reality come up again and again; Harrington's obsession with fashion and his own primping can be taken as metaphors for that issue. The narrative is reeled off in a somewhat offhand manner, though, and Harrington, though tragic, is not a character with whom the audience can sympathize. The film's long suit, however, is style, and Bava's trademarks are present throughout: red- and blue-lit sets, zoom shots, gauzy flashbacks, inventive camera work and compositions. Bear with the movie's story pretensions and sluggish pace, and you'll find a giallo that, while it doesn't rank with the best of Mario Bava, still has interesting points to recommend it. --Jerry Renshaw

Italian horror master Mario Bava's most personal film. John Harrington and his wife Mildred run an exclusive Paris fashion salon devoted to wedding apparel for women. Unknown to all but himself, John has embarked on a spree of homicides, killing young brides on their wedding nights because, with each murder, his memory comes closer to revealing the traumatic event that branded him a dangerous psychotic. Fed up with his wife (who's no newlywed), John gets rid of her the only way he can--by presiding over her murder while wearing a wedding veil himself! But Mildred's ghost has no intention of letting him forget his vow: Till Death Do Us Part!

Production Info by Tim Lucas - Production Stills - Mario Bava Biographies - Director Filmography

1.66:1 - Color - English - Mono

Black Sabbath

When American audiences first saw Mario Bava's 1963 horror trilogy, it wasn't the same film he had made in Italy. Finding it too terrifying for kids (imagine that!), AIP pictures trimmed it of violence and intensity, rescored it, and renamed it in order to cash in on the success of Black Sunday. New tongue-in-cheek introductions with costar Boris Karloff were added, the segments were rearranged, and one segment was completely rewritten in the dubbing. It was a good film even in its butchered form, but the original Italian version is excellent. The correctly ordered stories begin with "The Telephone," a gripping, ornate thriller that anticipates Bava's later "giallo" horror classics such as Blood and Black Lace. (In the American version, lesbian overtones were removed and the escaped criminal killer was turned into a vengeful ghost.) Karloff stars as a demonic, wild-haired patriarch in the eerie "The Wurdulak," a gorgeous vampire tale shot on misty, menacing sets. The masterpiece of the collection is "The Drop of Water," a chilling ghost story with shiver inducing imagery: the piercing dead eyes of the restless corpse will haunt you long after the film is over. Bava's original framing sequence ends with a playful tribute to the magic of moviemaking and storytelling, a sweet coda to remind us that it's only a movie.

The print suffers slightly from wear and tear and water damage but the colors are sharp and vivid. It's a bit disconcerting to hear Karloff dubbed in Italian, but that's a small price to pay for seeing the film in its original, uncut form. The DVD also features an extensive gallery of production and promotional stills, biographies, and liner notes by Bava historian Tim Lucas. --Sean Axmaker

The Bava Box Set, Vol. 2

The Film Crew: The Giant of Marathon

GIANT OF MARATHON is a B-movie from 1960 about a muscular Greek hero who battles the invading Persian army. Here the Film Crew team--Mike Nelson Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett--offer some wry commentary as the film plays. Genre: COMEDY UPC: 826663103786 Manufacturer No: SF10378

Danger: Diabolik

Master criminal Diabolik's got it all. He's got a black leather suit and ski mask, a pair of Jaguar XKEs, gadgets galore, an underground headquarters, and of course the ravishing Eva (played by Sixties Euro-hottie Marisa Mell). Together, the two of them pull off daring capers, staying a step or two ahead of the police, the government and rival mobsters all the while. Think the Sixties Batman TV series, James Bond, Barbarella, Matt Helm, and even a bit of Austin Powers for this distinctly Sixties crime romp. Director Mario Bava, as usual, made the most out of a less-than-lavish budget, with wild sets, an Ennio Morricone score, striking photography, and a psychedelic-soaked feel all the way around, with Bava's trademark camera work making it a visual delight in many scenes. Terry-Thomas comes in as a bumbling government official (the scene where his press conference is disrupted by Diabolik's "exhilarating gas" is a classic). It's all very tongue-in-cheek fun, based as it is on a comic book from the period. John Phillip Law, of course, is no better than he ever is as the rather fey master criminal, passing off his wooden performance as "stoic", but it works. Unlike contemporaries like Bond, though, Diabolik eschews the swinging Sixties life for a happily monogamous relationship with Eva (who wouldn't?). This is some goofy brain candy that's perfect for an evening of Sixties-retro fun. --Jerry Renshaw

The suave, psychedelic-era thief called Diabolik (Law) can't get enough of life's good - or glittery - things. Not when there are currency shipments to steal from under the noses of snooty government officials and priceless jewels to lift from the boudoirs of the superrich. The elusive scoundrel finds plenty of ways to live up to his name in this tongue-in-cheek, live-action caper inspired by Europe's popular Diabolic comics. He clambers up walls, zaps a press conference with Exhilaration Gas, smacks a confession out of a crime lord while freefalling with him from an airplane, and pulls off the heist of a twenty-ton gold ingot.

Erik the Conqueror

Blonde giants thirsty for blood and eager for conquest! In the long-unseen classic from legendary director/cinematographer Mario Bava Viking hordes invade Britain in an orgy of violence vengeance and virgins. Cameron Mitchell (KNIVES OF THE AVENGER) stars with Andrea Checchi (BLACK SUNDAY) George Ardisson (HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD) and the luscious Kesslar Twins in this epic of ferocious color and design bursting with more chained maidens and shocking violence than any other Viking movie of the era. ERIK THE CONQUEROR also known as FURY OF THE VIKINGS and THE INVADERS has been fully restored from original European vault materials and is now presented uncut and uncensored for the first time ever on DVD. System Requirements:Running Time: 90 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR UPC: 013131486698 Manufacturer No: DV14866