Frankenstein meets Elizabeth Bathory: I Vampiri

Now Playing: I Vampiri (aka The Vampires, aka Lust of the Vampire, 1957)

Pros: Great production design, cinematography and high Gothic atmosphere
Cons: Uneven pacing; Sets up a mystery that really isn’t a mystery; Timid producers nixed certain plot elements that could have made the film extraordinary

This post is part of the Journey to Italy Blogathon co-hosted by Gill at Realweegiemidget Reviews and Kristina at Speakeasy. Have an interest in older movies or TV (1950-1990) featuring Italian connections? When you’re done here, journey over to Gill’s and Kristina’s blogs for more cinematic tours.

Well here we are, just shy of a month into the new year, and it’s already sizing up to be another unnerving one. It’s no use worrying about things you can’t control, but if you need a sense of purpose and a distraction from worrying headlines, there’s always New Year’s resolutions. Show of hands -- how many of you succumbed to the temptation to make one or two? Another show of hands -- how many have already given up on a hastily made resolution?

If you fall into the second category, don’t feel too bad -- you’re in good company. The tendency to bail out early on resolutions is so widespread, it’s become enshrined as a commemorative day, National Quitter’s Day, on the second Friday of January. The site National Today explains:

“New studies have found that about two-thirds of people abandon their New Year’s resolution within a month. One of the major problems with achieving new year resolutions is that those who set them are over-ambitious. People usually start with high levels of motivation, but as time progresses, the drive begins to wane. The key in achieving goals is to set short, medium, and long-term goals as opposed to one large unrealistic stretch goal.” [Nationaltoday.com]

While quitting is not commonly associated with the elite sectors of society (yeah, that’s what they want you to believe), even prominent go-getters can feel the urge to bail once in a while. Consider the case of Italian filmmaker Riccardo Freda (1909-1999).

By the mid-1950s, Freda was an experienced writer/director with a couple of dozen films and several film festival award nominations under his belt. And, he was set to direct I Vampiri, which would go down in history as the first Italian horror film of the sound era.

Riccardo Freda (Wikimedia Commons)

Freda, who also co-wrote the I Vampiri screenplay along with collaborators Piero Ragnoli and Mario Bava (the cinematographer on the project), reportedly told his producers that he could “have a treatment ready in 24 hours and make the picture itself in a fortnight.” [Jonathon Rigby, Euro Gothic: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema, Signum Books, 2016, p. 71.]

Freda’s over-ambitiousness ultimately turned sour. Depending on which source you believe, Freda either walked off the set 10 days into filming when it became clear he wouldn’t meet his deadline [IMDb], or, he stormed off the set when his producers, worried about censorship, nixed several of the more horrific and lurid aspects of the film [Rigby, p. 71]. In any event, Bava took over the directing reins for the rest of the production.

This wouldn’t be the last time Freda walked off a production and Bava filled in for him. Some years later, it was deja vu all over again when, during the shooting of Calitiki, The Immortal Monster (a Blob knock-off released in 1959) Freda again feuded with the producers, and Bava stepped in to complete the project.

Oh the horror, the HORROR!... of walking off yet another set.

Later, Freda claimed that he purposely abandoned Calitiki to give his multi-talented cinematographer another shot at directing. [IMDb] Whatever the motivation, it certainly worked, with Bava quickly going on to direct Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio, 1960), ultimately a far more seminal Italian horror film than I Vampiri, and the jump-start to a career that would see Bava hailed as one of the great masters of the genre.

Still, there is something to being involved in a cinematic first, even if later films in the genre eclipse yours in terms of style and critical and audience reception. Rather than being a radical leap into new film territory, I Vampiri is more of a bridge between Universal’s horrors of the ‘30s and ‘40s and the far more graphic, bloody fare that Bava and Hammer films would introduce to the world starting in the late '50s.

Set in contemporaneous Paris, I Vampiri opens with a body being hauled out of the Seine, accompanied by closeups of newspaper headlines blaring about a “vampire” killer terrorizing the city, having claimed the lives of four young women in a matter of months.

It seems that the victims were completely drained of blood, with needle marks on their arms (not to mention they all shared the same blood type). Quickly, the shadowy killer strikes again, brazenly abducting Nora, a showgirl (Ronny Holiday), from the theater where she works.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

The police are stymied, but nosy newspaper reporter Pierre Lantin (Dario Michaelis) is on the case, much to the chagrin of perpetually grumpy police inspector Chantal (Carlo D’Angelo). With one clue -- a photo of Nora with a suspicious-looking character in a trenchcoat hovering in the background -- Lantin proceeds to interview the friends of one of the murdered women. Lantin takes an immediate shine to one of the friends, beautiful Laurette (Wandisa Guida).

When Lantin sees the trenchcoated stranger lurking around Lauette’s neighborhood, he follows him to a tenement apartment. Lantin rushes to bring the police back to the suspect’s lair, but when he returns with the inspector, he’s dumbfounded to find, instead of the sinister character, just an old pensioner who says he’s been living there for years. Chantal is peeved with the newspaperman for wasting his time.

I Vampiri tips its hand early on. Instead of keeping the menace to the shadows after Nora’s dance hall abduction, the script has Lantin flushing out a conspiracy in which Joseph, a wretched drug addict (Paul Muller), is employed by a mad scientist, Julien du Grand (Antoine Balpêtrè) to abduct young women for his unholy experiments.

Pierre draws up plans to catch the vampire killer.

Joseph, panicked that the police are on to him, runs to du Grand, who in turn is worried about the attention that his dimwitted henchman has stirred up. The Professor decides now is the time to fake his own death with the help of his cousin, the wealthy and mysterious duchess Margherita du Grand.

The Duchess, wearing a thick black veil, leads the mourners -- the cream of the crop of Paris society -- at the fake funeral held at her crumbling estate outside of the city.

Also in attendance is Lantin, who is unaware that he is the cause of the ostentatious funeral. He explains to a colleague that he has issues with the Duchess, who in her youth was obsessed with his father, and almost ruined his parents’ marriage. Lantin cattily remarks that although the Duchess was once very beautiful, she now wears veils because she can’t deal with being old.

Coincidentally, the Duchess’ niece Giselle (Gianna Maria Canale), whom many regard as the most beautiful woman in Paris, seems similarly fascinated with Lantin, popping up in unexpected places as the newspaperman continues his hunt for the vampire killer. But, given their families’ histories, he gives her the cold shoulder.

"Hey Pierre, my eyes are up here!"

Little does he know that his real love interest, the lovely Laurette, will soon get caught up in the sinister du Grands’ web, and will be tricked and then abducted to the Duchess’ castle, where a grisly fate awaits her. Will Lantin and the clueless police get wise in time to save her?

At first glance, I Vampiri looks less like a groundbreaking film and more like an eccentric project mired in past tropes. Euro Gothic author Jonathan Rigby points to the black gloves worn by sinister Joseph as prefiguring the fashion preferences of the killers in later Giallo films. But after the initial dance hall scene, the henchman is yanked out of the shadows (not to mention revealed as a garden variety drug addict), and the suspense of seeing a faceless figure wearing black gloves dissipates.

I Vampiri is definitely inspired by Hollywood’s mystery-thrillers of the 1930s. Lantin is the very embodiment of the perennial gutsy reporter who clashes with the blundering police and looks for clues in old dark houses. The only thing missing is the plucky girl reporter to act as a foil and generate non-stop hard-boiled patter.

Just as prominent is the nod to mad scientists of the past. Julien has a very impressive laboratory in the castle’s dungeons, with all sorts of newfangled doodads, beakers and tubes… and a scar-faced assistant dressed in medical scrubs to complete the set-up.

"Don't worry Joseph, you're completely covered for head replacement surgery!"

The only thing missing is showy Kenneth Strickfaden equipment sending electrical currents arcing through the gloomy lab. Du Grand sounds like he stepped right out of a Universal Frankenstein picture when he brags to his assistant,

“Some day, I’ll discover the very energy that generates life and make it flow forever through living beings. That will be my moment of triumph, because it will mean that all my work was not in vain!”

But instead of using electricity to revitalize dead tissue, I Vampiri’s mad doctor uses the blood of involuntary donors, plus some sort of enhancement process, to revitalize old tissue and smooth out those fine lines and wrinkles (sort of like Botox injections, but with dead bodies lying around after the treatment).

So, no supernatural vampires here, just metaphorical ones that use their wealth and mad science to relieve the peasants of their blood supply in the pursuit of a few fleeting moments of restored youth. Dr. Frankenstein, meet Elizabeth Bathory.

Laurette suddenly realizes this is not the relaxing spa experience she signed up for.

Also, there's no real mystery as to who is benefitting from Julien’s mad schemes; hint: there are two characters, supposedly related to one another and living on the same estate, but who are never seen together. What the audience is left with is the anticipation of a dramatic (if obvious) reveal and the villains getting their just deserts.

The real stars of the show are the sets and Bava’s beautiful black and white Cinemascope photography, itself a sort of bridge between eras: black and white to accentuate the high Gothic atmosphere, and Cinemascope for that mid-century immersive experience.

It’s hard not to feel at least a slight shiver as Bava’s camera roams through darkened castle interiors full of menacing shadows, cobwebs, skulls and monstrous statuary. Or when it surveys Julien and his sketchy assistant hovering over a body on a gurney, framed by evil-looking medical equipment. Prosaic scenes of Lantin clashing with his boss or the police, or chatting up the school girls, serve as a stark contrast between the modern, daylit 20th century world and the dark, decaying one of the Du Grands.

Apparently, Freda’s original vision for the film would have far exceeded the exercise in Gothic atmosphere that it ended up being. But I Vampiri’s producers were reluctant to get too far out over their skis:

“Wary of censorship, Freda’s producers dropped all of his nastier conceits, several of which he claimed to have actually filmed. A drug addict called Joseph Signoret … is the robotic pawn who supplies the Duchesse du Grand and her scientist cousin with the victims they need; scenes in which he was guillotined, put back together by the mad Professor, and literally lost his transplanted head while under police supervision were all deleted. … These changes, plus the general drift towards making I Vampiri into a standard police procedural, presumably explain why Freda -- always a tempestuous kind of director -- stormed off the set towards the end of the production.” [Rigby, p. 71]

(Yikes! I would love to see that director’s cut!)

A visible scar on Joseph's neck hints at scenes that were excised from the final cut (click on the image to enlarge).

Alas, it would fall to others -- namely Hammer Studios -- to break horror’s nasty barrier, riling up audiences and critics alike with the colorful, never-before-seen gruesomeness of The Curse of Frankenstein, which was released not quite a month after I Vampiri.

While Curse was racking up box office records, Freda was chagrined that I Vampiri had difficulty scaring up decent attendance, even in Italy:

“At that time I’d sometimes go into the auditorium to study the audience's reaction. I don’t know why, but the theatre was almost empty. Anyway, plenty of people were attracted by the posters, which were extremely beautiful. The people would read I Vampiri…I Vampiri… And that appeared to tempt them. Then at the very last moment they’d notice the name Freda. The reaction was kind of automatic. ‘Freda? But it’s Italian -- it must be terrible, Italians can’t make this kind of movie.’” [Rigby, p. 73]

Not long after I Vampiri's disappointing reception, Freda, perhaps thinking, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” took on Caltiki, a sci-fi knock-off (although, he couldn't help giving it the dark, atmospheric, Freda-esque treatment). A year after that, his trusty collaborator Mario Bava would direct Black Sunday, solidifying the worldwide comeback of Gothic horror and proving that yeah, Italians can make that kind of movie.

Whether he realized it at the time or not, Riccardo Freda and I Vampiri helped set it all in motion.

The Duchess du Grand stealthily creeps her way into Italian horror history.

Where to find it: DVD/Blu-ray | Streaming

Haunted Halloween Nights, Part 3: Modern vs. Medieval

Now Playing: Night of the Devils (La notte dei diavoli; 1972)

Pros: Adds a new twist or two to the visitor-stranded-in-an-old-dark-house cliché.
Cons: Inconsistent gore effects and day-for-night cinematography undercut the eerie atmosphere.

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
  ― Robert Frost

...Unless you are a ravening creature of the undead, a vourdalak, in which case you might want to do everyone a favor and find a nearby Super8 motel to park your rotting carcass. Unfortunately for the eastern European family in Night of the Devils, what is usually considered a strength -- family loyalty -- contributes to their dreadful undoing.

The film opens with a man stumbling out of the woods. With his torn coat and long, bloody scratches running down his face, he looks like he’s about to join the ranks of the undead (or maybe just the plain old dead). He collapses by a picturesque stream.

Cut to the local hospital where the doctors have hooked up the semi-comatose man to a science-fictiony brain-scanning device. Still in a state of shock, he sees disturbing visions including a maggot-infested skull, a woman’s head being blasted down to the bone, and an operation conducted by two spooky, skull-faced figures who cut the still-beating heart out of a body.

Neither the doctors or the police inspector can get anything out of him, except to note that his expensive clothes indicate that he is a wealthy foreigner (the locality being 1972-era Yugoslavia). The main physician also comments to the inspector that the patient becomes quite agitated when it gets dark, and that every night he stands at the window “looking into the darkness like a scared, cornered animal.”

That night, an attractive young woman, Sdenka (Agostina Belli), shows up at the hospital claiming to know the mystery man. She identifies him as Nicola, a lumber importer. The doctor takes Sdenka to see him, but when Nicola catches sight of her, he tears himself away from the orderlies and flees in terror down the corridor.

Back in his bed and now wearing a straight-jacket, he starts to remember how he got into his predicament…

On a bright sunny day, Nicola (Gianni Garko) is driving along forlorn country back roads to his business appointment. In classic horror movie fashion, he becomes lost, takes a turn down an unpromising road, almost hits a mysterious woman in black, and disables his car running up an embankment. As he tramps through the lonely woods to find help, the sight of huge black boars rummaging through the brush and the sounds of strange cries and moans tells him he’s not in Kansas (or contemporary east Europe) anymore.

Some days, it just doesn't pay to get lost in the
godforsaken wilderness of eastern Europe.

The help he manages to find is hardly reassuring. He discovers a ramshackle old house, home to the extended Ciuvelak clan, who are just coming back from burying the brother of the patriarch, Gorca Ciuvelak (William Vanders). When Nicola asks for a ride to the nearest village, the stern old man tells him it will have to wait until tomorrow, as night is approaching and the woods are not safe after dark.

Accepting Gorca’s offer to stay the night, Nicola finds himself in a kind of time warp, as the house, lit only by candles and gas lamps and heated by the fireplace, seems to be something out of the 19th century. And the family is definitely odd. They bar the doors and windows at night, yet insist that they’re the only people left in the god-forsaken place.

Gorca’s eldest son Jovan (Roberto Maldera) tells Nicola that he learned auto mechanics in the army, and that he can probably fix the car (although where he is going to get the parts is not made clear).

The next morning, as Jovan works on Nicola’s car, Gorca announces that he is setting out to hunt down and destroy the “living dead” witch who has seduced his brother, caused his death, and brought a curse down upon the family (and who incidentally caused Nicola to crash his car). Jovan solemnly informs his father that if he’s not back by sunset, he is “finished.”

Nicola becomes more unsettled as he learns from the little girl Irina, Gorca’s niece (Cinzia De Carolis), all about the witch’s doings and her uncle’s mission to destroy the woman, and the deadline that Jovan has set.

"Why father, what a long face you have!"

Gorca arrives at the house just as the mantle clock finishes chiming 6 o’clock. There is doubt among the family members -- did he make the deadline or not? -- but it’s dispelled when he dumps the bloody hand of the witch he has killed on the table and announces that the curse has been lifted.

Later that night, Gorca’s lovely and innocent daughter Sdenka declares her love for Nicola, clearly hoping the handsome stranger will take her away from the mad household. He reciprocates her feelings and takes her to bed.

The respite from high strangeness doesn’t last very long, however, as within a few hours the family learns that Gorca has spirited his niece Irina away in the night, and turned her into a living dead revenant like himself. Nicola watches in horror as Jovan plunges a wooden stake through Gorka’s heart.

Little does he know that in short order, he will be battling a whole family of vourdalaks, and wondering if his beloved Sdenka has also become a monster.

Night of the Devils was the second film inspired by Aleksey Tolstoy’s novella The Family of the Vourdalak (1886), the first being the “I Wurdalak” segment of Mario Bava’s classic Black Sabbath (1963). Mario Bava’s version is set squarely in the 19th century, and not only features a truly creepy atmosphere decorated, lit and shot by a master film craftsman, but also boasts one of Boris Karloff’s most chilling performances.

Night is a longer treatment, and takes a different approach in framing the story of the doomed Ciuvelak clan with the very contemporary scenes of the hospital. Nicola becomes a man lost in space and time, an ordinary modern businessman encountering near-medieval strangeness. The framing/flashback device serves to accentuate the film’s dreamlike aspects.

There's nothing better than a good stake after
a hard day of vourdalak hunting.

Where the film excels is not so much the bloody action scenes but rather the quieter interludes between the blood and gore: Nicola’s first walk through the woods accompanied by strange cries and moans; the alarmed forest animals fleeing in the wake of the witch as she roams about; the menacing grimace of patriarch Gorca as he returns from his witch hunt; Nicola slowly backing away in fright and confusion from the lovely Sdenka, whom he now believes to be a vourdalak.

Typical of eurohorror of the period, there is the requisite blood and gore. Some of it works, some doesn’t. The camera lingers too long on Jovan’s staking of Gorca through the chest. Similarly, each time a vourdalak is dispatched, seconds tick by as we’re treated to an excruciating close-up of the creature’s face as blood pours from the eyes and its flesh dissolves.

One of the gorier scenes is the most effective. Upon returning to the house and finding that the entire clan has been turned into slavering vampires, Nicola tries to flee in his car. Irina’s mother Elena (Teresa Gimpera), now a hungry monster, grabs the driver’s side door before he can shut it. They play a desperate game of tug of war before Nicola manages to slam the door on her hand, severing most of her fingers. Undaunted, the vampire woman laughs maniacally as she stabs the car window repeatedly with the bloody stump of her hand.

The effects were the work of Carlo Rambaldi, who would later become famous for creating the far gentler E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1982). Manuel Berenguer’s cinematography is generally competent, especially with the interior scenes, where he manages to create a creepy, shadowy atmosphere in the candle-lit old house. However, in many of the exterior scenes, the obvious day-for-night photography undercuts the supernatural ambience.

Elena is out for a late night snack

Director Giorgio Ferroni had done horror before, contributing something of a minor classic, the creepy and atmospheric Mill of the Stone Women (1960), to the Eurohorror canon. However, he was better known for the spate of sword and sandal and spaghetti western pictures he made in between the horror films. Similarly, up to that time Gianni Garko’s experience was in westerns and costume epics, with an occasional spy thriller thrown in the mix. Agostina Belli was a little more experienced in the horror genre, having recently appeared in Scream of the Demon Lover (1970) and the giallo The Fifth Cord (1971) leading up to her gig in Night of the Devils.

In Jonathan Rigby’s comprehensive treatment of European horror films, Euro Gothic: Classics of Continental Horror Cinema (Signum Books, 2016), the author offers a fairly lengthy analysis of Night of the Devils, and wraps it up with a compliment:

“Ferroni’s crescendo of paranoid horror is splendidly sustained, and the film itself -- bolstered by Giorgio Gaslini’s excellent score and Manuel Berenguer’s delicate Scope photography -- is ripe for reappraisal as a small classic of Italian horror.” (p.248)

Where to find it: Rent or buy from Amazon. It's also available through Kanopy - check your local library for availability.

Spelunking in the Cave of the Vampires: A Devilishly Dreadful Double Feature

I haven't done much cave exploring in my lifetime. Once, a long, long time ago, the family stopped at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. I remember part of the passage narrowing to the point where even a human string bean like myself just barely fit through, and coupled with the dark and the damp, it was an uncomfortable, if not exactly terrifying experience. (Come to think of it, I wonder how the park handles today's plus-sized tourists? Do they sit and watch a movie while the select few who are thin enough go slipping and sliding in the real caverns, or do you suppose the park people have drilled out that area to accommodate everyone?)

This is one of the few decent photos I took at Colossal Cave.
Hey, they kind of look like vampire teeth, don't they?

My next most uncomfortable cave experience was years later at Colossal Cave in Tucson. The uncomfortable part was trying to figure out how to take decent pictures with my new point-and-shoot camera. I was so obsessed with the stupid camera that I forgot to appreciate the beauty in front of me. To date, that's been it for me and caves.

We normally associate vampires with dark, decaying castles. But dank, dripping caves would also seem to be a natural habitat for these night creatures. After all, bats love caves, and vampires love to turn into bats, ergo, vampires should love caves. (I guess that philosophy of logic class wasn't such a waste after all!)

If at this point you're saying to yourself, but I don't remember ever seeing a flick about cave-dwelling vampires, rest your weary mind. I've got two (count 'em!) B horrors with vampires hanging out in caves. And I just happened to stumble upon them recently. One dark and stormy night, I was mindlessly going through my Netflix Instant watch queue and finding nothing appealing, when I remembered I also had access to "free" videos through my Amazon Prime account. (Disclaimer: Your humble host does not accept gratuities or other compensation to promote any particular entertainment/media services, nor will I ever, unless they make it really, really worthwhile. However, since these services are an omnipresent fact of entertainment life, I reserve the right to mention them, and even praise or excoriate them, as appropriate.)

So I started mindlessly browsing through the Amazon Prime catalog. Given my affinity for B horrors and sci-fi, you can probably guess what kinds of titles ended up on my watchlist. And wouldn't you know it, the first two things I watched featured vampires in caves. (Okay, so the title of the first movie is a real tip-off, but I had no idea that the second movie in the queue, Devils of Darkness, also featured vampires in caves. Weird, huh?)

Now Playing: Cave of the Living Dead (aka Night of the Vampires, 1964)

Pros: Invents wacky new additions to vampire lore; Long on atmosphere
Cons: Too much time devoted to spooky talk and secondary characters, and not enough to the vampires themselves

In brief: Inspector Dorin (Adrian Hoven) is sent to a remote village to investigate the suspicious deaths of 6 young women in the last 6 months. Arriving at the outskirts of town around midnight, the electrical system in his car suddenly goes out, and even his flashlight won't work. He hoofs it to the local inn, where the power is out as well. The rough-looking innkeeper tells him spooky stories about vampires lurking in the grottos (a fancy-a** word for caves) outside of the village. Dorin goes to bed.

In the morning, the local Keystone Constables bang on his door. It seems the inn's maid, Maria, has become the latest victim in the room right next door to the inspector's. How embarrassing! Dorin talks to the village doctor (Carl Mohner), who has to be the most dim-witted, complacent M.D. in all of horror film. He casually informs Dorin that all the healthy young women died naturally of heart failure. When Dorin points out the marks on Maria's neck, he dismisses them as superficial scratches.

"Okay, take a left at the stalactites, go a hundred yards,
turn right at the stalagmites, and if you come upon
a bunch of vampires' coffins, you've gone too far..."

The innkeeper insists that Dorin see Nanny (Vida Juvan ?), the resident white witch. She fills him in all the habits and haunts of the area's vampires, who, due to their evil deeds, were cursed and exiled to the dank grottos. Next, Dorin is invited by the mysterious Prof. von Adelsberg (Wolfgang Preiss) to visit him in his decrepit castle on the hill. It seems the good professor laid claim to the castle and moved in about 6 months ago (hmmm…) and is obsessed with research on blood (hhhmmmmmmmm….!!) Fortunately, he has a beautiful blonde assistant, Karin (Karin Field), who seems very normal and level-headed, and, well, beautiful.

Dorin investigates the ghastly grottos with von Adelsberg's black servant John (John Kitzmiller), who is a decent, if superstitious fellow. John ends up saving the inspector from a falling stalagmite (or is it stalactite?). Before it's all over, Dorin will deal with missing bodies, hostile villagers, more midnight power outages, secret passageways, and beautiful, buxom vampires. All in a day's (and night's) work for a Eurohorror inspector!

Like most Eurohorror, Cave is long on atmosphere and short on any logical narrative sense or structure. Like a dream (or nightmare), characters react to missing bodies and vampires living in caves with a disquieting complacency. The dream atmosphere is further reinforced by the murky black and white photography. Hammer proved that vampires and technicolor could coexist, but to me night creatures are most at home in black and white worlds.

It's lights out for the Master Vampire!

There are a couple of shots of elongated, human-shaped shadows with arms extended and hands clutching that could easily have been inserted into a much earlier film like Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). The eerie quirkiness is taken a step further when the inspector meets the village witch. If nothing else, Cave adds some amusing bizarro rules to vampire lore: they can only come out at midnight for 1 hour minus 1 minute to do their nefarious work; they can shut off all electric power, including battery power, during their jaunts; powder ground from the thorns of mountain roses and sprinkled on a vampire's victim's wound can restore the person to life; and so on.

But for all its inventiveness, Cave wastes too much time on rather mundane secondary characters like the dimwit doctor, an ignorant, thieving villager, and (even though he is a sympathetic character), von Adelsberg's servant. Although the aristocratic Von Adelsberg himself is given relatively short shrift, there are hints of a much deeper, darker character. It's as if the film's editor perversely chucked a bunch of his scenes in favor of filler with lesser characters.

Prof. von Adelsberg (Wolfgang Preiss) burns the midnight
oil studying blood... and more blood...

Key player: Wolfgang Preiss, like many sophisticated-looking German actors of his generation, made something of a career playing Nazi officers in such films as The Longest Day (1962), Von Ryan's Express (1965), Anzio (1968) and Raid on Rommel (1971). Perhaps more interesting to thriller and horror fans is his appearance as the sinister master criminal Dr. Mabuse, first in Fritz Lang's The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960), and then again The Return of Dr. Mabuse (1961), The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (1962), The Terror of Dr. Mabuse (1962), and finally as the Doctor's ghost in Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard (1963). Born in 1910, he worked right up to the mid-1990s, and died at the ripe old age of 92 in 2002.

---

Where to find it:

Amazon Instant Video


"Beyond the black mouth of the cursed cave lurk the unfleshed..."

Now Playing: Devils of Darkness (1965)

Pros: Lush color photography; Attractive actors and actresses; Hammer-like look and feel
Cons: William Sylvester is a rather dull hero; Final scene "cheat" is lazy and unimaginative

In brief: In a pre-title scene set somewhere in the 19th century, we see a colorful group of gypsies joyfully celebrating the betrothal of beautiful Tania (Carole Gray) with a handsome, strapping young man. On her wedding day, joy turns to terror as a giant bat invades the encampment and strikes Tania. Some of the older gypsies blame Count Sinistre (Hubert Noel), who was condemned to be buried alive for his great crimes, and has returned as a vampire. Tania is buried by her disconsolate family and fiancee, but they don't take precautions to see that she stays put. Uh-oh!

Flash forward a hundred years or so, to a group of English tourists who are taking in the sights of Brittany (that's in the northwest of France, for those of you who are geographically-challenged). The vacation takes a turn for the worse when two of the party, Keith and Dave (Geoffrey Kenion and Rod McLennan), decide to explore some of the nearby caves. Keith discovers a vast cavern housing a group of mouldering coffins. To his horror, he sees a hand emerge from one of the coffins, and before he can react, he's grabbed by something from behind. Later, locals find Keith's body, but buddy Dave is still missing.

"Wake up sleepyhead, and follow me to the end of time!"

A gypsy warns Anne, Keith's beautiful sister (Rona Anderson), that her life is in danger. Heedlessly, she goes for an evening stroll with a suave member of the local upper crust, Sinistre. They pause on a scenic bridge. When Anne looks down at the water, she can see her reflection, but not her companion's-- double uh-oh! Sinistre abducts Anne, but carelessly drops a curious-looking medallion in the shape of a bat in the process. The alpha male of the touring group, Paul Baxter (William Sylvester), finds the medallion while looking for Anne. He is frustrated when the local police inspector (Peter Illing) won't take the disappearance seriously. Later, when Anne's body is found in the lake, the inspector blithely concludes it was an accident.

After one of the worst vacations ever, Paul gives up on the local authorities and takes the survivors and the bodies back to London. But that's not the end of it. Upon arrival at the airport, the bodies mysteriously disappear. Paul starts to think that maybe the superstitious Brittany local-yokels aren't so crazy after all. He enlists the aid of an open-minded scientist friend, Dr. Kelsey (Eddie Byrne), who suggests some reading material on black magic and talismans like the one he found on the bridge. Later, Paul finds his apartment ransacked, and learns that Kelsey is dead. It seems as if the tour group has stirred up an ancient, evil hornets' nest.

Even vampires have domestic
squabbles now and then.

Even in the middle of all the chaos, Paul finds time to attend the party of his quirky antique-dealer friend Madeleine (Diana Decker). There, he's introduced to an alluring artists' model Karen (Tracy Reed). Little does he know that he will soon be competing with the sinister Sinistre (is that redundant?) for the soul, so to speak, of the beautiful Karen. And little does Sinistre know that soon he will be dealing with the wrath of his current vampire squeeze, Tania, as he prepares to make Karen his new bride.

Tiny Planet Film Productions, which produced a handful of films in the '50s and '60s and distributed a handful more, got a lot of bang for their buck (or should I say pound sterling) with Devils of Darkness. It has the sumptuous technicolor look of a Hammer film, interesting sets and locations, and some bewitching actresses, particularly Carole Gray (Tania) and Tracy Reed (Karen). Hubert Noel, who reminds me of a French version of Udo Kier, is suitably suave and menacing as Sinistre. The main problem with the cast is American TV actor William Sylvester, who is a colorless, plodding fish out of water surrounded by far more interesting, quirky and attractive players. If you've seen any U.S. television from the '70s, you've probably seen William. At best, he was a "yeah, that face looks kind of familiar"-type of actor. English B producers often employed American actors to secure financial backing and make their product more attractive in the all important American market (Devils was released in the U.S. on a double bill with another British B, Curse of the Fly, with… you guessed it… an American actor, Brian Donlevy. Somehow, I doubt the kids making out at the drive-ins where it played came up for air long enough to think to themselves, "where have I seen that guy before?)

Apparently the artist put his blood, sweat and tears into
this painting... but mostly blood...

The few kids at the drive-in who were paying attention saw a pretty competent, if somewhat slow-moving Hammer horror imitation. Its combination of vampirism and a devil-worshipping cult menacing innocent tourists is very reminiscent of Hammer's Kiss of the Vampire (1963). There's also a touch of The Brides of Dracula (1960), with its emphasis on women as predators as well as victims. There's even what seems to be an homage to one of the UK's all-time greats, Curse of the Demon (aka Night of the Demon; 1957), when Kelsey and his laboratory are destroyed by an unseen demonic presence that first announces itself by the chattering of nervous lab animals, then literally blows into the place to claim the terrified scientist. Another scene in which a character slashes at a painting of Karen, and it starts bleeding, is, if not exactly original, nevertheless effective.

The final scene has a "we ran out of money, had an unfinished script, and couldn't pay anyone to finish it up"- kind of feel to it. Still, if you've seen all the Hammers multiple times, but want to see something new with that Hammeresque ambiance, Devils of Darkness might just be a Prime (as in Amazon Prime) candidate.

Diabolic Detail: IMDb's trivia section states that Devils was the UK's first vampire film set in the present day. While the U.S. had beaten Britain to the punch with John Beal as the scientifically-produced The Vampire (1957), and even had Count Dracula haunt a modern California town (The Return of Dracula, 1958), in the mid-'60s Hammer was still plugging away with Gothic settings in things like Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966). Hammer wouldn't get around to updating the Count to the present day until Dracula, A.D. 1972 (1972).

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Where to find it:

Amazon Instant Video


"The mysterious cult of Count Sinistre has arisen!"

Dancing with the Horror Movie Stars

Now Playing: Castle of Blood (aka Danza Macabra; 1964)

Pros: Creepy atmosphere in spades; Beautiful black and white photography; Barbara Steele is ethereal and haunting
Cons: Purist Poe fans may object to the way he's depicted in the film

I have a nice little morning ritual at work. On the way to the coffee bar in my building for my $1.25 refill, I usually stop at the front desk to chat with my co-worker and fellow sci-fi/horror aficionado Vincent (not his real name). Even with all the blogs I follow and the copious social media interactions, it's nice to talk movies and books in person with someone who shares your interests. Vincent gives me a rundown of everything he's seen since our last talk, and I try to stump him with something he hasn't seen yet (and I usually fail -- in the last year or so, I've only come up with two Netflix instant titles he hadn't heard of).

Our tastes aren't identical. He's much more into the newer stuff, and I'm more appreciative of the old. He's far more tolerant of blood and gore than I am, but he freely admits that he fast forwards through particularly hackneyed and predictable (and egregiously violent) stretches. He's like a grizzled prospector who, after a lifetime searching for gold, seemingly has only the dusty clothes on his back and a mangy old burro with a mean streak to show for it. But he keeps searching, because he knows there's sci-fi/horror gold in them there hills -- and he finds just enough of it to keep going. He is relentless and completely dedicated to his favorite genres.

Vincent also tries to keep up with sci-fi and horror-themed TV shows (at least to watch the first episode or two to see what they're all about). The other day he asked me if I'd seen the premiere of the latest SyFy epic series, Defiance. I don't usually commit to new TV series, even sci-fi and horror, because, well, I've got to have some time left to devote to the classics and this blog. As Vincent was describing the plot, the previews of dozens of recent SyFy and other cable series were dancing around in my head (I may not watch too many series, but I don't live in a cave either, so I do see the ads for a lot of this stuff). Vincent was pretty excited about the new series, but to me it sounded like an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink pastiche of every science fiction series to hit the airwaves in the last several years: Vicious, aggressive aliens whose home world has been destroyed discover Earth and turn off all the electrical power while at the same time unleashing a plague of the walking dead upon humanity; meanwhile, plucky bands of human and alien-human hybrid survivors fight a desperate guerilla war against the cruel invaders. (Or something like that-- it's really hard to tell these shows apart!)

And then there's horror. It looks to me like the angst-ridden teen and twenty-something vampires and werewolves have finally worn out their welcome (knock on wooden stakes). But assorted serial killers, psychos, paranormal investigators, poltergeists, and zombies (herds, hordes, masses, mobs, swarms, multitudes, throngs, and legions of dam**d zombies!) have kicked off their shoes, put their smelly feet up on the coffee table, popped open a foul brew, and taken up permanent residence in theaters, TV, the general popular culture and our collective consciousness. (Just when I'd thought the zombie market couldn't possibly get any more saturated, or that there were any more variations on the theme for callous producers to exploit, along came Warm Bodies, about zombie love. And of course, we can all look forward to World War Z with Brad Pitt this summer. Ugh!)

This stuff isn't scary. Shocking, repellent, nauseating… yes. But really scary? No. You don't need over-the-top shock effects or a bunch of high-end computers dedicated to CGI to raise goosebumps. You can do it with lighting, make-up, sound, in-camera effects, and some imagination. For true fright connoisseurs, there are some subtle, aged vintages down there in the dark cellar, just waiting to be uncorked. The difference between these classics and the current crop of pop horror films and TV shows is like that between a 1949 Lafite-Rothschild and a bottle of MD 20/20. For a domestic (actually Anglo-American) vintage, it's hard to do better than Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963), or almost anything by Val Lewton. For an ethereal, yet complex import with a smoky, supernatural aftertaste, you might want to try Castle of Blood (aka Danse Macabre; 1964).

Hurry and get your hot dogs, popcorn and soda...
only 5 minutes 'til showtime!

The first time I saw Castle of Blood, it was doubly terrifying. Somehow, I had talked my brother into letting me tag along on a trip to the drive-in to see an Italian action/horror double feature. My brother's buddy, who had been driving on learner's permit maybe 6 months earlier, decided to see what his souped-up Camaro would do out on the open highway… at night. When the speedometer needle crossed 85, I closed my eyes, said my prayers, and thought about all the things I was going to miss in my short, abbreviated life.  I didn't open them again until we sprayed gravel swerving into the drive-in entrance.

As I recall, the first feature in the double-bill was what looked to be a zero-budget spaghetti western with a small cast and hardly a single word of dialog in the whole thing (for the life of me I can't remember the title). After the initial terror of the mad race to the theater subsided, I remember being mildly curious as to whether either of the principal cast members -- particularly seedy, low-rent versions of the Lone Ranger and Tonto -- were going to say anything. (In hindsight, the producers were brilliant -- they solved the problems with international distribution and language dubbing costs by avoiding dialog altogether. A couple of times over the years I've tried to figure out just what the heck this thing was, with no luck.)

The western was mercifully short, and then it was on to the main attraction. Just a few minutes into the movie, we all got really quiet. None of us had ever seen anything remotely like it. Castle of Blood is a masterful blending of a simple, archetypal story -- a man spends the night in a haunted castle on a bet -- with beautiful, atmospheric black and white photography, sounds that go bump in the night, odd characters in lush costumes who appear out of nowhere, and some wild, unexpected plot twists and turns.

Castle starts out in classic ghost story fashion with a lone traveler wandering into a darkened tavern and encountering an odd, intense man telling a spooky tale to a circle of enrapt listeners. When the storyteller is done, the man introduces himself as Alan Foster (Georges Riviere), a journalist who has traveled a long way to get an interview with the storyteller -- the great Edgar Allan Poe (Silvano Tranquilli). Poe insists that he is not a fiction writer, but rather a journalist like Foster, and that all of his tales are actually true. When Poe matter-of-factly states that the tomb or the grave is not always the end, and that many "live" beyond death, Foster insists the writer is having fun with him. Foster is a rationalist who has a hard time believing any intelligent person can believe in ghosts or the hereafter.

The fateful bet is made. (From the left: Silvano Tranquilli as Poe,
Georges Riviere as Foster and Umberto Raho as Lord Blackwood)

A third man who has been listening to the two debate introduces himself as Lord Thomas Blackwood (Umberto Raho), and he gets right down to business, betting the skeptical journalist 100 pounds sterling that he can't spend a single night in his haunted castle out in the country.

Foster: Why, do you believe I might run away from the place?
Blackwood: No, you'd remain there. Of all those who've agreed to take up my wager, not one has ever lived to run away.

At first demurring, the insouciant Foster informs Blackwood that journalists of his ilk are poorly paid, so he can only afford to bet a measly 10 pounds. Blackwood gleefully takes him up on it. They pile into Blackwood's carriage to make the long ride to the castle-- the aristocrat wants to get Foster there by midnight on the "Night of the Dead," a time when "the dead come back to perform again those tragedies which have cost them their lives…" Okaaaayyyy then.

And perform they do! While at first the castle is deathly quiet, soon Foster hears harpsichord music and sees a dancing couple that, upon further investigation, aren't there. He feels a hand on his shoulder, and whirling around, is startled to see an alluring dark beauty dressed in white (Barbara Steele). She introduces herself as Elisabeth Blackwood, Thomas' sister and the sole remaining occupant of the castle. Foster is confused, as Lord Blackwood hadn't mentioned any residents, but also relieved to have such beautiful company.

"My heart isn't beating. It hasn't beaten for 10 years.
I'm dead Alan."

In a very simple, yet jarring scene, Foster, thinking his night in the haunted castle won't be so bad after all, lays his head on Elizabeth's chest. After a moment, his eyes open wide and he bolts upright-- she has no heartbeat! In Blackwood's castle, it's hard to tell the living from the dead without a scorecard!  Foster's relief soon turns to terror as the gloomy corridors and rooms come to "life" with the reanimated dead: specters suddenly materialize out of the darkness to stab, strangle and otherwise maim each other; rotting corpses stir with life and take rasping breaths of air; clouds of mist with a life of their own roll out of open tombs and seep under doors; and the woods outside the castle suddenly blossom with dead, hanging bodies (all tastefully done of course!).  And unbeknownst to Foster, the undead residents have a plan in store for him… and his blood. The once skeptical journalist just might not live out the night to collect on his bet and finish his interview with Poe!

Castle of Blood came fairly early in director Antonio Margheriti's (aka Anthony M. Dawson's) long career. His work as a model-maker and documentary film assistant in the 1950s caught the eye of a producer who wanted to capitalize on the late '50s science fiction craze, and Assignment: Outer Space (aka Space Men; 1960) launched him into orbit as a director (see Louis Paul, Italian Horror Film Directors, McFarland, 2005). Margheriti has done it all: horror, sci-fi, sword and sandal, spies, war, westerns, even a martial arts western… but Castle of Blood remains his masterpiece. According to Lawrence McCallum (Italian Horror Films of the 1960s, McFarland, 1998), Castle/Danza Macabra was shot in 1962, possibly in response to the popularity of Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960) and Roger Corman's early Poe pictures, but it wasn't released in the U.S. until 1964, and then, on the bottom of a double-bill with Hercules in the Haunted World (1961). Years later, Margheriti remade Castle, adding color and the talents of such actors as Anthony Franciosa and Klaus Kinski, but the critical consensus is that Web of the Spider (1971) is a pale imitation of the original.

"Come, I've prepared your room upstairs."

Web of the Spider's biggest failing is that it lacks the presence of Eurohorror queen Barbara Steele. Dark and exotically beautiful, Barbara appeared in some of the best, most haunting and hair-raising horror films of the 1960s: Bava's Black Sunday (aka Mask of Satan); Roger Corman's Pit and the Pendulum (1961); Riccardo Freda's The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962); Camillo Mastrocinque's An Angel for Satan (1966), and of course, Castle of Blood, among many others. In a 2011 interview for the London Guardian newspaper, Steele confessed to not understanding her fans' enduring fascination for her horror films: "It's amazing to me. Incomprehensible. They come up to you as if you made it last Tuesday and they're so thrilled. I can't understand it." And speaking of her experience with such soft-spoken directors as Bava and Corman, she noted ironically, "So many of these people who are enthralled with the chaotic dark side all look like Jesuit priests."

If you've browsed around this site any, you may have stumbled on the list of my all-time favorite horror and science fiction films -- Castle of Blood is on it. It's one of a handful of films that I vividly recall seeing for the first time. With its masterful black and white photography (courtesy of Riccardo Pallottini) and cast of weird characters headed by the enigmatic Steele, Castle of Blood is surprising, surreal and unsettling. It's a modest B masterpiece that, better than almost any other horror film that I can think of, burns its uncanny images in the unwary viewer's brain, leaving him queasy and uneasy. Go ahead, press play late at night, with the lights turned low. I dare you.

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Where to find it:

Oldies.com

Amazon Instant Video


"Here the dead rise from their tombs once a year to repeat their hideous crimes of murder and passion!"

The Dark Visions of an Italian Master

Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre (2000)

To this day, I'm not sure what to make of the career of cinematographer, director, and all-around dark fantasy auteur Mario Bava. When he was good, he was very, very good, and when he was bad, well…..   On the plus side, Bava and director Ricardo Freda (re)introduced horror and fantasy to the Italian film industry with their groundbreaking Lust of the Vampire (aka I Vampiri; 1956 -- while retaining a Gothic sensibility and visual style, it updates the vampire story to include science in the service of evil.)  On the debit side, Bava pioneered the Giallo genre, which in turn inspired the American slasher film, which in turn degenerated into today's torture porn (e.g., Saw and Hostel).

But let's be positive. Around the same time that Hammer Studios was reinventing Gothic horror with copious amounts of blood in living technicolor, Bava, first as a cinematographer, then as a director, was developing a unique, nightmarish visual style that greatly influenced not only Italian cinema, but European cinema as a whole. Bava is in essence a founding father of "eurohorror."

I don't think it takes away from his greatness to say that Bava's earlier pre-Giallo work stands the test of time, and that his later films, often featuring a tiresome succession of gratuitous, gruesomely "stylish" murders, don't enhance his standing very much (at least in my eyes). If he had only done Black Sunday (La Maschera del Demonio; 1960), he would be worthy of study. Black Sabbath (I Tre Volti della Paura; 1963) confirmed his eccentric genius. And with Planet of the Vampires (Terrore Nello Spazio; 1965), he pulled off the very first Gothic, fog-shrouded, horror-sci-fi space adventure.

Having been a huge Mario Bava fan since first seeing the incredible Black Sabbath back in the '60s (and suffering a sleepless night), it's hard to imagine that the maestro has been, if not exactly forgotten over the years, then certainly not celebrated to the extent that he deserves. For example, the two English language biographies (The Haunted World of Mario Bava, 2003 and Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, 2007) are already collector's items, with copies fetching hundreds of dollars. The literature in general on Bava is relatively sparse considering his unique and stylish contributions to horror and fantasy. (Even if you don't particularly care for his unique visual style, there is still the fact that he practically invented the slasher film, for better or worse.)

Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre attempts to address the injustice by bringing together filmmaker fans such as Tim Burton, Joe Dante and John Carpenter with film writers and scholars to review Bava's rich legacy (and to simply gush over some of the most visually striking work that the horror genre has ever known). Bava, the son of a film effects technician, got an early start in films at the age of 14 as an assistant cameraman. Soon he was working the camera for some high-powered directors: Raoul Walsh, G.W. Pabst, Roberto Rossellini, and Jacques Tourneur. The documentary credits director Ricardo Freda and cinematographer Bava for coming up with the first Italian horror film (at least of the sound era) with the moody, neo-gothic Lust of the Vampire (aka I Vampiri; 1956). Bava finished directing the film for Freda, who reportedly couldn't keep up with the grueling shooting schedule and argued with the producers. In the next several years Bava would finish two more films when the directors walked out: Caltiki, The Undying Monster (1959) and the sword and sandal epic Giant of Marathon (both released in 1959). Thus, a fascinating genre director was fashioned from a very talented cinematographer.

Black Sunday (1960) introduced beautiful and exotic
Barbara Steele to an international audience.

The documentary celebrates a unique filmmaking career and at the same time speculates about what might have been. AIP's legendary Sam Arkoff invited Bava to come to the states, but Mario found the language barrier too daunting. One of those interviewed in the film wonders if he might have attained the status of an Alfred Hitchcock if he'd had the budgets of a "real" Hollywood director. Joe Dante (The Howling, 1981; Gremlins, 1984) also wonders, but ultimately is thankful for a body of work that perhaps could only have come from a leaner, but more richly imaginative, European environment.

More than one commentator remarks on the surreal, dreamlike quality of Bava's work. Tim Burton (Batman, 1989; Sleepy Hollow, 1999; Corpse Bride, 2005) is the most adulatory: "He really captured film as dream." Others point to Bava's influence, some of it unacknowledged, on later, much more expensive projects. Friday the 13th (1980) plays very much like an American remake of Bava's Twitch of the Death Nerve (aka Bay of Blood, 1971), and Ridley Scott's Alien (1980) lifted the general look and feel, not to mention a whole sequence, from Planet of the Vampires (1965).

Behind all of the dark, macabre dreams was a gentle man with a good sense of humor. Composer Carlo Rustichelli describes Bava as the antithesis of his films, a joyful man. Grandson Fabrizio "Roy" Bava explains his grandfather's choice of subject matter as a penchant for going against the grain: "too many people speak about love, so maybe I [Mario Bava] can put together love and death." Perhaps most touchingly, biographer Tim Lucas relates that the night before filming a scene for Twitch of the Death Nerve involving a beetle pinned to a desk, Bava didn't sleep a wink, because he didn't want to take responsibility for the insect's life.

Despite attempts like this TV documentary, the maestro remains overlooked and undervalued. He was a pioneer and an inventor, and many of his films featured graphic violence that was shocking for the time, but most of all he was a master stylist who knew how to light up the night to reveal surreal, nightmarish landscapes that have the power to haunt even today.

The Mario Bava Essentials (in chronological order):

Lust of the Vampire (I Vampiri; 1956). Italy's first sound horror film ignited the Eurohorror industry, and paved the way for the "demented-scientist-preys-on-innocent-females-to-supply-blood-and/or-facial-grafts-to-ailing/disfigured-benefactors/relatives" subgenre. (Bava completed the directing chores for Ricardo Freda.)

Caltiki the Undying Monster (Caltiki il Mostro Immortale; 1959). A much more graphic and intense Euro version of The Blob (1958). (Bava again stepped in for Freda to complete the film.)

Black Sunday (La Maschera del Demonio; 1960). Bava's first feature length film as a director (not counting the films he completed for others). A masterpiece of shadows and dread. Introduced the beautiful and exotic Barbara Steele to international audiences.

The Evil Eye (La Ragazza che Sapeva Troppo; 1963). A proto-Giallo with American John Saxon in the lead role. In the documentary, Saxon claims he played the role tongue-in-cheek. It's hard to believe he didn't mistake Evil Eye for another film, as this one about a tourist in Rome being targeted by a serial killer is as dark as it gets.

Boris Karloff in "The Wurdalak" segment
of Black Sabbath (1963).

Black Sabbath (I Tre Volti della Paura; 1963). A trio of terror tales from "classic" literature. Two of the three segments, "The Drop of Water" and "The Wurdalak," are masterpieces of dark, mounting dread. "The Wurdalak" features Boris Karloff's best performance since the original Frankenstein.

Blood and Black Lace (Sei Donne per L'Assassino; 1964). I hesitate to include this one due to the graphic violence, but it's style and cinematography make it a Giallo masterpiece (if that's your cup of tea).

Planet of the Vampires (Terrore Nello Spazio; 1965). The one that Ridley Scott ripped off for his hit Alien. An intriguing blend of horror and space opera on a fog-shrouded planet.

Kill Baby, Kill (Operazione Paura; 1966). This one, about a series of mysterious deaths in a remote village, is perhaps the best example of Bava's ability to create disturbing, surreal dreamscapes. The night in Bava's films is at the same time colorful and dreadful. (See the clip below.)

Baron Blood (Gli Orrori del Castello di Norimberga; 1972). Not among Bava's best, but interesting for being sort of a last-gasp effort to create gothic horror at a time of social and artistic upheaval. Joseph Cotton and Elke Sommer also liven up the proceedings.


In Kill Baby, Kill, Bava builds tension and dread with surreal, nightmarish imagery: