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Kill, Baby, Kill - Blu-ray Review

5 beersIf the opening moments of Kill, Baby, Kill aren’t enough to set you on edge, then I suppose nothing else in Mario Bava’s bloody good movie will either.  Move along, kid.  There’s literally nothing for YOU to see here if you remain unaffected by its suspense.  This film, celebrated immediately upon its release, is a certifiable masterpiece of Italian cinema.

Still here?  Good.  Then you know the power of this 1966 gothic flick and that’s a damn good thing.  Because in those few minutes, Bava packs a wallop of an opening situation that will haunt this film for the rest of its all-too brief running time. 

The film opens.  A panicked woman leaves a crumbling residence and, already completely upset, she dashes to higher ground.  She comes to a ledge and looks down.  A haze has set in and it spreads across her vision.  The spikes on the iron gate below look inviting and then, her fear caught in her throat, the woman tenses up before leaping to her own impalement below.  The camera doesn’t blink either.  In fact, the opening credits roll across the shot of her corpse sliding down the iron gates, bloodied and all sorts of dead. 

Kill, Baby, Kill is exactly what it proclaims to be thanks to the ghost of a murderous woman who is plaguing a very superstitious town situated in the Carpathian Mountains.  Shot in about twelve days in the midlevel town of Calcata, Bava’s horror film is actually his long-awaited return to the genre.  It is both pulpy and beautiful to watch as it rolls out in a very subversive and hallucinogenic way.  The master of the macabre is in top form.

And the scene following the opening one, in which three spindly-looking men make off with a coffin via a long shot against the wide-open horizon, only solidifies the gothic creepiness inherent in this production.  It makes for a demented postcard. 

Written by Romano Migliorini and Roberto Natale, the film is a wicked feast of flesh and phantasms.  We quickly learn that the town of is getting a new coroner (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) and Dr. Paul Eswai is not about to mess around with their ancient superstitions.  But, upon the discovery of a silver coin buried in a corpse’s heart, it gets really hard to deny that these villagers don’t have a point in believing that they are haunted by a ghostly girl.

And then colleagues go missing, later seen buried with a bullet in their skull, and women begin to impale themselves on nearby candelabras, due to the influence of the same ghost girl plaguing the town.  The further we sink into the movie, the more it spirals itself into our skull.   Kill, Baby, Kill is a mesmerizing mystery surrounded by the fog of a gothic narrative about a small girl and

Kill, Baby, Kill is as wicked as it sounds.  And its mystery will linger with you for days on end.

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Kill, Baby, Kill - Blu-ray Review

MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime:
83 mins
Director
: Mario Bava
Writer:
Romano Migliorini; Roberto Natale & Mario Bava
Cast:
Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Erika Blanc, Fabienne Dali
Genre
: Horror | Mystery
Memorable Movie Quote: "Get out of my sight or you'll be sorry."
Theatrical Distributor:
Europix Consolidated Corp.
Official Site:
Release Date:
October 8, 1968
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
October 10, 2017
Synopsis: In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the Dr. 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....

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Kill, Baby, Kill - Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Home Video Distributor: Kino Lorber
Available on Blu-ray
- October 10, 2017
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles
: English SDH
Discs: Blu-ray Disc; single disc
Region Encoding: Locked to Region A

 

Kino Lorber’s restored 2K high definition digital transfer is a miraculous item to view.  The film looks awesome.  Soaked in atmosphere, the High-Definition 1080p transfer is rippling with great details and vibrant colors, echoing into the heavy traditions of the gothic narrative.  Shadows are thick and detailed and lines are defined with nice edges throughout the presentation.  The soundtrack is presented in a 16-bit LPCM original mono Italian and English soundtracks (lossless on the Blu-ray Disc) with English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack and optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack.

 

Supplements:

Commentary:

  •  

    Nice!  The new audio commentary by Tim Lucas, author of Mario Bava – All the Colors of the Dark is rich with information about the filming of the movie, the production design, and the lasting legacy of Bava’s work.

     

Special Features:

Loaded with video essays, interviews, and reversible sleeve art, Kino Lorber’s release is one to own.  Critic Kat Ellinger weighs in on Bava’s gothic touches in his video essay and assistant director Lamberto Bava gets his turn to talk about the movie with his interview.  Semih Tareen’s short film, Yellow, is also included, celebrating Bava’s work.  There is also a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys.

  • The Devil’s Daughter: Mario Bava and the Gothic Child
  • Kill, Bava, Kill!
  • Yellow

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Kill, Baby, Kill - Blu-ray Review

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