Kill, Baby… Kill!

Mario Bava's 1966 Italian horror film is a gothic ghost story with haunting images and glorious style set in an oppressively provincial 19th-century mountain village in the grip of a curse. Or at least that's the explanation of the townspeople when city coroner Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) arrives to examine the latest victim in a long string of “suicides.” The town is haunted by the specter of a homicidal adolescent girl, a creepy vision in white whose giggles become chilling as she randomly chooses her victims and sends them to their gory deaths. The suspicious and terrified townspeople do everything they can to try to drive the coroner away. Erika Blanc costars as a local woman home from college whose past is tied up in the reign of terror. Bava sets a moody stage in the medieval village, with deserted streets blanketed in a swirling mist and flooded with primary colors. And he reverses the expectations of horror movie symbolism: the little girl in angelic white is the harbinger of death while the grim, raven-haired Ruth (Fabienne Dali), a “sorceress" who dispenses brutal protective magic, is the force of benevolence. One of the great Italian horror films of the 1960s, Kill, Baby… Kill! is a favorite of Martin Scorsese's and it inspired Fellini's sole horror movie, Toby Dammit. Newly remastered for this edition, extras include audio commentary by Bava historian Tim Lucas and interviews with Lamberto Bava (Mario's son) and leading lady Blanc. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)