... in which Christopher Lee's ghost comes back from the grave
to gratuitously whip his former lover's clothes off?
Again... and again... and again?
Mario Bava's The Whip and the Body (1963)
Again... and again... and again?
Mario Bava's The Whip and the Body (1963)
I've been having a wee bit of a Bava-a-thon lately, having watched the above film last night, and Bay of Blood (this thing seriously laid the groundwork for the Friday the 13th films) and the fabulous Blood and Black Lace in the past several days, and while I can't really recommend TW&tB unless you've got a serious fetish for large breasted women who are aroused by being beaten with a horse whip and excrutiatingly long shots of people... walking... through... doors... and... staring... at.... things..., the shot I used above was a genuinely terrifying moment and colorful in the best ways Bava can be.
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9 comments:
those last 2 sound kind of good...adding to must see list
Blood and Black Lace was really fantastic, in that early day-glo colored Gialllo sort of way. It's really ridiculously over-the-top, and exists basically to make really pretty shots of women in their bras being hunted/killed, but in a really fake-looking stylized to the point of being basically abstract.
Bay of Blood is really silly too, and the gore is even more over the top. It's not nearly as good as BaBL, but it def. had to be influential in creating the slasher films that came 15 years later; there's even a kill that was stolen for the first Friday the 13th film (couple having sex in bed, killer spears them right through, both at once).
Would you compare the look of them at all to stuff like 'Peeping Tom'?
It's been several years since I've seen Peeping Tom, but I don't remember it being as saturated color-wise as Bava's films are (esp. Blood and Black Lace). Blood looks like the reddest red paint you can imagine, and there's lots of intense green and yellow lighting. Not sure if you're familiar with the term "Giallo" (here's its Wiki page) but it translates to "yellow" from the covers of the sordid pulpy Italian paperback books the Giallo movies were based off, and Bava and Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, amongst others, were mainly responsible for the films from the 60's through the 80's mostly.
I guess you could sort of see Peeping Tom as an English Giallo, in that the intense colors of the Italian usage were replaced, from what I remember, with not quite as fantastic colors (seriously, Bava's films are INSANELY over-the-top color-wise) but definitely keeping a lot of the same themes intact.
Actually, I'm now looking at this page of stills from Peeping Tom and I'm realizing I need to watch it again because a couple of those shots are very Giallo-looking. Hmm.
Hmm...still sounds worth a look. It's been a year or so since I've seen 'Peeping Tom' but it and 'Boston Strangler' have got to be two of my favoriter killer movies...along with 'Profondo Rosso'
Profondo Rosso is exactly what I'm talking about - that's what you can expect with Blood and Black Lace.
oooh..then count me in
What is wrong with you? I know I've asked that before to these posts, but, honestly... it is psychosis? Anemia? Liver cancer? What?
Low blood sugar.
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