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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A creepy masterpiece of horrific art, March 22, 2003
Kill Baby Kill is a surprisingly good, beautifully presented, deliciously atmospheric horror film from noted Italian director Mario Bava. This is actually a fairly creepy ghost story, but there is a pretty significant death count nonetheless. The very first scene shows us a distraught young lady throwing herself, quite reluctantly, onto a spiked rail fence. Finding himself stymied in his investigation of the victim's death by a superstitious town population, Inspector Kruger calls in a coroner to perform an autopsy on the victim. Dr. Eswe finds himself having to walk a short distance into the small village because his driver refuses to enter it. He arrives to find a pretty desolate place with deserted streets, highly suspicious townspeople, and a mysterious but undeniable sense of gloom and doom. A young lady named Monica (Erica Blanc) soon arrives to witness the coroner's autopsy, one in which a coin is found nailed into the heart of the victim. Monica is one of the few people to have ever left the village, being taken away at just two years of age, but her connection with the townsfolk is predictably much deeper than even she knows. The townspeople won't talk about the suicide because "the child" will kill them if they do; based on later evidence, this is sound thinking on their part. The evil force seemingly responsible for what becomes a string of deaths is the ghost of a little seven-year old girl who died twenty years earlier while the townspeople failed to notice or just refused to respond to her cries for help. Little Melissa does much to make this movie compelling, as the child actress is genuinely frightening with her large eyes, forceful glances, and innocent yet malevolent laughter. The doctor doesn't believe in the superstitious story of the ghost, but as he becomes more and more involved in the investigation, his ideas are forced to evolve somewhat.
The village setting is magnificently done, with ancient, moldering buildings, a seemingly perpetual darkness, vintage costumes, and an overall sense of grim tidings. At times, the movie seems to take on the appearance of a surreal work of art. Some innovative camera work lends great depth to the presentation, although the director does seem to get slightly carried away once or twice. Erica Blanc's presence helps make up for some minor weaknesses in the performance of Giacomo Rossi-Stuart as Dr. Eswe, although I think my problem with his performance, at least early on, was the fact that his fancy ways and looks just seemed incredibly out of place in a horror movie such as this. It took me a little while to fully get into the story, but by the mid-point of the film I was definitely hooked. It is not wholly original, and one of the major plot points can be easily foreseen very early on, yet I enjoyed this movie tremendously. You won't find a lot of gore here, nor even an excessive amount of suspense, but the atmosphere just overwhelms you as you progress, giving Kill Baby Kill an ambiance and character that most horror films can never hope to achieve. Music, direction, and standout individual performances combine to make this an engaging, creepy psychological masterpiece. The title makes this movie sound like some kind of B-movie, but in reality it is an impressive, polished, consummately professional work of horrific art.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kill, kill!, January 3, 2007
Okay, it's a stupid title for a movie, and it sounds like it belongs to a cheap slasher flick.
But fortunately Mario Bava's "Kill Baby Kill" is much better than its hokey title suggests, as one would expect from a giallo master. Instead of a slasher movie, it's a gothic horror movie with impalements, ghosts and magic. It has all the beauty -- and terror -- of a decayed fairy tale.
When a young woman leaps onto an iron fence, young Dr. Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) is called in to do an autopsy, with the help of beautiful Monica (Erica Blanc). He finds a coin in the girl's heart, and none of the townspeople will tell him -- because if they do, they will suffer a similar fate. Eswai doesn't buy all this superstition.
He's even more annoyed when local sorceress Ruth (Fabienne Dali) begins using her powers to protect a young girl from a childlike specter -- little dead aristocrat Melissa Graps. But as the bodies pile up, and Monica is plagued by bizarre nightmares, Eswai must accept Ruth's help to save Monica from the ghost, and an evil baroness.
"Kill Baby Kill" is more gothic horror rather than straightforward "giallo." But it has the cinematic touches that Bava was known for. Bava fills the run-down village sets with broken doors, wrought-iron fences, coffins, and long fluttering canopies. It's gothically delicious.
Bava also adds dreamlike touches to his typical style-- the village is full of mist, tombstones, and green, blue and red lighting that flicks on and off. He packs this movie so full of visual opulance, it's like being locked inside a beautiful nightmare -- and it adds to the feeling of a fairy tale gone horribly wrong.
And he has a knack for the really spooky stuff too. A bouncing ball, childish giggling, and a little girl on a swing become really horrifying, not to mention all those impalements on everything from fences to, uh, candlesticks. Two particularly eerie scenes have Eswai chasing himself through endless rooms, and Monica running down an endless spiral stair.
The ghost story itself is quite simple, and the secret identities of two characters are quite obvious. But fortunately, this doesn't detract from the atmosphere. How could it? "Kill Baby Kill" is steeped in atmosphere from the first creepy scene, and rather than building in suspense, it runs steadily all the way to the end.
And the cast helps. Despite the emotionless dubbing, Rossi-Stuart and Blanc both do outstanding jobs, but the best performance of the movie belongs to Fabienne Dali, as a tragic sorceress who is trying to save the village from Melissa's revenge. The scene where she mourns her dead lover is exquisite.
"Kill Baby Kill" is a gorgeous, creepy ghost story, with good acting and stellar direction. Definitely a must-see for fans of atmospheric cult horror.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mario Bava turns his talents to a Gothic ghost story, January 27, 2004
Director Mario Bava ("Black Sunday," "Black Sabbath") creates an atmosphere gothic horror film in "Kill, Baby, Kill" ("Operazione Paura"). At first glance this is an old fashioned ghost story with all of the required horror movie elements, from the ignorant and superstitious villages, an old crone uttering curses, swirling mists, rooms strewn with cobwebs, and even a black cat. Of course there is also the one person who understands what is really going on and is ignored until it is way too late. When Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) shows up to perform an autopsy on a young woman who died a violent death, he finds a fear stricken town in the best gothic tradition. When he finds the victim has a coin embedded in her heart, the town's shameful secret is told: twenty years earlier a young child, Melissa Graps, was run over and left to die during a festival. The townspeople are convinced Melissa's ghost is driving the guilty to suicide by appearing to them, and the good doctor's plea for rationality is ignored as the townsfolk are whipped into a frenzy of fear by the local sorceress, Ruth (Fabienne Dali). When Dr. Eswai and the lovely Monica (Erika Blanc) go to the local castle, Villa Graps, they find the Baroness also dead, another apparent suicide. There is only one thing left to do; explore the castle and find its deadly secret. Title notes: "Kill, Baby, Kill!" was the film's 1968 release title, although it was first seen in the United States two years earlier as "Operation Fear." Other reissue titles were "Don't Walk in the Park" and "Curse of the Living Dead" (not to be confused with "Curse of the Dead," the release title in the United Kingdom). Whatever the title, this film is one of Bava's better efforts at creating an atmospheric horror film. Monica has a nightmare that is a very effective montage sequences. The film is also rather unique, especially for an Italian production, in that all of the really interesting characters are females, especially Ruth, who lends the movie some of its more effective twists. The more you can forget that this sort of story has been done to death in the United States in the years since 1966, the more you can enjoy this film. Certainly a lot more going on creatively both in front and behind the camera than you would find in the best Hammer films of the same time period.
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