Formulaic but highly effective, KILL, BABY, KILL (1966) [aka OPERAZIONE PAURA (OPERATION FEAR)] may very well be Mario Bava’s best movie. While laking the intensity of BLACK SUNDAY and its star, Barbara Steele, there is an unmatched atmosphere of the unworldly in KILL, BABY, KILL. All the trappings of the gothic are there: the outsider called to a mysterious, isolated town in the Carpathian mountains; a decrepit mansion; a curse; secret passages; a family crypt covered in cobwebs; and most gothic of all, a ghost — the ghost of a little girl (played by a boy) whose face at the window is one of the most indelible images one takes away from watching the film. Indeed, it is images, color, and sound that are most impressive in KILL, BABY, KILL, even if the plot is lacking.
Director Mario Bava — whose output in the nineteen fifties and sixties is staggering — considered it among his best work. Its muted but distinctive color palette of blues, greens, and yellow make for a dreamlike spectacle. And while its characters may be underdeveloped (a problem in many of Bava’s films), KILL BABY, KILL is one of the more straightforward ghost stories in Italian horror cinema (a sub-genre known for its surrealism). In many ways, KILL, BABY, KILL unfolds like an M.R. James tale — even Poe.
MODERN MEDICINE MEETS OLD-WORLD SUPERSTITION
In the early twentieth century, a city doctor, Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) is dispatched to a small village to perform an autopsy on a woman who died under mysterious circumstances. He is joined by a student, Monica (Erika Blanc) — who, we later learn [as in many gothic tales] has a strong connection to the village and its murderous ghost child. The pair soon find that this is a town of superstitions. They learn that the townsfolk live in fear of a ghostly little girl named Melissa Graps, the daughter of a Baroness. According to legend, anyone who sees Melissa’s spirit soon dies in a horrific “accident.”
It seems that the little girl, Melissa, was killed years earlier, trampled as she tried to retrieve a ball in a crowd gathered in the town’s square. The grief-stricken Baroness — convinced the townspeople ignored her child as the little girl died — uses supernatural forces to fuel her revenge as Melissa’s ghost begins knocking off villagers left and right. A sorceress (Fabienne Dali) helps our hero and heroine to battle the Baroness. And in a dreamlike climax, Monica learns the secret behind her connection to the town (and Melissa). Eswai has his own “trip.” At one point, he chases a hysterical Monica through the rooms of the decaying mansion, encountering the same room again and again in a nightmarish circle — along with his doppelganger! Ultimately, Eswai saves Monica from falling to her death. The Baroness dies by Ruth’s hand, Melissa’s spirit is freed, and the village curse is broken.
PRAISE FROM SCORSESE
Martin Scorsese thought it Bava’s best work. In his introduction to Tim Lucas’ great All the Colors of the Dark — which you should track down at a library as secondary market prices for this book are verrrrrryyyyy expensive) — Scorsese writes:
“[Bava] used light, shadow, color, sound (on- and off-screen), movement and texture to lead his viewers down uncharted paths into a kind of collective dream. Critics often compare movie-watching to dreaming but, in Bava’s case, the comparison actually means something…”
“…He places his viewers and his characters in an oddly disquieting state where they’re compelled to keep moving forward—even though they don’t know precisely why, or where they’re going….”
“…The atmosphere itself becomes the principal character, a living organism with a mind and will of its own.”
Scorsese would go on to admit that Satan in the form of the little girl who tempts Jesus in THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST is directly influenced by Bava’s little girl ghost. Fellini and David Lynch have also said that KILL, BABY, KILL influenced their work.
A ROMANTIC CRAFTSMAN
Towards the end of his life, Bava told L’espresso that, “In my entire career, I made only big bullshits, no doubt about that….I’m just a craftsman. A romantic craftsman,” adding that he made movies “just like making chairs.”
Romantic craftsman? Chair maker? If Romanticism is understood as a departure from the reason and science of The Enlightenment, and instead places emphasis on emotion and imagination, then Bava is a master craftsman of the Romantic. And KILL, BABY, KILL is among the most romantic of his movies. A dream of colors. Of images. Even the eerie sound of a child giggling and a ball rolling down the steps of a spiral staircase. And that face. That face. Pressed against the window.
