Don't Believe the Hype

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

BLOOD AND THE BLACK LACE is a mysterious horror film, which is based on a series of brutal murders, drug trafficking and unconvincing police investigation. A profile of killer and ways of liquidation are the biggest advantages of this film. All other elements are somewhat retrograde and its go to an unclear extreme.A wealthy Cristina and her greedy lover Max lead a respectable fashion salon. One of many beautiful models employed at the salon is attacked and violently killed by an assailant wearing a white featureless mask. A police investigation is under way, while all her friends and acquaintances, it seems, shocked. One of the girls finds a victim diary. All of the fashion house's various sins, including corruption, abortions, blackmail and drug addiction are explained in that diary. Suddenly almost every employee becomes nervous...Mr. Bava has used, on an imaginative way, exploitative resources, through the beauty and attractiveness of the actresses in this film. His mix of eroticism and explicit violence was an innovation in the genre. He has disrupted the motives in a way, because the killings point to a drug addict and a sexual predator. The concept of greed and jealousy can be seen only in metaphors.A creepy atmosphere is in a kind of contrast to the visual beauty of the film. However, other elements are quite neglected.In short, imaginative and decorative murders of beautiful and attractive women.

With the Girl Who Knew Too Much, Mario Bava gave us what I guess was the first giallo, only with a few pieces missing from the template, but with Blood and Black Lace he gives us the giallo as a fully formed product with every single aspect intact. Except naked boobs and fannies.You've got the attractive fashion model/victims, the loud, campy sets with over-use of primary colours, obvious red herrings, a masked, gloved, and be-hatted killer who stalks his victims, over the top violence, many plot twists, crappy police investigation, sexualised violence, kitsch, and other adjectives, like garish! It's all here, and it's all directed by Mario Bava! And he gets bored with the clichés about an hour and ten minutes in and turns the film on its head! We get a wonderful credits sequence to this film too, what with all the key players being introduced while posing with some loudly coloured dummies (and being equated to said dummies). We also get a lot of Bava's patented 'messing with the audiences head' which makes his films so enjoyable to enjoy, in an enjoyably enjoyable way.Three paragraphs and no plot? That's a good sign. Basically, some girls at a bitchy Roman fashion house are being carved up by a masked killer, and the police have no clue why. There are plenty of suspects, however, from jealous boyfriends to blackmailers to etc. Interestingly the first girl who was killed had a diary and immediately half the cast want to get their hands on it.Bava here dispenses mostly with the police and concentrates on the murder sequences, and it's here I guess where the film truly takes off and where I'm guessing Argento, Lenzi, and Martino had their notebooks out. Some are truly brutal here, and although he doesn't resort to nudity, most of these girls are offed in a kind of sexual fashion.So, a standard giallo would have a bunch of suspects and then the killer unmasked, but, this early in the genre Bava doesn't even bother with that and unmasks the killer without ceremony about an hour in, but even then he's messing with us, because the killer was in jail when another murder happened! Ah...this is what makes the best of these films.Only problem is that the killer is played by an actor with such a distinctive face (and nose) you'll peg them almost right away, but don't let that put you off, this is another great film from Mario Bava, and is easily 85 million times better than Season 7 of the Walking Dead, which my wife made me sit through instead of watching this

Originally titled 'Six Women for the Killer', this Mario Bava film is often cited as the movie that pioneered the giallo horror subgenre with a plot that places more emphasis on gruesome murders than catching a killer. Full of creepy tracking shots and with eerie sound effects frequently favoured over background music, the film certainly succeeds in depicting a handful of memorable murders and stalking sequences. There is a particularly effective part where one victim to-be is chased around an antique dealer's place where every nook and cranny is lit up in varying neon shades of blue, pink and purple. The opening murder is effective too. The plot, characters and acting here leaves a lot to be desired though with the story coming to a near stand-still in between the murders. Thomas Reiner makes for one of the dullest police detectives of all time, though to be fair, the cast are hardly saddled with the sort of dialogue that could have made their characters come alive. Of course, many will be quick to point out that narratives are always a secondary consideration in gialli, but when one considers what Dario Argento was able of achieve in years to come with films like 'Suspiria' and 'Tenebrae' that managed to wrestle good performances and a decent plot into the giallo formula, it is hard not to mentally compare and contrast. Certainly, if viewed with minimal expectations, there is a lot to like about 'Blood and Black Lace'; it is simply hard not to expect something more revolutionary from a film that kick-started an iconic movie trend.

Cameron Mitchell heads a haute couture fashion salon where the models are being murdered by a psychotic killer in a black hat, black coat and stocking mask; seems the first victim left behind a diary, which the maniac desperately wants. A police detective is immediately on the case and has a host of suspects, including Mitchell and several dressers and designers. French-Italian co-production directed and co-written by Mario Bava (who also assisted in the cinematography) has a sterling reputation among Giallo buffs and slasher fans, but the robotic English dubbing coupled with the blinking neon lights and melodramatic music by Carlo Rustichelli gives the picture a thick coating of kitsch. Bava, at this point, knows a great deal more about staging a sequence for the camera than he does about building suspense or intrigue in the scenario; thus, the film is visually imaginative and yet strangely fatiguing. ** from ****