Kill, Baby, Kill (1966)

Now, before I get tons of hate mail, bomb threats and whatever else, realize one-thing fellow horror fans. One. I sincerely respect the hell out of Mario Bava. He truly is the King of Italian Horror, the one who perhaps “started it all” on the overseas fear market. Second, I really did not like this film. Yes, I know most consider it one of his best works but for me, I just could not get into it. Sorry.

In a remote village full of the typical superstitious types you get in remote villages, the ghost of a small child has returned to haunt the townspeople. Seems the villagers did nothing but watch as she lay dying in the city streets, trampled to death by the drunken villagers. A mortician soon arrives in the town to do an autopsy on a recent victim, only to be shunned by the villagers for bringing that darn science into their town. Of course the mortician, with another young lady at his side, soon find out about our little ghost girl and even though science says “it’s not possible”, try to uncover the mystery.

My main gripe with this one is the threadbare “plot”, which, I realize, is never fairly evident in Italian horror. Typically this does not bother me, but in this one I found myself asking, “what the hell is happening” just a little to many times. There were people running here, people running there, people dying everywhere...for some reason or another. Granted I did have the stomach flu and was somewhat delirious while watching it, but I don’t think it would have mattered if I were of sound mind. Typically a fevered mind enhances these types of films, but in this case it wasn’t happening. The atmosphere and overall mood however, were excellent; especially when you figure Bava was shooting on his typical small budget and 9 day shooting time. The whole movie is like a cemetery at midnight, complete with bizarre color schemes and the like. This is what I did like. However, the plot really just confused the hell out me to the point where I just wanted the thing to end. Sorry Bavaphiles.