Blood And Black Lace
Italy - Germany / 1964
Directed by Mario Bava
Starring
Cameron Mitchell
Eva Bartok
Thomas Reiner
Color / 90 Minutes / Not Rated
Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC)
VCI Entertainment
Ms. Dantes takes a bath.
Murder Most Foul, Bava-style.
"Where is the diary?"
Blood And Black Lace (DVD)
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Blood And Black Lace
Cult Classic
 
Movie Rating  
8
  DVD Rating   7   10 = Highest Rating  
Finally, master visualist Mario Bava's shocking (for its time) '60s murder mystery is available in America in uncut form. This is the seminal film that drew the blueprint for the giallo — a particularly Italian genre of suspense/horror/mystery thriller with an emphasis on bizarre psychological aberrations and intense murder scenes.
    With a diverse pallet of candy-colored hues and sinister shadows, Bava weaves a tale of savage multiple murder
s with the Christiana Haute Couture, a high-profile house of fashion, at its vortex. The models there are leading scandalous lives behind the scenes and the tell-all diary of one of the women, Isabella, chronicles all the sordid details. When Isabella turns up brutally murdered and the diary's existence becomes public knowledge, no one can feel safe. Will the price of learning its secrets be horrible death?
   Accompanied by Carlo Rustichelli's swanky core, Bava's
Blood And Black Lace establishes all the giallo formula's key ingredients. The faceless, black-gloved killer that came to stalk the cinematic landscape through the works of Dario Argento,
Sergio Martino and others made his first dramatic appearance here. This had to be strong stuff for the mid-'60s. Not because of gore (which is actually mild), but for the grim sadism with which some of the victims are dispatched. It still packs a punch. Goosebumps are guaranteed.

VCI comes through for Bava fans — and those yet to discover the film — with its uncut December 2000 release. Audio-visual quality of the DVD easily surpasses anything seen on these shores since its exploitation-circuit release. The original Italian language track is provided and highly recommended.
   Adding icing to the cake is a selection of Bava film trailers (including the hyperbolic American promo for the disc's main subject), interviews with stars Cameron Mitchell and Mary Arden, and another superbly informative audio commentary by Bava scholar Tim Lucas. 5/16/01
UPDATE In October 2005 VCI is scheduled to release a new 2-disc Special Edition.
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