April 25: Bava Forever — Bava died on this day 43 years ago. Let’s watch his movies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

There’s been so much written about this early giallo that I almost didn’t want to take this one on. But after seeing a digital screening at London’s Prince Charles Cinema in March of 2025, I felt I needed to share the experience of watching the brutal murders of European models in a 1960’s Roman fashion house with a much younger audience. Would they be as enraptured by the mystery as I was when I first saw this movie in the early ‘90s on video? 

Many of the patrons that night had never seen the film and yet it was sold out. Initially, this filled my Bava-loving heart with joy. “A whole new generation will be introduced to Mario Bava’s creamy purple, green, and blue gels!”, I thought. My joy was quickly doused sounds of the young audience’s laughter. Most of the little pricks found the film hilarious and outdated. 

Yes, the film is old. Yes, it’s filled with meme-able moments where the camera zooms in to a close-up on a possible suspect’s gaze, accompanied by a classic Carlo Rusticelli music sting. Little did they know, it’s precisely because of films like this one that we know this to be a cliché in 2025. Yes, Cameron Mitchell is delightfully smarmy, and yes, the use of cocaine is over-dramatized. The moment that got the biggest laugh? The close-up of German text written in Isabella’s diary. 

This last point was apparently so confounding to one couple, they were still trying to figure it out in the lobby after the screening. That this was their focus was disappointing. The whole point of the diary isn’t what language it’s written in. The diary is the object that drives the murderer and makes every main character look guilty. Everyone wants to know whether Isabella wrote something about them in her diary as they each have skeletons in their closets next to their mink coats. Or perhaps even, wearing the coat. It gets chilly when you’re a skeleton. 

Here’s the Italian version: 

I walked out into the cool, early March night air hoping that this couple would look up the film and read a bit more about the film’s international co-production between companies in France, West Germany and Italy following Bava’s departure from Galatea Films. “Maybe…” I thought, “they liked it enough to seek out Bava’s other works, too.” 

I’m still trying to move past my disdain for that night’s group of morons and hold onto my gratefulness to the Prince Charles for screening the film in the first place. I’m happy they made money that night. Whether or not the brain-dead among that night’s audience liked it is not my nor their concern.  

This film is gorgeous on the big screen. Every murder is staged to perfection, with each shadow and highlight revealing only the details Bava wants us to see. Every trumpet note on the theme song is perfectly placed, accentuated with cues used in Bava’s 1963 supernatural thriller The Whip and The Body, creating a sultry soundscape for the beautiful actors and actresses to sway in and out of the lush backgrounds. 

In terms of story, I’ll not bother going over it again. If you’re here, you likely already know it. It’s the prototype for the Italian giallo, mixing elements of the German Krimis with the Agatha Christie novels, peppered with black-gloved killers, gorgeous, flawed, horny protagonists who literally and figuratively stab each other in the back the first chance they get until the final twist leads us to a downer ending. 

To those who laughed during the screening, I can only say, “Fuck You.” 

Blood and Black Lace is the base of the giallo pyramid, on which stands everything that came after it. Perhaps someday, someone will write a giallo about a group of shallow, disrespectful audience members who get murdered one by one after a screening of one of the greatest giallos ever made. 

In the meantime, you can watch the entire film here: