MARIO BAVA'S BLOOD AND BLACK LACE
Beyond Home Entertainment / Region 4 / Released September 2009
Featuring Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok, Thomas Reiner, Mary Arden
Classic 1960's Italian psychological thriller stories don't come much better than Mario Bava's legendary Blood and Black Lace which is just released in a very groovy two disc set. Thomas Reiner plays Inspector Sylvester who begins an investigation into the murder of a fashion model which soon leads him into the sinister and murky fashion house where she was working. It seems the clue to solving the muder may lay in a diary kept by the victim. Soon though there are further murders.
Mario Bava, who is now seen as something of a key figure in the stalk and slash genre, having made a name for himself with early 60's successes Black Sunday and Black Sabbath, is here given free reign to indulge some of his wilder ideas. His earlier movies had been more traditional thriller fare and whilst Blood and Black Lace echoes those it also moves firmly into psychological thriller territory. Clearly influenced by Hitchcock (and in particular Psycho) Bava was definitely ahead of his time, Antonio's Blow Up which appeared just two years later was surely influenced by it to some degree and despite it's relatively poor showing at the box office it has been sighted as a key work by everyone from Scorcese to Tarantino and is rightly regarded as being at the vanguard of what would become a key horror genre.
The movie was made with heavy German financial involvement and the cast is a mixed European bunch too - in the hope of selling the movie to the key American drive in market Blood and Black Lace was scripted in English with most of the cast learning their lines phonetically!
This two disc set with its retro cover (which promises the 8 greatest shocks ever fikmed) is also full of extras that include cast interviews, an audio commentary, biographies, galleries and plenty of trailers.
For anyone interested in the roots of modern horror then this remains a must see movie.
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