Blood & Black Lace (1965)

Shocking dark psychodrama

This is a very stylish and dark movie with a lot of striking imagery and some very vicious crimes. It's very intense and the plot is quite a twister. A good piece of very dark cinema. August 24, 2008

A more mature view, 43 years later

The first time I saw "Blood and Black Lace," I was a 20-year-old GI getting ready to be shipped out to the Vietnam War. It fascinated me so much that I sat through viewing after viewing of it (movie houses would let you do that in those days without your having to buy another ticket). But my initial viewings as a very young man were to see the displays of female flesh (very tame by today's standards) that the movie offered.
Viewing the DVD now, from the perspective of my retirement years, I can see that there is far, far more to this trend-setting mystery than skin. Mario Bava produced a true whodunit with superb cinematography and set decoration and some fine acting. A number of things jump out at one: In a bevy of young models who are mostly blonde and fair, Claude Dantes is a statuesque, striking brunette whose watery demise hits one like a right cross; the Italian actor who plays one of the suspects is an absolute, dead ringer for Peter Lorre; and Mary Arden dies a horrible death by "taking the heat."
Bava's camera (he did most of the shooting himself) tracks and swoops through the salon, the eerie museum and down moonlit brick lanes with a unique energy of its own. The colors chosen by Bava for the sets tend to the brilliant primary -- the better to match, and contrast with, the blood which often flows in a number of scenes.
Who is the villain killing the models? Bava throws a number of red herrings across the trail before finally, deliberately, giving the game away as the climactic scene approaches.
An excellent "giallo" mystery that has become a cult classic. How little of its brilliance that young GI noticed, 43 years ago! July 17, 2008

I hope Blue under Ground Re-releases this

The sound is terrible you can barely hear the people talk but the music is really loud...so are the screams

The picture quality is ok but I would love to see this come out on blue underground's Blu-Ray March 20, 2008

Beautifully Filmed Gothic Horror/Giallo

"Blood and Black Lace" is a beautifully filmed gothic horror/giallo. A black garbed killer stalks his victims through stately manors enshrouded with mist. "Blood and Black Lace" definitely served as the blue print for the era of the Italian giallo. The victims are all gorgeous models who meet gruesome deaths. Though the film is over forty years of age, it still continues to horrify audiences. I cringed at some of the murders.

The movie itself deserves five stars; however, I am only giving it four because of the poor English dubbing. Watching the actors' mouths move reminded me of the old Kung Fu movies I watched when I was a child; after the actor's mouth stopped moving, then you heard what they had said. It was almost laughable. In one scene, the killer is holding a girl hostage; not wanting her to identify his voice, he writes in Italian: Where is the diary. The English translation did not appear on the screen. I had to guess from the victim's reply what he had written. (In the Italian language version, the English subtitles reveal what he wrote.) While watching the Italian version, the subtitles did not appear when the victim was reading the diary in her mind. Therefore, the viewer had no idea what she had read. An important plot element would've been missed.

"Blood and Black Lace" is perhaps the first giallo but not the best. I leave that title to Dario Argento`s "Deep Red." However, I strongly recommend buying this DVD to anyone who is a fan of giallo movies and Mario Bava. It contains a tremendous amount of extras including commentary by famous film historian, Tim Lucas, who wrote a biography on the Italian director.
February 18, 2008

great film, lousy dvd

Just to back up the very critical review of this dvd below, this is a major disappointment: the one star is for the quality of the dvd release, not the film, which is one of Bava's best pictures. The image here is really substandard, way below what should be expected from any serious dvd release in this day and age. Although it is anamorphic, it would be hard to call this in any way improved over the first VCI release; if anything, in sharpness and color, it might actually be worse. That a dvd release this mediocre is a rerelease is a travesty; if they want to get people to upgrade and buy again, it should be for a better product. Stay away from this one and hope for another version to come. I had heard bad things but ordered anyway since it was relatively inexpensive, hoping that Tim Lucas's involvement would mean that this was a quality dvd; unfortunately, not the case. August 13, 2007

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