Blood and Black Lace (6 donne per l’assassino)
Directed by Mario Bava
Written by Marcello Fondato, Giuseppe Barilla, and Mario Bava
1964/Italy/France/Monaco/West Germany
Emmepi Cinematographia/Les Productions Georges de Beauregard/Monachia Film
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Inspector Silvester: Perhaps the sight of beauty makes him lose control of himself, so he kills.[/box]
Can a slasher film be beautiful? This one is.
The story takes place in and around an Italian high-fashion salon. A mysterious figure kills the models one by one in search of the missing diary of one of them. His signature is some gruesome disfigurement to the face of each victim.
My plot summary is short but so is the plot. The victims are so alike as to be interchangeable. There is a bit of mystery surrounding the identity of the killer but we are not asked to care too much.
It’s the way the women are killed that is outstanding, Bava combines Hitchcockian technique with a stunning use of color to make each gruesome death memorable. The score adds to the atmosphere.
