In the middle parts of this decade, American audiences were bombarded with remakes of Japanese horror films. The Japanese have a very distinct style that differentiates their brand of horror from the American brand. Rather than focusing on a lot of aggressive action, the Japanese horror film finds terror in stillness - in shadows moving in the darkness, in the buried threats of the mind, and the cruelness of fate itself. More than anything, Japanese horror films are primarily interested in supernatural threats rather than earthly ones. Ghosts are the word in the land of the rising sun just as slasher is here in the States.Of course, since these films (which were primarily influenced by Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" and Takashi Shimizu's "Grudge" series) were so successful in Japan, Americans took the hint, saw the movies, and began remaking them. Thus, we got a lot of movies for a while there featuring freaky ghost chicks with long black hair running down their faces. But would you like to know where that trend came from in the first place, and indeed, where JAPAN got the idea?
"Kill, Baby...Kill!" is an excellent piece of European horror released in 1966. While you won't recognize any of the cast, if you're a horror fan you recognize the director - Mario Bava. To fans of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," he is the director of "Danger: Diabolik," but to us, he's the forefather of Italian horror and legendary director Dario Argento's primary influence. Bava had a long and very eventful career, and died in the '70s with several projects on the table.
This movie, however, is considered his masterwork. More than 40 years later, it is still a very frightening film - more frightening, in fact, than the countless J-horror films that copy its formula of a vengeful ghost by the letter.
"Kill, Baby...Kill!" (last time, I promise) takes place primarily in a nameless European town in the early 1900s, and is what you would call a "gothic" horror film rather than a modern one. A thoroughly disquieting scene is the first scene that assaults us - a town gripped in fair, a young female victim running from an unseen assailant...and the mysterious running and laughter of a child heard behind the screaming girl.
Cue the arrival of Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart), called to the town to perform an autopsy on the woman, who bled to death under mysterious circumstances. The doctor character sets the wheels of the plot in motion and nothing more; Paul is not an especially interesteing or complex protagonist, and does very little in the way of the story besides become the romantic interest of the sexy nurse (Erika Blanc) who lives in the town.
In addition, some of the other characters are laughable, and even caricatures. There's the mysterious "good" witch in the film who the protagonist characters call on for help as the mysterious deaths begin piling up, along with an evil Baroness who seems to be hiding the terrible secret connected to the terrifying specter of the little girl that haunts the town. Today, of course, this story is not especially inventive or original, and we can see where the movie is going fairly quickly with the "good witch vs. bad witch" plot.
"Kill, Baby...Kill!" is not a movie that can rightly be considered a masterpiece; its characters aren't especially deep, dynamic, or even well-acted. What this movie is, however, is influential, and scary to the core. Even after seeing countless J-horror films, and the remakes of said films, this movie still has the power to scare you. In the middle of the movie, one of the town's teenage girls becomes convinced that the little girl is coming for her. She seeks the help of the movie's good witch, who performs a ritual on the girl to keep evil spirits away. Earlier, we had been told that the power of the evil girl spirit's very gaze seems to be a key - one look, and you're essentially toast. Yes, we see the little girl looking in at the teenage girl through her window, but the scene just keeps going, and going, until the action becomes pretty damn unbearable to watch. Before this scene, we had questions about how the little girl ghost kills; this scene answers them, and I won't spoil it.
In addition to the scare scenes and the town gripped in fear, this movie has amazing camerawork. Mario Bava was simply an amazing director, and his direction of "Kill, Baby...Kill!" is a jarring experience - dizzying, moving, constantly keeping the viewer off balance and mislead. For this reason alone, "Kill, Baby...Kill!" is essential viewing. Indeed, if you look back at this film after seeing the works of Martin Scorsese, you can definitely tell that Bava was one of Scorsese's favorite directors. There are several shots in this film that are outright stolen in some of Scorsese's films!
The score is also very eerie, and much like Goblin's soundtrack to Dario Argento's "Suspiria," one of the main reasons that this succeeds in being a scary movie decades after its release date. Take the music out, and much of this movie would consist of a little girl looking in through people's windows.
"Kill, Baby...Kill!" is my personal pick for Bava's best horror film (although one later movie, "Twitch of the Death Nerve," is notable for being perhaps the first true slasher film). It has a great premise, a memorable villain, and a great score and camerawork. And if you want to know where Japan got their idea for freaky girl ghosts...look no further. One thing is for certain - if you, like me, find Sadako Yamamura (or Samara to American audiences) and Kayako Saeki to be frightening villains, believe me, Melissa Graps can hold her own with them.
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