While Dario Argento is rightfully credited as the uncontested ruler of the slash-tastic murder mystery genre known as Giallo, one of the vital creators of this Italian sub-genre is Mario Bava, who, after a career of turning in stylishly stunning, yet decidedly more traditional horror features, decided to leave the graveyards and castles behind in order to go full glam. The result was the vibrant kill-fest, Blood And Black Lace, a slasher film do fully self-aware of its gloriously lurid capabilities, even its ad campaign almost solely hinged on the prospect of seeing beautiful women in their underwear get offed by a shadowy maniac. However, when you scratch beneath the surface, Bava’s murder-thon is far smarter than its promises of glamous homicide suggest as he takes some scrumptious set design, some stunning lighting and an appropriately twisty script and delivers at true bench mark in spaghetti scares.
Welcome to Christian Haute Couture, a Roman fashion house that’s seemingly loaded with just as many secrets as it is glamorous models – but one of those secrets is about to spill over into full blown murder when one such model, Isabella, is viciously garotted to death by an assailant in a hat, trenchcoat and faceless mask ensemble after meeting with her sweaty, coke head lover. Everyone is naturally shocked, but their shock turns to visible worry when it’s announced by fellow model Nicole that Isabella kept a diary that details all the salacious habits and vices that her workmates are desperate to remain hidden. While literally everyone in the room is giving Isabella’s bag that contains the diary the wary stink-eye, only one of the people present actually takes the book, which proves to bad luck for Isabelle after the killer targets her next.
While it’s obvious to us that the killer is wiping out everyone they can in order to get to that damning journal, the police are convinced the marauding murderer of models is nothing more than a sex maniac who has an irresistible to slaughter everytime they get the horn and, to be fair, the growing pile of shapely bodies does lend credibility to this theory.
So who could it be? Virtually everyone from co-owner Massimo Morlacchi, to the impotent, gossiping dress designer Cesare, to panicking model Peggy has something to hide, but after another murder occurs when all the male suspects are in custody, all bets are off.
However, when the faceless mask comes off and the real motive is revealed, no one could predict how truly manipulative the killer truly is.
From its staggeringly delicious title, right down to the impossibly groovy score which uses its whining trumpets and ominous bongos, Bava knows exactly what film he’s making and devotes every single response he has to make it obvious to you too. This, my dear friends, is about style and almost nothing but and yet lurking beneath this glossy veneer of sexy women and primary colours, like a crocodile pervert, lies a very real sense of sleeze. Every character present (except possibly the police) has some sort of decadent skeleton cringing in a closet, be it a debilitating drug habit or a scandalous abortion and despite the fact everything is barely held together by the high pressure world of couture, the sight of a simple, blood-red diary is enough to cause everything to unravel like a poorly stitched night gown.
Going full force into creating a strong sense of voyeurism by having every single victim be not only young, female and good looking, Bava makes sure that every kill scene has at least one flash of underwear to give things that extra sexual nudge. A strangled victim’s skirt rucks up as her body is dragged away while another’s bra is clearly visible through her ripped blouse before the killer sticks a spiked gauntlet into her face and it just gets more blatant from there. Later victims are fully in their underwear when suffocated and drowned and there gasps, moans and struggles means that the line between sex and death has rarely been so thin. However, while the air of misogyny has always fluttered around Giallo like a lightbulb addicted moth, the joke, ultimately is on us as the climax reveals that these aren’t sex killings at all, but instead have only been staged that way to cover the more mundane motive of just, plain greed. It’s something of an impressive trick as now the accusing finger of sordid voyeurism now essentially points back at us as we’ve witness a handful of women die horribly in disturbingly “sensual” surroundings. What also adds to a sense of rule breaking lawlessness on Bava’s part is that there actually is no hero at all and the final scenes of the movie are reserved solely for the guilty parties as comeuppance eventually comes thanks to a bit of complex God’s law.
As a precursor to both the Giallo and Slasher genres, it’s undeniably irreplaceable, but as a stand alone film, it ranks among the best those both those kinds of movies have to offer as it displays remarkable imagination and visuals. Just take the opening credits that has the actors theselves posing like mannequins in luxurious backdrops as their names flash up on the screen, or the look of the killer itself which pre-empts such iconic figures as Freddy Krueger (hat & claw) and Watchman’s Rorschach (trenchcoat & no-face) to be one of the more stylishly dressed psychos on the market – it’s what we’ll all be wearing on the high street next season…
While the murders may seem slight when compared the the blizzard of stab wounds seen in a recent Scream movie or the bestial slayings seen in some of Argento’s work, Bava works hard to ensure each death is not only weirdly alluring, but visually striking. Behold, for example, the death of Tao-Li, a busty bit if collateral damage with eyebrows that could shake up a Vulcan, who, after being drowned in a bath tub, has her wrists slashed in order to make it look like a suicide. Cue a shot of the submerged siren as her glassy dead eyes stare spotlessly upward and a cloud of crimson billows up though the water from the bottom of the frame. Sublime.
The mystery aspect of the film is quite well put together too as the plot isn’t quite as simple as it first appears, but the relatively early reveal means that, like Psycho before it, we now follow the killer as they violently attempt to tie up all the loose ends and get away scot free.
The launching point for literally thousands of slashers, Blood And Black Lace separates itself from the pack by packing both brains and beauty into its perverse package in a way that’s still, very much in fashion.
Murder? It’s all the rage, darling.
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