Something Different For Xmas
To be honest, I find most Christmas-themed horror movies a bit underwhelming. They’re either a bit on the campy side, which for me is saying something, or they hit me as emotionally manipulative. The one exception is the original Black Christmas,a classic that helped define the slasher sub-genre. But I’m not talking about that movie, today Is about another classic – Blood and Black Lace
- Director: Mario Bava
- Written by: Marcello Fondato Giuseppe Barilla Mario Bava
- Starring: Cameron Mitchell Eva Bartok
This month, I’m looking at another set of movies that also helped define and shape the slashers we know and love: Giallos. Adapted from pulp novels with bright yellow (giallo) covers, these stories revolve around violent murders, hardboiled or disgraced detectives, and psychopathic killers menacing beautiful victims. These weren’t action or adventure stories, but psychological thrillers.
When adapted to film, Giallo developed a distinct visual style, although different directors brought their own unique contributions. Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much, recut for American audiences as The Evil Eye, is considered the first Giallo film. As good as it is, I’m much more interested in his second movie Blood and Black Lace.
Disclaimer: Bava is one of my favorite classic directors, but I promise this Giallo series is not just an excuse to hype his work. Mostly.
I’m focusing on Blood and Black Lace rather than The Evil Eye for one reason: it’s in color. The bold use of color in set design, lighting, and in makeup and gore becomes a hallmark of Giallo, and the use of red and purples throughout Blood and Black Lace is so effective and creepy.
Box Office
It premiered on March 14th 1964, and while critics praised it’s direction and striking visuals, it did not achieve commercial success. It wasn’t until 1970 and Dario Argento’s Bird with the Crystal Plumage when Giallo films took off commercially, but we’ll get to that one later.
Blood and Black Lace may not have been a huge box office success, or get the name recognition of Opera or Deep Red. But visually, it helped define what a Giallo is, something still seen in modern versions like Malignant. Oh boy, I can’t wait to write about that one.
Recap Spoilers Ahead:
The plot of Blood and Black Lace is pretty straightforward: a masked killer in a trench coat is killing models at the Roman fashion house Christian Haute Couture. How it visually delivers that story is anything but.
This story starts with a desperate man and a frantic woman secretly meeting outside Christian Haute Couture on a stormy night. They discuss Isabella who he’s recently fought with, before going their separate ways.
Isabella then returns fashion house in a deep red raincoat and strolling through some gorgeously creepy scenery on a rainy night. A mysterious masked figure in a trench coat, black gloves, and fedora, stalks her through the gorgeous grounds before strangling her and dragging her body off into the darkness.
The next day, the other employees of the fashion house notice Isabella’s absence. Most notably owner, Countess Christina Cuomo, who complains about her right before finding Isabella’s body in a wardrobe.
Inspector Silvestri shows up to interrogate everyone, and we meet a host of suspects right off the bat. These include the manager of the salon, Massimo; and a dresser, Marco, who kept going out the night of Isabella’s death to rehang the blood-red sign for the house.
We also find out that the Inspector knows Christina from the investigation into her previous husband’s death.
The designer, Lazar, tells Silvestri that Isabella’s lover was an antique dealer named Scalo. They go to interrogate Scalo and learn that he was casually seeing Isabella and also using drugs, although he denies the latter.
The Black Lace
The next day at a show, Nicole, one of the models and Scalo’s current girl, wears the dress Isabella was supposed to have worn when the others refuse due to bad luck. When searching for a brooch to complete the look, Nicole finds Isabella’s diary. The series of reaction shots from the other characters is amazing; lots of close-ups on eyes with directed lighting.
Nicole insists on being the one to turn the diary over the police, but she does call Scalo first to warn him that he might be in it. Peggy, another model, steals the book during the show. Nicole heads over to the antique shop to meet Scalo but she meets the killer instead.
Antique Hide and Seek
This is one of my favorite sequences. The doomed Nicole is making her way through a labyrinth of antiques while colored lights flicker on and off as the killer appears and then hides again. It’s tense and nerve-wracking. When she finally meets her demise by way of a medieval spiked glove, it alternates between her perspective and the gloves. It’s brutal without being overly bloody or gory. Nicole didn’t have the diary on her because of Peggy’s early theft, so her murderer continues his search.
Marco, the dresser for the fashion house, meets Peggy at her apartment to bravely offer to protect her. She sends him away. Silvestri is on his way to talk to Peggy about Nicole and her car, but before he can arrive, Peggy burns the diary. The murder shows up before the inspector, viciously beating Peggy until she admits that she burned the book. He then knocks her unconscious and kidnaps her.
When she regains consciousness, he tries to torture her for more information, but in the struggle, she reveals his face and while the audience doesn’t see it, she knows him. With his identity revealed, the killer murders Peggy using the furnace of the room they are in. This sounds very violent but filmed in what, by today’s standards, would be a restrained manner.
The Detective Detects
Silvestri, who has no idea what’s going on, decides that the killer is a sex maniac obsessed with beautiful women and is one of the men related to the fashion house. So, he takes all the men into custody, where they quickly start accusing each other.
Christina comforts Greta, one of the few remaining models, letting her know that it should be safe now. Greta heads home; soon after, she discovers Peggy’s body in the trunk of her car. She tries to escape, but the killer smothers her with a pillow in the night.
The Killer Revealed
After that, the police must release the men. Massimo, collecting his belongings, picks up a notebook that Peggy’s killer used to interrogate her.
Later that evening, he and Christina discuss how well they pulled their plan off. He killed Isabella to stop her from blackmailing them for the murder of Christina’s husband and killed the other models to cover up Isabella’s murder, and Christina killed Greta to get suspicion off of Massimo. She’s done with the whole thing, but Massimo manipulates her in to committing one more murder; after all they need a fall guy: the last model alive – Tilde or Tao-li, depending on which version you are watching. I got the dub, so it’s Tilde for me.
Final Confrontation
As Tilde is packing to flee for Paris, Christina, dressed in the killer’s outfit, drowns and then fakes her suicide. This is one of the most visually stunning sequences in the film, complete with Giallo’s soon-to-be-trademark Technicolor red blood. After killing Tilde, Christina leaves the killer’s costume scattered about the room to complete her frame job. A loud, repeated knocking on the front door interrupts her perfect escape.
Afraid she is about to be caught, she goes out the window, where she falls.
Back at the fashion house, Massimo is cleaning out her jewelry and planning his getaway when Christina, armed with a gun, interrupts him. She tells him she figured out that he was behind her fall, and his plan was to kill everyone and walk away with her money. He tries to sweet talk, but she fatally shoots him. Her last act is to call for the inspector before collapsing on Massimo’s body.
Women In Giallo
In the end, everyone dies. Well, that’s not accurate. Most of the named female characters die—all but one, I believe —which could be interpreted in some very negative ways. In all honesty, this doesn’t bother me the way other movies have. It’s a film filled with women that read more like femme fatales than anything else. They lie, blackmail, deal drugs, and steal and try to help their men get away with murder. Maybe not all of these crimes deserve death, but no one here is a good person.
I don’t like excusing movies due to their age, but apparently, I’ll make exceptions for style.
The Giallo in Blood and Black Lace
There are certain elements one would expect to see in a Giallo, many that are present here. The stylish lighting, set design, and costuming helped establish a visual tone for future films.
Blood and Black Lace opts for pops of bright color. Red comes up a lot. I tried to keep a list of all the red items in the set design; in the first scenes alone, the phone on the desk is red, and the mannequins are red and velvet-looking with dramatic black wigs too.
Scenes are also lit in blue, pinks, and purples, sometimes alternating between all three, like the antique shop sequence.
The violence is fast and brutal, and beautiful women are the target, although later Giallo movies would continue to push the psychosexual themes. After all, it was only the inspector’s theory that the killer was a sex maniac. The cast of suspects, victims, and potential killers is certainly well established, even if the detective himself is a minor character.
And then there is the look of the killer: black gloves and a shiny weapon are genre standards, and while the killer here is more prone to improvisation, his mask, gloves, and fedora get-up helped create a silhouette still used in modern Giallo.
Noir and Giallo
Noir and Giallo share some common ground, just viewed through different lenses. The line between the two is blurrier in the earlier films where the psychosexual elements were less established. The trouble woman or woman with a past, tough detectives, cast full of seedy characters and the desire to thematically punish the guilty, no matter how small their crime is.
Blood and Black Lace focuses on the victims and the killer rather than the detective and client. Changing the focus changes the entire tone of the film.
Final Thoughts
Respect where respect is due. Blood and Black Lace is violent, stylish, and has an ending that sees all the villains get what they deserve. It may not be the easiest place to start your Giallo adventures, but if you can get into a light-on-plot visual treat, it’s so rewarding.
Blood and Black Lace is available to stream on Shudder
Check out my other horror reviews:
Leave a Reply