Editorials
Brutal Beauty: Mario Bava’s ‘Blood and Black Lace’ at 60
It’s no secret that horror too often elicits kneejerk reactions from narrow-minded critics who, for some reason or another, aren’t willing to give its particular brand of storytelling a fair shake. There are countless examples of films that have received lukewarm to scathing critiques from reviewers upon their release only to be embraced as classics years later, sometimes even by the same writers that originally did them dirty. Last House on the Left (1972), The Shining (1980) and, perhaps most famously, The Thing (1982) were all savaged for various reasons during their initial runs but are now not only thought of as staples of their genre but of cinema as a whole.
This was also the case for Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1964). Barely making a splash with audiences and critics alike when it was released in Italy 60 years ago this month, the picture’s impact would soon be gargantuan. It would help birth the modern day giallo film, inspire the visions of countless filmmakers both nationally and abroad, and deeply influence the slasher genre. But even divorced from these accolades, Blood and Black Lace stands on its own as one Bava’s best efforts (which is saying something considering the width and breadth of his incredible career).
As many fans can attest, plot is rarely of importance in most gialli. However, here’s a brief summary of Blood and Black Lace’s for the uninitiated. Murder is afoot at Christian Haute Couture! A masked figure clad in a trench coat, fedora, and black leather gloves is gruesomely slaying the Italian fashion house’s models, and his motives are as mysterious as his garb. Local police are helpless to stop the butcheries, but are certain of one thing: the killer walks among the glamourous women he so sickeningly dispatches. Who is he, and when will his reign of terror end?
While not the first film to fall under the giallo banner (most agree that title should be given to an earlier Mario Bava picture, 1963’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much), so many of the genre’s defining elements originated with Blood and Black Lace that you’d be forgiven for thinking the distinction belongs to it. The characteristics that spring to mind when thinking of the genre are out in full force. Beyond the obvious, like the killer’s black gloved hands, there’s the less apparent trademarks. We see the shrugging-off of the rational in favour of a more surreal viewing experience, a feature seen in many gialli. This is most evident in how we see through the lens of the camera. It creeps along, almost cat-like, and often confuses you in terms of whose perspective is being presented. Tied to this is the way color is used in how scenes are lit. Lighting gels with rich tones were utilized throughout, especially during the scenes taking place at night. These visual cues signal to the audience’s subconscious that the world being presented to them is askew somehow, leading to a sense of unease rising within.
Other times this dreamlike nature is found in the film’s narrative, with the characters’ motivations and actions appearing to lack any sort of logic. This disorients the audience, leaving them to wonder if anyone in the story is truly who they say they are. As Ian Olney puts it in his book Euro Horror: Classic European Cinema in Contemporary American Culture, Bava “toys mercilessly with viewers, inviting them to make certain assumptions or take certain positions vis-à-vis the unfolding story and its characteristics, only to pull the rug out from under again and again.”
These stylistic choices of Bava’s influenced countless filmmakers both within the boarders of Italy and elsewhere. In the States, his shadow can be seen in the works of directors like Martin Scorsese, John Carpenter, and Tim Burton, while Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento both owe a large portion of their careers to the path Mario paved. Argento’s work in particular is almost a continuation of Bava’s own, as if there were a passing of the baton of sorts between the Maestro and the Italian Hitchcock. That moment could be best illustrated by their partnership during the filming of Inferno, the second entry in Argento’s Mother of Tears trilogy. Stricken ill during its production, he invited Bava to help with the creation of the film’s optical effects (a technique Mario was a master of) and assist in some second unit directing. It was, as Dario put it years later, “a sort of affectionate collaboration.”
Since Blood and Black Lace played such a pivotal role in the creation of the giallo film, it’s easy to draw a line from Bava’s classic to the conception of the modern-day slasher flick. Visually they obviously share much common ground. Take their lethal antagonists, for instance. While Blood and Black Lace was not the first movie to feature a killer with a hidden visage (that would be the 1962 shocker, Terrified) its villain’s appearance looks more in the vein of what we would see years later in the stalk-and-slash pictures of the 80’s and 90’s. Terrified’s assassin wears a boring old balaclava, while Bava’s butcher has what appears to be a white stocking over his face. The former’s choice of disguise hides the identity, but the latter’s lends him an eerie, almost otherworldly quality that would go on to be the standard for masked murderers years later.
Of course, the strength in the bond between gialli and slashers is more in blood than anything else. Both genres are built around the employment of elaborate and hyper-violent death scenes. The best of these set pieces are finely crafted works of art that build tension and dread until erupting into either a geyser of gore or, as is the case with films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the implication of a tremendous bloodletting. Blood and Black Lace’s kills, though somewhat tame by today’s standards, were absolutely vicious for their time and feature all the hallmarks of what we’d see later in the slasher.
All of these bits of historical significance are wonderful, but how important a movie is does not always make for something that’s enjoyable to watch. Thankfully, if you were to strip away all of that, you’d still be left with one hell of a gorgeous and entertaining film. Its opulent set and costume design, hypnotic camera work, expressionistic use of color, and nightmarish set-pieces all come together to make the kind of cinematic experience that makes you happy to have eyeballs in your skull.
It’s a fitting testament to the legacy of a legendary filmmaker and his masterwork.
Editorials
11 Years Later: The Horrific Cycles of Violence in ‘Only God Forgives’ Starring Ryan Gosling
Traditionally, movie theater walkouts are usually associated with the horror genre, with infamous cases ranging from 1973’s The Exorcist (particularly during the crucifix masturbation scene) and even Lars Von Trier’s controversial serial killer memoir, The House That Jack Built.
That being said, there are exceptions to this rule, as some movies manage to terrorize audiences into leaving the theater regardless of genre. One memorable example of this is Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2013 revenge thriller Only God Forgives, a film so brutal and inaccessible that quite a few critics ended up treating it like a snuff film from hell back when it was first released. However, I’ve come to learn that horror fans have a knack for seeing beyond the blood and guts when judging the value of a story, and that’s why I’d like to make a case for Winding’s near-impenetrable experiment as an excellent horror-adjacent experience.
Refn originally came up with the idea for Only God Forgives immediately after completing 2009’s Valhalla Rising and becoming confused by feelings of anger and existential dread during his wife’s second pregnancy. It was during this time that he found himself imagining a literal fistfight with God, with this concept leading him to envision a fairy-tale western set in the far east that would deal with some of the same primal emotions present in his Viking revenge story.
It was actually Ryan Gosling who convinced the director to tackle the more commercially viable Drive first, as he wanted to cement his partnership with the filmmaker in a more traditional movie before tackling a deeply strange project. This would pay off during the production of Only God Forgives, as the filmmaking duo was forced to use their notoriety to scrounge up money at a Thai film festival when local authorities began demanding bribes in order to allow shooting to continue.
In the finished film, Gosling plays Julian, an American ex-pat running a Muay-Thai boxing club alongside his sociopathic brother Billy (Tom Burke). When Billy gets himself killed after sexually assaulting and murdering a teenager, Julian is tasked by his disturbed mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) with tracking down those responsible for the death of her first-born child. What follows is a surreal dive into the seedy underbelly of Bangkok as the cycle of revenge escalates and violence leads to even more violence.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
There’s no right or wrong way to engage with art, but there are some films that clearly require more effort from the audience side in order to be effective. And while you can’t blame cinemagoers for just wanting to enjoy some passive entertainment, I think it’s always worth trying to meet a work of art on its own terms before judging it.
Despite being a huge fan of Drive, I avoided Only God Forgives for a long time because of its poor critical reception and excessively esoteric presentation. It was only years later that I gave the flick a chance when a friend of mine described the experience as “David Lynch on cocaine.” It was then that I realized that nearly everything critics had complained about in the film are precisely what made it so interesting.
If you can stomach the deliberate pacing, you’ll likely be fascinated by this stylish nightmare about morally questionable people becoming trapped in a needless cycle of violence and retaliation. Not only is the photography impeccable, turning the rain-slicked streets of Bangkok into a neo-noir playground, but the bizarre characters and performances also help to make this an undeniably memorable movie. And while Gosling deserves praise as the unhinged Julian, I’d argue that Vithaya Pansringarm steals the show here as “The Angel of Vengeance,” even if his untranslated dialogue is likely to be unintelligible for most viewers.
However, I think the lack of subtitles ends up enhancing the mood here (even though some editions of the film ended up including them against the director’s wishes), adding to the feeling that Julian is a stranger in a strange land while also allowing viewers to project their own motivations onto some of the “antagonists.”
And while Only God Forgives is frequently accused of burying its narrative underneath a pile of artsy excess, I think the heart of the film is rather straightforward despite its obtuse presentation. I mean, the moral here is basically “revenge isn’t fun,” which I think is made clear by the horrific use of violence (though we’ll discuss that further in the next section).
To be clear, I’m still not sure whether or not I enjoyed this movie, I just know that I’m glad I watched it.
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
There are two different kinds of gore effects. One of them is meant to entertain viewers with exaggerated wounds and excessive blood as you admire the craftsmanship behind the filmmaking. The other kind is simply a tool meant to simulate what actually happens when you injure a human body. Like I mentioned before, Only God Forgives isn’t trying to be “fun,” so you can guess what kind gore is in this one…
From realistic maimings to brutal fist fights that feel more painful than thrilling, the “action” label on this flick seems downright questionable when the majority of the experience has you wincing at genuinely scary acts of grisly violence. I mean, the story begins with an unmotivated rampage through the streets of late-night Bangkok and ends with the implication of even more pointless violence, so it’s pretty clear that you’re not really meant to root for an “action hero” here.
I can’t even say that the deaths resemble those from slasher flicks because the movie never attempts to sensationalize these horrific acts, with Refn preferring to depict them as straightforward consequences of violent people going through the motions – which is somehow even scarier than if this had just been yet another hyper-violent revenge movie.
Not only that, but the characters’ overall lack of moral principles makes this story even more disturbing, with the main antagonist being the closest thing to a decent person among the main cast despite also being a brutal vigilante.
Only God Forgives doesn’t care if you like it or not (and actually takes measures to make sure that the viewing experience is often unpleasant), but if you’re willing to step up to this cinematic challenge and engage with the narrative and visuals on their own terms, I think you’ll find an unforgettable nightmare waiting for you on the other side.
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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