Kill, Baby... Kill! (1966)

A Carpathian village is haunted by the ghost of a murderous little girl, prompting a coroner and a medical student to uncover her secrets while a witch attempts to protect the villagers.

Director:

Mario Bava

Writers:

Romano Migliorini (story), Roberto Natale (story)

Stars:

Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Erika Blanc, Fabienne Dali

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Giacomo Rossi Stuart	...	Dr. Paul Eswai (as Giacomo Rossi-Stuart)
Erika Blanc	...	Monica Schuftan
Fabienne Dali	...	Ruth (the sorceress) (as Fabienne Dalì)
Piero Lulli	...	Inspector Kruger
Luciano Catenacci	...	Karl (the burgomeister) (as Max Lawrence)
Micaela Esdra	...	Nadienne
Franca Dominici	...	Martha
Giuseppe Addobbati	...	Innkeeper
Mirella Pamphili	...	Irena Hollander (as Mirella Panfili)
Valerio Valeri	...	Melissa Graps
Giovanna Galletti	...	Baroness Graps (as Giana Vivaldi)

Storyline

Dr. Eswai is called by Inspector Kruger to a small village to perform an autopsy on a woman who has died under suspicious circumstances. Despite help from Ruth, the village witch, Kruger is killed and it is revealed that the dead woman, as well as other villagers, have been killed by the ghost of Melissa, a young girl who, fed by the hatred of her grieving mother, Baroness Graps, exacts her revenge on them. Dr. Eswai, along with Monica, a local nurse, are lured into a fateful confrontation at the Villa Graps.

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Plot Keywords:

village | curse | autopsy | ghost | witch | 

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Taglines:

Shiver and quiver with KILL BABY KILL

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery

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Certificate:

GP

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

8 October 1966 (USA)

Also Known As:

Curse of the Living Dead

Filming Locations:

Villa Grazioli, Grottaferrata, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

F.U.L. Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

85 min 75 min (1972 reissue)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Sound System)

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Melissa Graps, the ghost girl, is played by a boy, billed as 'Valerio Valeri.'

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Alternate Versions

In the United States, an edited version of this film was released as "Curse of the Living Dead" as part of "Living Dead" triple feature aimed at drive-ins. Other releases, including home video, under the title "Kill Baby, Kill" are the more complete version.

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Connections

Referenced in Unikal'noe pozdravlenie (2014)

User Reviews

Faster, pussycat...

This is a surprisingly effective horror film, since I got it on a collection of 10 old horror movies for $15. I have three or four other ten horror movie collections and have only seen one or two films from them. I wonder how many more are actually worth watching? I have a love of really old and even really bad horror movies, For some reason terrible old horror movies can be a ton of fun to watch, while terrible new horror movies just come off as exploitative and stupid (Cabin Fever, Wrong Turn, House of the Dead, etc.).

In Mario Bava's 1966 horror classic, Kill, Baby, Kill, there have been some mysterious deaths in a small village, the isolation and pure strangeness of which reminds me of the town from The Wicker Man. Evidently a seven year old girl burned to death 20 years earlier and continues to haunt the town. Anybody that she reveals herself to almost immediately dies a terrible death which will look like suicide to any subsequent investigation. As was also the case in The Wicker Man, the outside detective assigned to the case gradually questions his certainty that it's all just some kind of superstitious hysteria.

He initially explains the phenomena as poverty and ignorance, combined with superstition. A dangerous combination, to be sure. Bava takes this premise and does all kinds of cinematic trickery with it, much more than is common in horror. He makes psychological use of lighting and color, expertly frames his shots within outstanding sets (seriously, even the bad ones are good), and delivers the surprisingly complex story with a level of skill rarely seen in the genre. He makes good use of the quick zoom lens and such ever-effective horror film tools as children and hallways (Kubrick was surely influenced by this film when he made The Shining, we have the ghost of a little girl, the creepy hallways, even the ghostly bouncing ball) and does some great things with a spiral staircase.

I expected the movie to be terrible, at least because of the collection in which it is contained, although I guess I should be careful about assuming that a 10-movie horror collection that comes out to $1.50 per movie will be full of bad ones. One of my other collections has the original House on Haunted Hill and Night of the Living Dead, for example, but I didn't expect many more that would be any good. Kill, Baby, Kill, though, is certainly an overlooked gem.