kill baby kill

KILL BABY KILL: It’s been awhile since director Mario Bava earned himself a special edition. The birth of the DVD format saw several of the director’s films get some spit and polish, but since then most of the remastered titles have been bestowed upon Bava’s imitators rather than the master himself. So it’s nice to see Dark Sky Films release Kill Baby Kill, arguably his most inspired work, in the kind of condition fans have only dreamt of as they squinted through grainy, bleached-out, bargain-bin VHS tapes. A psychological ghost-story along the lines of Henry James or Shirley Jackson, a cast of recognizable Italian faces are besieged by the malicious spirit of a murdered young girl who wreaks her vengeance on the superstitious populace of a crumbling backwater community. Preceded by a bouncing ball and an innocent giggle, Bava turns this blond-tressed figure of supernatural evil into one of the most iconic images of his career. The fact that it was actually an 8-year-old boy performing in drag is just one of the many revelations to be found on the DVD extras, which include a commentary from Video Watchdog publisher Tim Lucas and a featurette revisiting the film’s locations with Lamberto Bava, the director’s son.