Operazione paura

Plot synopsis:
Romania, the 19th Century. Dr. Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) arrives in a secluded Transylvanian village where he checks into a local inn and meets with Inspector Kruger (Piero Lulli) the local constable who is investigating the death of a young girl employed as a maid at Villa Graps. The inspector has summoned Dr. Eswai to the village to perform an autopsy on the girl, much to the dismay of the locals. With the assistance of Monica (Erika Blanc), a nurse who just recently returned to the village for the first time since she was a child, Dr. Eswai carries out the autopsy. They make an incredible discovery: a gold coin imbedded in the dead girls heart. Monica reveals that this is consistent with a local superstion. Only with money in the heart, can one who meets a violent death ever rest in peace, says Monica. Following the autopsy, Eswai assists Monica back to her home. He is then attacked by a small mob of several villagers who swear vengeance on him for profaning the dead girls body. Only the sudden appearance of a mysterious woman, clad in black, saves the doctor from being beaten to death. But before he can thank her, she disappears into the fog.Back at the inn, Eswai receives a note instructing him to join Inspector Kruger at Villa Graps. When the doctor asks Nadine (Micaela Esdra), the innkeepers little girl, to direct him to the villa, she tells him to stay away from it. But Eswai leaves for the villa anyway, and when Nadine goes to lock the front door behind him, she is terrified by the sight of a ghostly little girl, peering in at her through the window. Nadine tells her parents what she saw, and they send out for Ruth (Fabienne Dali), a local sorceress who has the ability to ward off evil spirits. When she arrives, Ruth is the same black-clad woman who had earlier rescued Dr. Eswai from the villagers. Ruth says several prayers over the girl before giving her a leech-vine to wear around her waist. Ruth says that as long as she wears this, Nadine will be safe.
At the villa, Eswai is confronted by Baroness Graps (Giana Vivaldi). Shut away from the outside world in a morbid environment dominated by black lace curtains and remnant of the past, the Baroness appears haunted by supernatural apparitions. She curtly tells Eswai that she never receives guests, denies any knowledge of Inspector Krugers whereabouts, and eventually slam the parlor door in his face. The doctor then sees a ghostly, white-clad girl, who identifies herself as Melissa (Valerio Valeri). He attempts to talk to her, refusing to believe the superstitions of the villagers, but she walks around a corner and disappears. Without the inspector to assist him, Eswai makes his way back to the inn.Meanwhile, Monica is plague by a nightmare in which she is menaced by a chillingly innocent-looking doll. When she wakes up, she finds the exact same doll laying at her feet. She flees from her house and runs into the doctor on the street. Together they return to the inn. Monica confesses her fears to Eswai that she may be cursed. Eswai assures her that these strange occurrences are the products of fear and supersition, not of the supernatural. While Monica is shown to a room by the innkeeper, Eswai is distracted by moans coming from Nadines room. He goes in and sees the little girl withering about in bed, apparently suffering from a fever. Pulling back the sheets, he finds the leech-vine. Though her mother assures him that it is only for her own good, the doctor takes it off her. His care for the girl does no good, for later that night the ghost of Melissa reappears, compelling the girl to commit suicide.Eswai and Monica continue to delve into the mysterious of the death and of the ghostly little girl. A strange light appears in the nearby cemetery, and an investigation results in the discovery of Inspector Kruger, who has been shot through the head at close range. Eswai brings this latest crime to the attention of the Karl the Burgomaster (Max Lawrence), who reluctantly agrees to shed some light on the situation. The Burgomaster tells them that several years ago, Baroness Graps placed a curse on the whole town when her young daughter, Melissa, was trampled to death by the drunken townspeople during a village festival. Now the ghost of Melissa haunts the guilt-ridden people, and all who make mention of the Baroness or her child soon bleed to death under mysterious circumstances. The Burgomaster also reveals that to Monica that she is actually the dead girl's sister. He offers to go back to his residence to offer them proof. But when the Burgomaster goes back to his house and searches his attic for Monica's birth certificate, he too is driven to suicide when Melissa appears in the attic.Ewai and Monica go to the villa where Monica is warmly greeted by the Baroness with open arms. She confirms the Burgomisters story and explains how Monica was smuggled out the villa by the servants when she was just a child soon after Melissas death. When Monica suddenly disappears, Eswai searches for her in various rooms. Eswai follows her screams before catching sight of another man running through a series of rooms lined with red curtains. Eswai chases this person though apparently the same red curtained room over and over, getting closer to his target at every pass. Eventually, Eswai catches the man and when he turns around, the doctor is shocked to see his mirror image. A second later the doppelganger figure is gone, a hallucination conjured up by the supernatural forces of the villa. The doctor, frightened and disoriented, backs into a cobweb covered fresco on the wall which depicts the outside of the villa. As the image pulls back, he appears to be a fly caught in a web. He is no longer indoors, and the fresco is now the actually outside of the villa, some distance in the background. Eswai shakes loose of the web, and faints.When he wakes up a little later, he is in Ruth's care. To the people of the village, Ruth, with he magic spells an d charms, is the only doctor of any use. It is the ultimate irony that she should be administering to the needs of the man of science who scoffs at superstatiion. Further compounding the irony is that this is the second time she has rescued the doctor.At this point, convention logic is useless to the doctor. The norms of the advanced society where he comes from, and comes to represent to the backwards villagers, are totally dissolved. With the deaths of the Burgomaster and the police inspector, social order is diminished in the village. The only authority figure to carry any weight are the Baroness, her ghostly avenger, and the sorceress whose spells prove to have more power than any medicine the doctor has. Eswai forgets his preconceived notions and is willing to accept the presence of the supernatural.Eswai returns to the villa to find Monica, but Ruth also tags along and comes face to face with the Baroness at last. Spurred on the by death of the Burgomaster, her lover, Ruth attacks the Baroness, but who gets the upper hand and stabs Ruth in the chest with a fireplace poker. Ignoring the seriousness of her wounds, Ruth strangles the Baroness to death with her bare hands before she expires too. With the Baroness death, a force flows out and the ghost of Melissa, on the verge of having Eswai commit suicide himself, disappears having been put to rest at last. Eswai and Monica realize that they are now free to leave the village to start their lives over elsewhere.

Tags: revenge, gothic

Review:
Alida Valli and Telly Savalas would both star in Mario Bava's seminal "Lisa and the Devil" years later).The film's influence on many genre classics will be obvious to horror film buffs, particularly the resemblance of several sequences to Dario Argento's "Suspiria".
"Kill Baby Kill" is a truly remarkable film,boasting superb cinematography and incredibly eerie atmosphere.It contains some really memorable and impressive imagery:a misty Transylvanian village,dusty corridors,black cats,creepy dolls,shadowy figures stealing through fog-bound graveyards etc.The film is so wonderfully weird it has to be seen to be appreciated.Mario Bava really was a master of Gothic Horror!.
In a small town in Transylvanian, police detective Kruger calls upon Doctor Paul Eswai to perform an autopsy on a woman who died a violent death, but the unusual thing is that a coin was embedded in her heart.
In the case of "Kill Baby, Kill", Bava created the footprint for all ghost stories/haunted house films that came after, ranging from Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and Bava's own "Lisa and the Devil" (where he would elevate a similarly structured story to an art level) to almost every single Asian horror movie being produced nowadays (without Melissa Graps there would be no Sadako), and it still is one of the best of it's kind, even if the years that passed did affect it a little.
The story, which follows a doctor who comes to investigate a mysterious death at a remote village cursed by an evil spirit, starts out slowly but menacingly, with a unrelenting sense of dread that builds up every minute.
With the latest death of a girl Irena Hollander, Mirella Pamphili, working as a maid at the Graps Villa the local authorities have had enough and send to the town Insp.Kruger, Piero Lulli, and Dr. Paul Eswai, Galcomo Rossi-Stuart, to get to the bottom and find out whats behind these strange and mysterious deaths.
The story itself is a bit uneven and not that original but the stylish direction of Mario Bava as well as the aforementioned atmospherics make "Kill Baby Kill" a must to see for everyone, horror or non-horror movie fans alike..
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.
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 the Bava films which until recently had been difficult to catch in satisfactory prints, this is quite possibly the ultimate in Gothic horror cinema (to which director Luchino Visconti famously gave a standing ovation on its premiere).Presenting a startling concept of a creepy little girl willing terrified villagers to a horrible death (though the violence itself is quite subtle), this is essentially a mood piece – with the lead characters' disorientation often mirroring that of the viewer himself (for instance during Erika Blanc's remarkable hallucination sequence, while descending into outright surrealism with the legendary scene in which Giacomo Rossi-Stuart chases his own doppelganger and then mysteriously emerges outside the grounds of Villa Graps).
Characterization is still evident, however: Rossi-Stuart himself, interestingly, recalls Dana Andrews (and even looks a bit like him!) in NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957) – a practical man of science being forced to reassess his inherent skepticism toward the supernatural; the witch played by Fabienne Dali' resorts to bizarre rites (such as inflicting serious bodily harm on a sympathetic village girl marked for death or embedding silver coins into victims' hearts as a protection against evil) to fight the curse; and Giana Vivaldi as the disheveled and, literally, haunted Baroness Graps (the revenge-seeking manifestations are revealed to be monsters from her own id, as in the Shakespeare-inspired classic sci-fi FORBIDDEN PLANET [1956]).Troy Howarth, in the "DVD Maniacs" review, perceptively describes how Bava manages to subvert genre conventions throughout the film – the hero's presence is far from reassuring, whereas it's the witch (typically a malevolent influence) who eventually puts an end to the village curse.
Ultimately, the film draws its lasting power from the emphasis it places on the characters' raw emotions (I've never been fond of any of the titles attached to it, though this aspect is at least clear in the original, OPERAZIONE PAURA), resulting in an overwhelming and unsettling sense of dread (with tavern scenes full of superstitious villagers that link it, more than perhaps any other Italian Gothic outing, to the contemporaneous Hammer films) that has rarely been equaled – due, primarily, to its much-imitated spectral girl device (actually played by a boy in drag!).Carlo Rustichelli's score features an eerie main theme (which anticipates Goblin's later soundtracks for Dario Argento movies) but also re-uses the unforgettable romantic motif from Bava's own THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963) – a decision which, perhaps, cheapens it a little (just because the music is so recognizable) but is also a sure sign of the limited budget involved!
It's a dizzying scene.Although there are some of the basic cornerstones of the genre - isolated town, superstitious villagers, a damsel in distress, a curse, ghosts - Bava's direction and cinematography (uncredited) mark this as a cut above your typical mid-1960s old-school horror feature.
This is the kind of horror movie where you got the old late 19th century/early 20th century village in Europe where there is some sort of "horror" going on plauging the townspeople, everyone is on edge and/or paranoid, and the one outsider (usually a detective or in this case a doctor) comes into town and horror-wackiness ensues.In Kill, Baby, Kill (a mostly more apt title than the previous Bava feature, though it's more of a child than a baby), Dr. Paul Eswai comes to the village by order of an Inspector, who seems to be hard to find.
There's a woman who is deceased after jumping to her death in a well, and at first there is much resistance to her being autopsied - and why, of course, because of an odd object (a coin) found near her heart.From here we get the murder-mystery part of the horror, where a very creepy (which is redundant) woman with gray raggedy hair and less-than-fair complexion Baroness Graps (perfectly cast and made-up Giovanna Galletti) who once had a little girl named Melissa.
One of the most memorable things, in any horror movie, is the way he shoots a spiral staircase.It comes at two points in the film; the first time it's remarkable if only for one over-head shot looking down as the Doctor goes down it after what he thinks is something like the girl.
The story itself and some of the acting, despite having some over the top charm and edge, is still like a good many other old-school horror movies, either from its period or going back to the 40's.All the Doctor would have to do is leave and come back with some no-funny-business people and all the problems could be solved in quicker time.
The joy of this movie is seeing how people react to things, and how Bava gets the "shock" of something like the little girl appearing, or a dead body as a surprise, and pulling real terror out of cinematographic technique.
It's a work like this, along with other Bava films from the early 60's, that should be seen by any aspiring DP looking to shoot horror movies - or that is anyone looking to shoot them with a sense of horror.So, in short, watch it for how the director moves us through this paranoid-cursed village, or how the little girl makes her movements or how a person dreams in delirium.
This colour-drenched Gothic horror film from Italian master Mario Bava is full to the brim with atmosphere and style.
She appears in the night looking through windows, while her bouncing ball follows her around and adds splendid macabre detail - the ball led to the girl's death in the first place.Like all Bava films, this one is an exercise in cinematic style.
One features a spiral staircase and the other has a man chase a figure through a maze of identical rooms until he finally catches him only to discover it is himself he has been chasing.Like many of Bava's films the story isn't really very great.
Fellini recommended Bava to the producers of "Histoires Extrordinaire" because of it, (They wanted the Fellini name, leading to "Toby Dammit", which was suspected to have been co-directed by Bava for years because of the haunting little girl similarities), saw an anti-drug commercial that repeats one scene, there is a little girl Demon at the end of "The Last Temptation Of Christ", various little girl in white dress movies that bear an influence ("Witch Story" comes to mind first), it was quoted to some degree in much David Lynch starting with "Twin Peaks, etc..
It has all the imprints of a visual master at work, vivid and surreal atmospherics combined with a genuinely interesting storyline that unfolds slowly like an engaging gothic novel.For fans of Bava, this film is not to be missed.
Will the doctor and the local sorceress be able to save the village before it's too late?As usual with the overly talented, yet unfairly ignored Mario Bava: through it's Gothic style, this film breathes an atmosphere as thick as blood.
When Karl and Nadienne are murdered, Dr. Eswai goes to Trap Villa and discloses an evil curse on the feared and superstitious villagers produced by the hatred of her grieving mother."Kill, Baby Kill" or "Operazione Paura" is a frightening and original horror tale of hatred, curse and fear.
Mario Bava's movies are much better than the average horror menu.His directing remains sober but extremely skillful.Only strong stories are lacking.It's Dario Argento in reverse:the "uccello della piume de cristal" director has complex scripts but his directing ,all show,often gets in the way.Argento's scripts  with Bava's direction,it's a dream that would never come true."Operation fear" (exact equivalent of the Italian title)is a stupid title ,which makes think of a detective story-it's partly one though-or a spy thriller.Actually,it's the umpteenth version of a doctor who arrives in an ominous place ,where the inhabitants seem to be cursed.
Influenced by Robert Wise's "the haunting" (1963) and Jack Clayton's "the innocents"(1961),Bava's movie ,on the other hand,might have had a strong influence on Fellini's segment in "trepassi nel delirio"("Toby Dammit")(1968):the little girl playing with a ball is featured in both works.The doctor ,trying to impose his science to superstitious villagers ,and who understands that his knowledge is helpless ,predates the famous "Sleepy Hollow" hero,the sleuth,whose science and logic are put through the mill.The extraordinary film sets make up for the triteness of the script:the camera is almost always mobile,constantly in control of the space,but without Argento's show off.There are long wanderings along narrow blue-tinted alleys,long corridors,vertiginous stairs,with baroque rooms adorned with deceptive mirrors .The characters seem to be prisoners of the backgrounds,as if they were caught in a cobweb.It's no coincidence if ,when the hero enters the inn for the first time,the people seem to have turned to stone:the set bearings create a feeling of discomfort.
"Kill, Baby, Kill!" also known under its original Italian title, "Operazione paura" ("Operation Fear") follows a doctor who is dispatched to a remote village in the Carpathian mountains to perform an autopsy on a woman who died under unusual circumstances in an abandoned church.
When he arrives, he is met by superstitious locals who credit a ghostly young girl with the death, along with numerous others that have plagued the town.One of Mario Bava'a greatest Gothic achievements, "Kill, Baby, Kill" has a wide-reaching influence that is almost unmatched in the horror genre.
However, I do believe it is undoubtedly one of the greatest horror films of its decade, and among the all-time greats.As is the case with anything Mario Bava had his hands on, the film is visually stunning, but "Kill, Baby, Kill" seems even more colorful and striking than many of his other pictures—imagine "Black Sunday" in Technicolor.
The foggy sets and baroque aesthetics of the village are immediate and steeped in atmosphere, while the motifs of the blonde ghostly little girl and broken Victorian dolls as arbiters of doom are legitimately chilling.The performances here are by and large strong, with Giacomo Rossi Stuart as a suitable leading man, and Erika Blanc as the mysterious Monica.
Kill (196?), Bava's slow-burning supernatural story of fear and superstition, it is once again that beguiling atmosphere and the director's always inventive, highly memorable stylistic flourishes that make the film resonate on an entirely visceral and immediate level.
If it is flawed in any way, then it is in the final act, which wraps up the conflict far too quickly and conveniently, and just as Bava was hitting his stride with those dizzying shots of stairwells, corridors, nocturnal cemeteries and ghostly girls bouncing balls through empty hallways; itself, an obvious influence on director Stanley Kubrick's watershed work of terror and dread, The Shining (1980).Though some viewers may feel the film is too slow or too restrained by contemporary horror standards, Bava's vision is nonetheless something to behold; from the bold, hallucinogenic colour schemes and creative lighting, to the attention grabbing opening sequence of a young woman impaling herself on a pike, and with all aspects of the film-making process of music, design, performance and production standing out as Bava at his brightest and his best.
Examples of these Bava creations, and extensions of newly introduced horror film conventions from the 1960's and previous decades, would include the use of the "scary little girl theme", the "ghostly bouncing ball theme", the "spirit medium revenge theme", and the "town that murdered a helpless child or mentally challenged person them".
"Operazione Paura" is a film of a haunting and creepy atmosphere like only Bava could do it - the unique use of colors and shadows, paired with brilliantly eerie music and a unique sense for the macabre - these are elements that make Bava the arguably greatest Horror director ever, and this film is a great example for this.
Operazione paura, or "Kill Baby Kill" as it is better known, is an incredibly spooky and atmospheric ghost story set in a small turn of the century village.
RELEASED IN 1966 and directed by Mario Bava, "Kill, Baby, Kill" takes place in a Carpathian village in 1907 where Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) arrives to perform an autopsy at the request of the inspector (Piero Lulli).
is rich in atmosphere, even offering the odd fright, and is now considered a masterpiece by some and one of Bava's finest achievements.After a woman mysteriously flings herself onto a set of spikes in an abandoned church, Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) is called to a remote Carpathian village to perform the autopsy.
This is a classic Gothic horror film directed by the great Mario Bava.Strange goings on in the small village pit science and law in the form of Dr. Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) and Inspector Kruger (Piero Lulli ) against superstitious villagers and their sorceress (Fabienne Dali).Amidst the effort to find out what is going on, a child (Valeria Valeri) keeps appearing - a child that is supposedly dead.There are secrets and sorcery and hatred and revenge, and a final battle to break the chain.
How many times we heard this lines ' Please Sir l Can't go on beyond this place" thus this story begin, rather than has a human killer this turn is about a ghost's little child who was hanged in a Bell's rope, since then several girls are marked to die to pay over this past event, Bava has two groundbreaking moments to share us, firstly when the Dr. Paul (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) is chasing a girl which has a sudden merry-go-round a endless room to room, another is about a fabulous scene at spiral staircase where the moving camera has an astonishing visual effect, photographed in a dark color engendering a creepy atmosphere of true gothic horror, Bava displays another dimension beyond the grave!!!Resume:First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5.
The horror films you see today don't come close to what mario bava has directed.
This is because director Mario Bava successfully has created a moody film that will keep you on edge.The film is set around 1900 and begins with a doctor and a police investigator coming to a remote village to investigate a very suspicious death.
Mario Bava Directs another Influential Gothic Horror Film.
The image of the little girl with her faced pressed to the window or her ball bouncing down the stairs and through the hallway continue to give off an eerie vibe that makes this film far more effect than many other horror movies.
Kill, Baby, Kill — director Mario Bava's return to Gothic horror — is commonly considered to be one of the greatest horror movies of all time.
The coins are revealed to be talismans placed by the town witch, Ruth (Fabienne Dali), who is trying to protect the village members from Baroness Graps (Giana Vivaldi), who is helping her deceased daughter claim the souls of the innocent.As is standard with Bava's films, the plot takes a back seat to the aesthetics of the movie, the mood.
Mario Bava's wonderful Gothic horror - known as Kill Baby Kill in the UK - is a gorgeous-looking ghostly tale par excellence.