A masked killer begins murdering the models of a fashion house…

If Psycho and Peeping Tom might be considered the origins of the slasher film, there is perhaps little doubt that the Italians, especially Mario Bava brought a style to the format that would last throughout the 1960’s and beyond with what are known as the Giallo films.

The word Giallo translates as Yellow, which was the colour used for the covers in a number of books that came out in Italy, involving horror, thriller, exploitation elements and so on.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much, directed by Mario Bava and made in 1963, is often cited as the first Giallo film, but it is likely that it is Bava’s 1964 film, Blood And Black Lace that was undoubtedly the biggest influence on what was flying come.

I had seen the film once before on a a VHS video, a long time ago. It was badly dubbed into English and had pretty much all the violence edited out.

The Dundead screening, to celebrate the film’s 60th anniversary, looked stunning in a 4K restoration. The colours in the film looked utterly vibrant. There is no doubt that Bava’s visual flair must have been a huge influence on Dario Argento and the other Giallo directors to follow.

What is also clear too, even now, 60 years later is how brutal and shocking the violence in the film is. Bava’s staging of the deaths is well done indeed.

But the style of the film and the brutality of the deaths aside, what about its story? The film was written by Marcello Fondato, with collaboration from Bava himself and Giuseppe Barilla and has a good mystery at its heart that takes some clever twists and turns before reaching the final act.

The cast, headed by Cameron Mitchell and Eva Bartok are all very good indeed.

Unlike the awful version I saw of the film years before, this version was shown in Italian with English subtitles and it was a a much, much better experience for it. If there was dubbing the actors into Italian here, I didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Simply put, the film was just stunning to watch on a cinema screen.

It shows not only how good Mario Bava was as a director, but also that Blood And Black Lace still works for modern audiences.

And that it should sit alongside Psycho and Peeping Tom for how influential it remains, even now.

Rating: ***** out of 5