HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (Mario Bava - Italy/Spain 1969)
Every time John Harrington hacks up a bride on her wedding night with a meat cleaver, he is able to recall more details from his childhood about the mysterious death of his mother, whom he apparently adored. Compelled to discover the killer's identity and unable to cope any longer with marital arguments, he even takes a hatchet to his own bitchy wife Mildred, who returns to haunt him as a ghost that everybody can see, but him. The increasingly deluded madman imagines that Mildred is still torturing him and gives in to one more murderous deed in order to discover the true nature of his childhood experience.
A creative reworking of Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960) springs to mind, but in this case it's patently clear from the start who killed John Harrington's mother. The film is sometimes categorized as a Giallo but while it's offers some traditional giallo elements, the mystery element is negligible since it's quite obvious who killed the madman's mother and the traditional detective or amateur sleuth is - again - Harrington himself. Nevertheless, in terms of lighting and camera-work (Bava started to experiment with subjective camera techniques in the opening train scene for the first time), he delivered another stylish piece of work, although at times, the zoomlens goes into overdrive. And Bava shows he can deliver a number of very effective suspense scenes. The best sequence occurs during the aftermath of his wife's murder. The suspicious police inspector, who keeps returning to Harrington to clear up minor points, inquires about the screams which emanated from the house just minutes before. Harrington covers himself by showing the detective a scream-filled horror movie (Bava's own "Black Sabbath") which just happens to be playing on television. Meanwhile, the audience can see the dead woman's corpse hanging over the edge of his bannister, dripping blood just feet away from the inquisitive inspector. An eerily effective moment that will have you rooted for the killer, hoping he will not be exposed.
The supernatural angle, the haunting of John by Mildred's vindictive spirit, makes this strangely constructed film hard to categorize. Nevertheless, Bava considered this one of his favorites and it was one of the few films - if not the only one - where he had complete creative control and the end result wasn't completely butchered by ignorant producers or distributors. The film is even surprisingly restrained, which largely explains the relatively smooth distribution potential. The six murders are never shown graphically on screen and the amounts of gore and blood are restricted to a minimum. Furthermore, the story is fairly straightforward, but never terribly engaging and leading man Stephen Forstyth has the charisma of a wooden puppet. Sante Romitelli's score is not a total success either with its sudden transitions from frenzied fear themes to gentle harpsichord melodies and lush orchestrations. All in all, an interesting film from a cinematographic perspective but the results are not very effective and not enough to rank this as one of Bava's best, let alone as one of the better Giallos, if categorized as such. The film's theme was reworked in the American slasher HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE (1980).
Camera Obscura --- 6/10
Every time John Harrington hacks up a bride on her wedding night with a meat cleaver, he is able to recall more details from his childhood about the mysterious death of his mother, whom he apparently adored. Compelled to discover the killer's identity and unable to cope any longer with marital arguments, he even takes a hatchet to his own bitchy wife Mildred, who returns to haunt him as a ghost that everybody can see, but him. The increasingly deluded madman imagines that Mildred is still torturing him and gives in to one more murderous deed in order to discover the true nature of his childhood experience.
A creative reworking of Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960) springs to mind, but in this case it's patently clear from the start who killed John Harrington's mother. The film is sometimes categorized as a Giallo but while it's offers some traditional giallo elements, the mystery element is negligible since it's quite obvious who killed the madman's mother and the traditional detective or amateur sleuth is - again - Harrington himself. Nevertheless, in terms of lighting and camera-work (Bava started to experiment with subjective camera techniques in the opening train scene for the first time), he delivered another stylish piece of work, although at times, the zoomlens goes into overdrive. And Bava shows he can deliver a number of very effective suspense scenes. The best sequence occurs during the aftermath of his wife's murder. The suspicious police inspector, who keeps returning to Harrington to clear up minor points, inquires about the screams which emanated from the house just minutes before. Harrington covers himself by showing the detective a scream-filled horror movie (Bava's own "Black Sabbath") which just happens to be playing on television. Meanwhile, the audience can see the dead woman's corpse hanging over the edge of his bannister, dripping blood just feet away from the inquisitive inspector. An eerily effective moment that will have you rooted for the killer, hoping he will not be exposed.
The supernatural angle, the haunting of John by Mildred's vindictive spirit, makes this strangely constructed film hard to categorize. Nevertheless, Bava considered this one of his favorites and it was one of the few films - if not the only one - where he had complete creative control and the end result wasn't completely butchered by ignorant producers or distributors. The film is even surprisingly restrained, which largely explains the relatively smooth distribution potential. The six murders are never shown graphically on screen and the amounts of gore and blood are restricted to a minimum. Furthermore, the story is fairly straightforward, but never terribly engaging and leading man Stephen Forstyth has the charisma of a wooden puppet. Sante Romitelli's score is not a total success either with its sudden transitions from frenzied fear themes to gentle harpsichord melodies and lush orchestrations. All in all, an interesting film from a cinematographic perspective but the results are not very effective and not enough to rank this as one of Bava's best, let alone as one of the better Giallos, if categorized as such. The film's theme was reworked in the American slasher HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE (1980).
Camera Obscura --- 6/10