sol- Originally titled 'Six Women for the Killer', this Mario Bava film is often cited as the movie that pioneered the giallo horror subgenre with a plot that places more emphasis on gruesome murders than catching a killer. Full of creepy tracking shots and with eerie sound effects frequently favoured over background music, the film certainly succeeds in depicting a handful of memorable murders and stalking sequences. There is a particularly effective part where one victim to-be is chased around an antique dealer's place where every nook and cranny is lit up in varying neon shades of blue, pink and purple. The opening murder is effective too. The plot, characters and acting here leaves a lot to be desired though with the story coming to a near stand-still in between the murders. Thomas Reiner makes for one of the dullest police detectives of all time, though to be fair, the cast are hardly saddled with the sort of dialogue that could have made their characters come alive. Of course, many will be quick to point out that narratives are always a secondary consideration in gialli, but when one considers what Dario Argento was able of achieve in years to come with films like 'Suspiria' and 'Tenebrae' that managed to wrestle good performances and a decent plot into the giallo formula, it is hard not to mentally compare and contrast. Certainly, if viewed with minimal expectations, there is a lot to like about 'Blood and Black Lace'; it is simply hard not to expect something more revolutionary from a film that kick-started an iconic movie trend.

thelastblogontheleft Holy crap, this freakin' movie. So fantastic. It's considered to be one of the earliest and most influential of all giallo films and is said to have inspired filmmakers such as Tarantino and Argento. It's kind of a big deal.The director, Mario Bava, had already had worldwide commercial success with his two previous films (Black Sunday in 1960 and Black Sabbath in 1963), so he was given creative control over this one. He was "bored by the mechanical nature of the whodunit", so he chose to emphasize more of the horror and sex in the film. It had a fairly low budget of $150,000 and while it tanked in Italy (grossing only about $77,000), it has since been revered as one of the horror and mystery classics.One of the best things about the movie is the use of color and light. It's downright decadent, and a huge shift from his previous black & white films. The plot may not be the most complex and original, but the tension is palpable throughout the entire movie, and I was glued to the screen for the entirety, trying to guess who the killer was. The killings themselves are very intimate and personal, each one a little different than the last. Not overly gory -- I don't consider any killings with such obviously fake, bright red blood to be that bad -- but still disturbing all the same. But ultimately it's the tense paranoia of this film that keeps you pulled in. I loved it!

GL84 Following a string of savage murders, the police investigation into the victims' connection to a seemingly reputable fashion house that features incredibly shady dealings that are exposed with each strike and force them to find the one clue needed to solve the case and stop the killings.This here is one of the more impressive horror efforts in the entire genre. Among the many notable elements present in this one is the fact that there's quite a healthy amount of influences here to tie this film into the slasher and giallo genres. With this one really concentrating full bore on the murder scenes to a degree unseen before with the various murders being committed being showcased as over-killings in their brutality yet still remaining beautiful to look at, especially as the victims are often left in a deliberately stylish posh establishing a fashion-spread-from-hell aesthetic that carries on the theme of the destruction of beauty established early on with the target being the glamorous world of a fashion house. The seductive staging and use of bright-red coloring throughout here gives these scenes a sensual yet unsettling quality at the same time, and lets the powerhouse sequences of the stalking and slashing take center-stage throughout here from the opening stalking scene in the park with the driving rain followed by the surprise shock of the killer appearing, a spectacular stalking in a neon-and-fluorescent lit house where they become aware of the killer and must maneuver through the darkened house without being seen and the model's encounter in her home where she gets beaten around and abducted only to later be burned alive on a red-hot stove being the real showstoppers here. Other fun attacks, from the stalking in the models' apartment or the thrilling sequence in the main fashion hall come off as grand, lush and decadent in addition to their brutality. This is certainly helped along by the killer's appearance, which is basically a rough draft for slasher films later on with the black trench-coat, black gloves, black hat and white handkerchief obscuring the face making for quite the effective disguise and setting the usage of the masked killer in motion for years to come afterward by focusing on the notion of a rampaging killer going around with an obscurity in their disguise. These attributes altogether make this one of the most influential set-ups in the style, and given a wide- berth to play with here with the infusion of more traditional Gothic stereotypes here in it's settings and locations of their grand, luxurious houses and the main fashion house itself that these older chill-laden trappings are placed nicely with the elements which are to be found in more modern standings. Along with the strong storyline with the need for the diary and the killers' quest for keeping his duplicitous dealings secret which manages to coincide with several others who have motives that would place blame on them and offering enough twists and turns to keep it interesting, there's very little about it that doesn't work. The fact that it's not such a traditional giallo in many senses with it failing in several key areas that are standards of the genre doesn't strike as one that really holds much against it due to the film setting the genre in motion so there isn't any standards to follow through on, but it's the one main issue in this one.Rated Unrated/R: Violence, Language and mild drug use.

Finfrosk86 Oh holy goodness. OK, saw this one at Glasgow Frightfest 2015. I was expecting something at least in the vague area of horror. Let me just cut right to the chase here, it is one of the most boring, uninteresting movies I have seen. And I've seen some boring drivel before. Yes, it is said to be this huge classic, and it inspired a billion movies after it, apparently, and blah blah blah, but you know what? It is still incredibly boring. There is nothing of interest here. It is not funny because of campiness or anything like that, it is not gory, it is not suspenseful. Action choreography (if you can call it that) is poor, it has typical old-movie-overacting. It is just plain and simple boredom. Boredom caught on tape. There is just nothing good about it.I know all the movie snobs are going to see red (ooh, like the symbolism in the movie itself!) when I say it's boring, but let em. You could watch almost anything else instead of this, and it will be better.