Blood and Black Lace, a classy sort of slash flick

   Back when horror movies first made the transition from gothic castles and dusty dungeons to a place far more familiar, we began to dream up a more disturbing tale of terror. Man, our neighbor, hotel owners, schoolmates became a more terrifying notion to us than any pretend monster.  When the Slasher sub-genre first was thought up Hitchcock and Powell, these films retained a little class from the era that they were made in. The 1960's had higher standard for killing women, hardly a flash of skin, with the real focus on death and not sex...the misogyny remained, just a far more bloodier place.
      Slasher movies didn't always revolve around a group of scantily clad , barely legal girls and their idiot boyfriends, no,  at one point it was high society getting brutalized in these movies. This is where Blood and Black Lace comes in...
     Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace takes place during a high class fashion week sort of thing. A masked shadowy figure takes it upon himself to kill fashion models in different and creative ways. The local police get involved along with a plucky and devilishly handsome police inspector, they are determined to find out just who-dunnit.
    Thats the thing I liked most about this slasher movie compared to others, Bava focused on the investigation, giving false clues, and misdirection every step of the way right up until the shadowy figure takes off the mask. The story kept me intrigued throughout, very well paced unlike movies of the era, where they allow quiet time between deaths for the remaining characters to truly assess the situation. Blood and Black Lace just kept piling on the sexy corpses. Each kill was new and creative and truly put you on edge, using lurking soundtrack and what I could only describe as mood lighting to more effectively light up those big brown eyes full of terror, wonder and flashing agony. Any true slasher film buff knows that true beauty is needed for a slasher film to be of high caliber, preferably a brunnette and pasty skinned beauty with big ol brown eyes with terror, agony, etc. etc....Blood and Black Lace does not let perverts down in this aspect. Taking the genre standard building an entire cast on it, those of you into the whole pinup classy sort of look, brace your panties...they will be soaked.
      Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace comes recommended to those who love slasher films and/or classic movies, defintely a classier take on what's becoming the least classiest of film genres.  Also be ready to read, unless you speak fluent Italian(Eye-talian) because you will be hard pressed to find an English dub of this classic.