Kill, Baby... Kill! (1966) on Netflix
In 1907, Dr. Paul Eswai is sent to Karmingam to examine a woman who died in an abandoned church. The villagers blame a curse and say a ghost haunts Karmingam.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb6.8/108,761 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
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Plot summary
In Karmingam in 1907, Irena Hollander has died in an abandoned church, and Dr. Paul Eswai arrives to perform her autopsy. Monica Schufftan, a medical student who has come back to the village, is assigned as his witness. Inside Hollander's heart the two find a coin. The villagers keep to charms and superstitions that Eswai dismisses, and they say a young girl's ghost curses those she visits. When the ghost appears to Nadienne, the innkeepers' daughter, Ruth, the village witch, performs a rite to turn the curse away.
Cast
- Valerio Valerias Melissa Graps
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Kill, Baby... Kill! (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Erika Blanc said the cast and crew of Kill, Baby, Kill were paid only for their first two weeks and finished the film without pay out of affection for Mario Bava, and Bava's friend Luigi Cozzi said Bava himself was never paid for his work.
- Mario Bava auditioned hundreds of young girls to play the ghost Melissa Graps but found none, and cast Valerio Valeri, the son of his concierge; Bava called the boy "Valeria" to goad his performance, and Valeri disliked wearing a dress for the part.
- Several shots of the ghost Melissa were filmed with Valerio Valeri performing the actions in reverse to give an uncanny feel, and her disappearance was achieved by dimming the light that projected Valeri's reflection onto a sheet of angled glass.
- Federico Fellini was inspired by the ghost girl with the bouncing ball and used the image in his segment "Toby Dammit" from Spirits of the Dead (1968); Bava said it was "exactly the same" as his idea, and Giulietta Masina shrugged when he mentioned it.
- Home-video company Dark Sky Films bought the US rights in 2007 and was sued by Alfredo Leone, who said he owned the rights and had sold them to Anchor Bay Entertainment; the courts sided with Leone and Anchor Bay, and Dark Sky canceled its already-pressed DVDs.
- The film's score is credited to Carlo Rustichelli but is actually a collection of library music by Rustichelli and other composers who had worked with Bava; Bava biographer Tim Lucas suggested the stock music was used because of the low budget.
- The distorted vision at the film's opening was created with a sheet of "water glass" that Bava's father Eugenio had made when he was a silent-film camera operator, and with no crane Bava filmed certain scenes from a makeshift seesaw.
- The Belgian Oi! band Kill Baby, Kill! took its name from the film; its frontman, Dieter Samoy, picked the title from a list of B-movies because he thought it was the dumbest and funniest name.
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