Something To Do With Women, Something To Do With Death

Abstract

This chapter highlights diverse influences that resulted in the film Blood and Black Lace (6 donne per l'assassino). It explains how Mario Bava and his co-scriptwriters expunged all traces of humour from the story, eliminating the annoying comic interludes that plagued the film La ragazza che sapeva troppo. It also investigates how the makers of Blood and Black Lace drew from other sources and enhanced the Gothic mood that characterised the Edgar Wallace Krimis cycle. The chapter describes the ways in which violence in films is directed towards the female body, such as the opening sequence of the film La maschera del demonio where the character Asa is tortured with the titular spiked mask and burned at the stake. It discusses how horror underlined a radical change in the erotic imagery of the average Italian.