Kill Baby Kill! (1966)
It is well documented elsewhere that Mario Bava made Kill Baby Kill in eleven days for a bet. Understandably the film doesn't have much plot but it is compensated for by Bava's exquisite atmospherics. Bava's strong visuals have always been a strength of his films but here he produces his greatest work especially given the time constraints.
Bava gives us tombs with cobwebs so large they hang like curtains, wonderful fog shrouded streets, a brilliant spiral staircase sequence so disorientating that it could have come from Hitchcock himself , the heroic Giacomo Rossi Stuart pursuing an unidentified figure through identical rooms only to catch up with himself,and best and most iconic of all, the ghostly Melissa's ball bouncing through corridors and down streets sending all who see her to terrifying deaths.
Kill Baby Kill is hard to better for subtle, malevolent, supernatural atmosphere. Every shot has been lovingly orchestrated by Bava to achieve maximum impact from his lighting and colours to wonderful dramatic effect and endows the film with bloodstained beauty
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