Friday, 16 May 2008

Placing Kill Baby Kill

Where, generically, would you place Kill Baby Kill?

Though it gets discussed in Mikel Koven's La Dolce Morte within the context of the small sub-filone of the giallo-fantastico, I'm not convinced by that reading. Though it has an investigative murder-mystery element, the recourse to a fantastical / supernatural explanation combined with the setting makes it seem fundamentally more like a Gothic horror in my opinion. It comes across as being like a Hound of the Baskervilles in which the phantom hound is ultimately proven to be real, where the impossible cannot be eliminated.

I'd say that The Ghost and Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye - which Koven, unfortunately, doesn't discuss - are closer to being Gothic type gialli, in that they go from the fantastical to the mundane in their explanations.

Thoughts?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The ambiance of KILL BABY KILL puts it squarely in the Gothic genre. In fact, Phil Hardy's Overlook Encyclopedia of Horror identifies the film as Bava's last great "Gothic Horror" (as opposed to giallo) film.