Kill Baby... Kill!

Discuss releases from Arrow and the films on them.

Moderator: yoloswegmaster

Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Banasa
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2015 12:35 am

Kill Baby... Kill!

#1 Post by Banasa » Fri Jun 09, 2017 1:40 pm

Image

"In 1966, after a three-year hiatus, director Mario Bava (Black Sunday, The Girl Who Knew Too Much) returned to his preferred stomping ground of horror, conjuring up a spine-tingling tale of Gothic terror whose influence would resonate within the genre for years to come.

In the early 20th century, pathologist Dr Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, The Last Man on Earth) is summoned to a remote Carpathian village to perform an autopsy on a woman who died under mysterious circumstances. With the locals convinced they are being haunted by the spirit of a young girl who died years ago, can the steadfastly rational doctor find a logical explanation to the strange goings-on… or will his rational beliefs be destroyed by the dark secret that lies within the crumbling walls of the ancient Villa Graps?

Co-starring the unforgettable Erika Blanc (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, So Sweet… So Perverse), Kill, Baby… Kill! arrived at the tail-end of the golden age of Italian horror and is regarded by many as Bava’s masterpiece.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• Restored 2K high definition digital transfer
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
• Original mono Italian and English soundtracks (lossless on the Blu-ray Disc)
• English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
• New audio commentary by Tim Lucas, author of Mario Bava – All the Colors of the Dark
• The Devil’s Daughter: Mario Bava and the Gothic Child, a new video essay by critic Kat Ellinger
• Kill, Bava, Kill!, an interview with assistant director Lamberto Bava
• Yellow, Semih Tareen’s short film homage to the cinema of Mario Bava
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by critic Travis Crawford"

User avatar
Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Kill Baby... Kill!

#2 Post by Finch » Fri Jun 09, 2017 5:54 pm

Wonderful to have it confirmed! My favourite Bava. Bring. It. On.

Werewolf by Night

Kill Baby... Kill!

#3 Post by Werewolf by Night » Fri Jun 09, 2017 7:01 pm

Who is expected to release this in the US? Kino?

EDIT: Yes, Kino. And it comes out next week.

M Sanderson
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2016 3:43 am

Re: Kill Baby... Kill!

#4 Post by M Sanderson » Sun Jun 11, 2017 5:07 am

This is great news.

Best gothic horror of the '60s although it is also much more than that.

Will this be the same as the recent German Blu ray?

Has anyone watched the German release - happy with it?

User avatar
jsteffe
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2007 9:00 am
Location: Atlanta, GA

Re: Kill Baby... Kill!

#5 Post by jsteffe » Sun Jun 11, 2017 11:48 am

DVD Beaver has reviewed the German Blu-ray. It seems likely that Arrow will be using the same new scan of the film, although maybe with some further tweaks.

Interestingly, Kino Lorber has pulled the pre-order links from Amazon and their website. I doubt that they have cancelled their release altogether, though.

UPDATE: In fact I just received the German Blu-ray/DVD set, but it's still shrinkwrapped. I'm going view it once and then sell it. PM me if you're interested, U.S. shipping only.

User avatar
jsteffe
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2007 9:00 am
Location: Atlanta, GA

Re: Kill Baby... Kill!

#6 Post by jsteffe » Thu Jun 15, 2017 1:08 am

OK, I broke down and watched the German Blu-ray. I'm still pretty astonished at what I saw. If you think you've seen this film before, you haven't. I've always loved it. But seeing it again, it's so tense and atmospheric, it has to be one of Bava's absolute masterpieces. It's a f---ing masterpiece, period.

Apparently they used German elements for this restoration--it has German titles. I've never seen the color look this rich before, and it's full of texture and grain. All sorts of details that I hadn't noticed before keep popping out. The DVD Beaver screen captures give you some idea what to expect, but it looks even better in motion. If anything, I think that DVD Beaver somewhat undersells how much better it looks and what impact this has on the experience of the film.

If I have one minor complaint, it's that the German Blu-ray in a couple places seems to have trouble with the grain. I suspect that Arrow will top it in terms of compression and encoding. But don't get me wrong, the German Blu-ray still looks great. (I'm assuming that Arrow is using the same restoration, but I can't imagine why they wouldn't.)

The English dub also sounds great--again, I'm hearing details on the soundtrack that I've never heard before. I can't wait to watch the Arrow release with the Italian soundtrack and English subtitles!

This restoration looks and sounds good enough to justify a theatrical release on DCP. (Kino?) I'd like to see a revival of the film beyond just a standard Blu-ray release.

User avatar
Banasa
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2015 12:35 am

Re: Kill Baby... Kill!

#7 Post by Banasa » Wed Aug 23, 2017 1:49 pm

Arrow's facebook has announced the final specs, adding a few extras:

* Erika in Fear, an interview with actress Erika Blanc
* Introduction by Erika Blanc
* German opening titles
* Vintage Kill, Baby... Kill! photo-comic
* Image gallery

User avatar
Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: Kill Baby... Kill!

#8 Post by Ribs » Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:22 pm


User avatar
dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: Kill Baby... Kill!

#9 Post by dwk » Thu Sep 21, 2017 7:58 pm

People at the Blu-ray forum are saying that this disc is actually region A+B not B locked. So if you are locked and would rather have the Arrow over the Kino, order away.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Kill Baby... Kill!

#10 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:59 am

I've never rated this near the top of Bava's oeuvre despite seeing it many times, but during this watch I found its narrative and aesthetic engagement to be exhilarating, just below Lisa and the Devil as his best work. The gothic horror setpiece is extended beyond an enclosed citadel into an entire communal milieu, which almost makes it feel like a western where morality is usurped by threats of the occult. The narrative itself is a variation of an interesting pitch: atheist nonbeliever enters situation of inexplicable phenomenon, though unlike Night of the Demon, the man uncontrollably finds himself trapped in an unexpected culture rather than deliberately seek out the experience to prove himself right, and unlike both that and the most recent recontextualization of Annihilation, the phenomena aren't affecting the bystanders in tangible shape. Yes, there's a ghostly girl, but the actions happening to people and the activity of the spiritual forces remains a mystery almost entirely kept in the elisions until spontaneous death. Instead, the gravitas is communicated in fear-based behaviors propagated by the townsfolk. The family abusing their daughter is sympathized with- we feel their fear is genuine and compassion for their daughter true, as the doctor "saves" her from their abuse- but it's also disgusting on practical terms, and terrifying because it signifies the crippling power of the unknown. We can feel the same anxiety about the forces they worry about through witnessing their earnest dysregulation and lengths they go to to protect against an invisible stimulus that's intangible and unpredictable outside of Death-at-some-point-maybe. But I visit this every year or so for its playground of art direction and how Bava guides us through it. There's so much pleasure in the imagery, the set design, hallucinogenic colorization, dizzying weaponization of style vis technique, and how Bava's camera acts as symbiotic surrogate to emulate the characters' hypervigilance as they soak up every detail in pronounced form. It's a film about setting conditions and our relationship to them, made all the more delicious by blending the familiar with the esoteric.

Post Reply