7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Isabella, a young model is murdered by a mysterious masked figure at a boarding house run by Max Morlacchi and his lover Countess Cristiana Como. When Isabella's boyfriend is suspected of the killing, her diary, which apparently has some incriminating evidence linking her to the killer, dissapears, the masked killer begins killing off all the models in and around the house to find the diary...
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok, Thomas Reiner, Ariana Gorini, Dante DiPaoloHorror | 100% |
Foreign | 67% |
Mystery | 18% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.67:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Italian: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English, English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
If you have yet to experience the Italian horror genre known as giallo, there’s probably no better place to start than with Mario Bava’s 1964 opus Blood and Black Lace, a film which is (probably at least somewhat incorrectly) often cited as having started the idiom. It’s notable that at the time of its release Blood and Black Lace was actually perceived as something of a letdown for some Bava fans, after the success of Bava’s Black Sunday and Black Sabbath (could a little marketing machinations have played into the recurrent use of “black” in these titles?). But like a killer who is thought to be taken out of commission who suddenly springs back to life, Blood and Black Lace rose from the cinematic “dead” to experience new life and appreciation by both critics (who largely dismissed it at the time of its original release) and audiences, especially after the advent of home video. Blood and Black Lace may not hold together especially well as an actual mystery, but it has style to spare, and its lurid color schemes, interesting framings and brutal (for 1964 anyway) murders make it a riveting viewing experience. Arrow has been releasing some interesting, if frankly second tier, gialli with relatively recent outings like Death Walks Twice: Two Films by Luciano Ercoli and Killer Dames: Two Gothic Chillers by Emilio P. Miraglia, but for those wanting to “go for the gusto,” classic giallo style, there’s nothing quite like Blood and Black Lace.
Blood and Black Lace is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. I've included one of the text cards that appear before the film starts as screenshot 21, where you'll see that this release was reportedly sourced off the original camera negative and scanned at 2K. Why this release is in 1.67:1 and not 1.85:1 is a bit of a mystery, as Svet Atanasov spoke to in his Blood and Black Lace Blu-ray review of the UK Arrow release (which is for all intents and purposes identical to the domestic Blu-ray release). I also reached out to Bob Furmanek, whom I personally consider to be one of the most knowledgeable experts about aspect ratios, and Bob provided a really fascinating chart that shows that at least a few films were still being projected from 1.66:1 to 1.75:1 in the UK in the mid-sixties, so it's entirely possible that in at least some European screenings the film did in fact appear at or near this current aspect ratio. Those of you who know Bob know that he's a treasure trove of information, and there's quite a bit of fascinating content on aspect ratios on his site. I'll defer to Svet's cogent comments about the actual "look" of the transfer in terms of color, densities, grain resolution and stability. I'll only add that I personally wasn't quite as bothered by the framing issues Svet mentions in his review, and if as Bob suspects this was hard matted at 1.66:1 for safety (as for example Bob mentions VistaVision releases typically were), there may not be any "missing" information on the sides since any wider aspect ratio would have been created by removing content from the top and/or bottom (this of course assumes that the scan captured the full width of the original source elements, which it may not have). I am therefore giving the video a slightly higher score than Svet did, though I concur with his wish that the wider aspect ratio version could have been included in this release.
Blood and Black Lace features decent sounding mono tracks encoded via LPCM in both English and Italian. While these tracks aren't overly ambitious, and both show telltale signs of post-looping (a regular practice in Italian cinema, even for "native" Italian language films), generally speaking things sound fine. As Svet mentioned in his review of the UK Arrow release, there's a hint of distortion in the upper midrange which Svet termed a "buzz", which is most immediately noticeable when the music plays. It's pretty prevalent though ultimately not that distracting. However, I'm docking the audio score by half a point from Svet's review just to indicate that there's some room for improvement.
Blood and Black Lace is one of those films that is sui generis, despite the fact that it obviously influenced scores of film which followed in its wake. Arrow has done its typically excellent job of providing generally very good to excellent technical merits and a bounteous supply of bonus material. Highly recommended.
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1975
Standard Edition
1982
Reazione a catena
1971
1980
Il gatto a nove code | Special Edition
1971
Special Edition | La morte cammina con i tacchi alti
1971
I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale / Carnal Violence
1973
Cosa avete fatto a Solange?
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Featuring The Girl Who Knew Too Much / La ragazza che sapeva troppo
1963
Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso
1972
Non ho sonno | Standard Edition
2001
La bestia uccide a sangue freddo / Asylum Erotica
1971
Remastered | 2-Disc Special Edition
1977
Standard Edition
1985
Non si sevizia un paperino
1972
Mil gritos tiene la noche | Remastered | Limited Edition Puzzle to 3000
1982
Passi di danza su una lama di rasoio
1973
Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate
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Communion / Holy Terror
1976