overall, 'hatchet for a honeymoon' is interesting, and is worth watching, but i wouldn't hasten to recommend it to people who aren't genre fans, and it's not the first bava film i would recommend.
poster for blood and black lace. the killer, on black, with cloth covered face. on the left is a drawing of a model getting dressed and looking in a mirror, menaced by a bizarre clawlike weapon which looks like it escaped from elden ring.
there is probably a closer parallel to 'blood and black lace', another twisty, psychological murder spree giallo with more to say about gender than many of its contemporaries. i can't evaluate accurately here, i am overdue for a rewatch, but i feel like this is of around the same quality.
regardless, 'bay of blood' is quite tonally different. it /is/ callous and it does sincerely delight in the macabre in a way that 'hatchet for a honeymoon' doesn't. but independent of that, 'bay of blood' also, i think, is denser, more incisive, more effective as class criticism.
a gorgeous 'bay of blood' poster, with impressionistic colors. a woman screams in a swirling red pool of blood. a hand reaches in the left side and holds a short bladed weapon to her throat. people would probably call this a sickle, but i think it's actually a bill or bill hook.
there is also a (more indirect) connection to 'bay of blood'. people like to try and identify "the first slasher", which seems a nebulous and overly categorizing pursuit to me. 'bay if blood' is often mentioned in those discussions.
it's worth comparing this, briefly to some other bava films.
it's more a psychological thriller, but it does have strong gothic leanings and it is worth looking also at the beautiful 'kill, baby, kill' or 'black sunday'. i'd recommend either of those over this.
it is now on my short list of films to try to watch the italian version of, along with 'the girl who knew too much'.
i regret that i could only find the english dub, because i do think the dub neither had the dreamlike magic they do, on occasion, possess, nor was it a successful tonal rendition of the original film's intent.
it's also genre atypical in that it seems to be more invested in gender politics and giving female characters agency than most contemporary gialli. it's not fabulous on this front, but the difference between say, this and Argento is palpable and welcome!
it also is interesting in that there is a lot of nonuniformity across victims. some of them are characters more than others, and the trajectories diverge significantly. some of them have quite a bit of agency.
the story is quite genre atypical in a lot of ways. the killer, revealed at the start, is the main character. and he is a tragic, but not sympathetic one. we aren't really invited into jaded delight or desire to see him succeed.
there are a few moments of greatness, eg a pan across a set of mannequins against black which seamlessly cuts to living faces against black at a seance. a shot of the greenhouse interior with the lead at the right. some nicely constructed layered shots. it's both pretty and technically solid.
it's mostly shot within the villa of a fashion designer who trades in bridal wear for the ultrawealthy. we get to know the place extremely well, which is compelling to me. we revisit specific rooms, learn the shape of the stairs, etc..
this lets it really build a gothic sense of texture-of-space.
there's a weird half-hearted part where the killer wears a bridal veil (derivative of psycho, i would guess?), which is not my favorite for the usual reasons.
other than that it's moderately interesting.
i really like 'bay of blood', so fingers crossed.
tonight's movie is "hatchet for a honeymoon", a well-regarded bava classic which i somehow managed not to have seen yet!
How does it feel to be an Iranian right now? 🧵
aah this game has come so far! it's amazing.
look at how nicely the lower plants anchor these trees in place, and help the shadows of the trees define the volumes.
the graded trees which are the same species of conifer as the largest, combined with the varied heights of smaller reddish scrub, let them do so much sculpting of the gestures in a stand of trees.
i unfortunately lost a level's worth of XP taking screenshots, but so it goes haha. this is such a lovely patch of woods. i like the way in SotE they have more softness and thick and thin to the undergrowth- it's a lot more gestural.
speaking of great NPC designs, Thiollier is my favorite. their amazing plaited hair-clothing is so beautiful and strange.
the freestanding spiral pillars (inspired by Solomonic pillars in our world) are so good. the shadowlands are dreamy in a way which is such a nice complement to the base game.
i'm regularly letting out involuntary exclamations. from is so good at environment art, but SotE is just so beyond their usually high bar.
the subtle pieces of local fog and the work they're doing with local color postwork are carrying a lot of weight.
they do /such/ a good job composing individual frames within the environment. not everyone knows how to think this way. there's the skill of doing compositional work and gesture which actually works well from multiple angles, and then there's an entire realm of secondary reinforcing skills.
i like how gravebirds are both decoration and enemy. they pose so dramatically on pedestals and cliffsides.
the rocks are so good! look how nice this lichen(?) encrusted cliffside is.
i'm taking my time with SotE and being extremely meticulous! i think for character reasons (you can get dryleaf arts earlier) i'm doing the castle before belurat.
her sculpted cuirass, her sandal style greaves and lower armor are inspired partially by roman armor. her lower legs are protected by pteruges- hanging strips of armor. this all echoes Radahn's armor while looking like a more functional, less royal rendition of the themes.
i love Freyja. and here armor design is so wonderful and well-knit into the art direction. she has a meteoric ore sword like Radahn's. and her covered face is reminiscent of house Marais's masks, but maybe a more armor-oriented version? i wonder if there's a connection there.