Red Wedding Night

I say strange because I'm not quite sure what exactly "Hatchet for the Honeymoon" was supposed to be (but enjoyed it nonetheless). It features many of the traditional giallo elements - a black-clad killer, lots of beautiful young women who may as well have "Murder Victim" tattooed on their foreheads, incompetent detectives, childhood psychological trauma, spooky childhood toys... Yet it also diverges from the giallo blueprint in some ways by incorporating an odd, Twilight Zone-style supernatural element into the plot, and also a wry commentary on bourgeois married life. There are clear elements of both Psycho and Peeping Tom in the story, and it also predates both the 1980 slasher film He Knows You're Alone, and the Bret Easton Ellis book (and later film) American Psycho.

As usual with Mario Bava, the cinematography, production design and lighting are all beautiful to look at, and there are two great suspense set-pieces: the scene where the killer waltzes with his next victim to the eerie tune of a music box in a shadowy, elegant store-room full of creepy plastic mannequins in wedding dresses; and the scene where he talks to the suspicious cop while his dead wife's arm is hanging from the staircase and dripping blood onto the carpet.

It's also a surprisingly funny film in many ways. Special mention must go to Laura Betti's hilarious performance as Mildred, the evil wife from hell.

All in all, "Hatchet for the Honeymoon" is an intriguing and often underrated addition to Mario Bava's formidable canon. Stylish, entertaining and darkly funny.

The wedding dress designer John Harrington (Stephen Forsyth) has a stylish studio and is unhappily married with the wealthy Mildred Harrington (Laura Betti). His mother was murdered in the studio when he was a boy and he has a childhood trauma with her death. John is a madman and serial-killer, who murders brides-to-be with a hatchet and uses an incinerator to get rid of their bodies is his greenhouse. When John kills Mildred, her ghost haunts him and his madness gets worse. Inspector Russell (Jesus Puente) is investigating the murders and John Harrington is his prime suspect. Will John escape from the smart inspector?

"Il rosso segno della follia", a.k.a. "Hatchet for the Honeymoon", is a different giallo from Mario Bava since the viewer knows who the serial-killer is since the beginning. The cinematography, camera work and locations are magnificent and supported by a great music score. The profile of the serial-killer is interesting and his duel with the intelligent inspector is a good part of the film. Laura Betti in the role of John's wife is top-notch. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Alerta Vermelho da Loucura" ("The Red Alert of Madness")

John Harrington runs a model agency specialising in bride gowns. He likes model railways and occasionally dressing up as a bride. The latter means he's in killer mode doing what he must do or, as he puts it, 'continue to wield the cleaver' until his 'issues' are resolved. The title suggests a similarity to Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers but in reality the films are far apart. Kastle's film is gritty, almost documentary-like and contains the massive presence of Shirley Stoler, while Bava opts for a style flamboyant even by giallo standards and has a handsome cast to match.

The spirit of Psycho looms large, though Bava's lightness of touch offsets the potentially gruesome subject matter - there's a very funny scene in a kitsch disco (with terrific music) where the cleaver wielder is thrown out for suggesting a threesome involving one of the dancers and his dead wife. It's true to say that it's style over substance, but that's the point

It's sort of like Psycho, only not, and it's sort of like any number of other serial-killer movies, except you know who the bad guy is from literally the first scene. But we don't watch Mario Bava movies for the intricate plots or, as in this case, for the strong acting. We watch them for the grisly visuals! Man's a maestro of mayhem when it comes to presenting blood. Very stylish movie, very well shot. Forsyth is positively wooden, though.

In the late sixties Bava began reinventing the murder mystery formula he single-handedly created with films like THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE. In this film you know from the start who the killer is and so this film becomes a look into the crazed mind of a guy with childhood trauma who kills women. There's a great experimental score, cool fashions and a dance nightclub sequence for all you Sixties kitsch fans out there. Stephen Forsyth gives a great wide-eyed psycho performance and Bava forsakes his usual stylishly colored lighting for dreamy surreal imagery during the murder scenes. Bava even sticks in scenes from his earlier films on a TV as an in-joke for his fans.