A mysterious death in a Carpathian village prompts a coroner and a medical student to try and investigate what is behind it. Meanwhile, a ghostly little girl haunts the village as some kind of portent of impending doom

Firstly, as a film, it’s beautiful to behold (it’s as if every frame has been individually painted) with amazing direction and cinematography. Check out the colour palate as well, especially on the Arrow Blu-Ray. It’s stunning. It’s also scary as hell and contains so many genuinely unnerving elements- creepy ghost children, porcelain-faced dolls with minds of their own and a soundtrack that is reminiscent of older horror movies but is also brilliantly modern with its use of bass and organ.

Secondly, Kill, Baby, Kill feels like it’s forcing the evolution of the horror genre, as do many of Bava’s films. Yes, this is a period piece, but it also contains shockingly gruesome kills that are innovative, gritty but also never needlessly explicit.

This is a bridge between the horror of the past and the more shocking and forward-leaning horror that was to come crashing toward the general public in the years to come. And it’s so nice to have a horror film that presumes that its audience possesses a modicum of intelligence.

4 out of 5 stars