Danger: Diabolik 4K (1968)

“Psychedelic 1960s Comic Book Caper”

Esteemed director Mario Bava’s much-loved comic book movie is getting a 4K restoration dual format release on UHD and Blu-ray from Eureka. The limited edition of 2000 also includes a 60 page book with new writing on the film from Roberto Curti, Jochen Ecke, Sergio Angelini and Troy Howarth all housed within a hardbound slipcase.

Brilliant and resourceful criminal Diabolik (John Phillip Law) has two loves in life: stealing things and Eva (Marisa Mell). The police, led by Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli) try to catch him by baiting him with a million dollars (which he steals), a fabulous emerald necklace (which he also steals) and an enormous bar of gold (guess what happens to that). All this contributes to the Diabolik Enormous Flamboyant Underground Lair where, when he’s not plotting amazing crimes he’s either asleep or being tickled by Eva and her enormous feather. But have the police finally managed to outwit him?

A big budget comic book movie from the Dino De Laurentiis studios, if you’ve seen Roger Vadim’s BARBARELLA (1967) or Mike Hodges’ FLASH GORDON (1980) you’ll have an idea what you’re in for here: glossy, brightly coloured, ultra-cool mayhem with sleek cars, amazing sets, and costumes that range from the extremely desirable (I’ve never wanted to own so many of the ties worn in a movie) to the ludicrous. Indeed, so colourful and over the top are parts of this that some may find it hard not to think of Mike Myers’ AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY series of films, which seem to draw at least as much from this as they do James Bond. 

Eureka’s 4K transfer is delicious and the ideal way to appreciate not just all that colour, but also Bava’s intricate compositions, matte paintings and model work which we, sophisticated viewers that we are, will all be looking out for now but which back in the day would have wowed cinema audiences. Sound options include the two different English dubs (one of which is in both mono and 5.1 surround) and an Italian mono track.

Eureka’s disc comes with three commentary tracks. Tim Lucas is the acknowledged expert of Mario Bava’s cinema and his commentary track will have you rewinding the film to look more closely at the cleverest bits of Bava's camera trickery which Mr Lucas superbly deconstructs for us. Tim returns for another commentary, this time with star John Phillip Law where obviously more time is spent on Mr Law’s recollections. Finally we get Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson who still find a lot to say that hasn’t already been covered.

Other extras include Leon Hunt who gives us an excellent 22 minute guide to Diabolik the comic book and the character’s screen incarnations. Rachael Nisbet provides a 27 minute academic look at the ‘pop art politics’ of the film in a video essay (27 minutes) and there’s an archival piece ‘From Fumetti to Film’ (20 minutes) to which Stephen R Bissette, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, De Laurentiis, composer Ennio Morricone and others all contribute. Mr Yauch returns to provide a commentary track for the DIABOLIK-themed video to the Beastie Boys song Body Movin’. There are also a couple of trailers.

Mario Bava’s DANGER: DIABOLIK is getting a dual disc UHD and Blu-ray 4K release in a limited edition of 2000 on Monday 20th April 2026

Kill, Baby...Kill! (1966)

"(Don't) Follow the Bouncing Ball"

With its slightly silly, albeit very 'swinging' 1960s title (and the alternative - OPERAZIONE PAURA - makes it sound like a spy film) what some claim to be Italian genre stylist Mario Bava’s greatest film gets a 2k restoration dual format release from Arrow Films.

Carpathia 1907. Dr Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) is called to a remote village to perform an autopsy on a girl who has thrown herself from a great height onto something spikey before the credits have rolled. 

It turns out she is not the first to have died under mysterious circumstances. The locals believe their village to be cursed. Is there a serial killer bumping people off? Or is that creepy little girl we keep seeing anything to do with it?

The path of investigation eventually leads to a crumbling villa that looks suspiciously like the house from Riccardo Freda's TERROR OF DR HICHCOCK (1962), and the old lady who lives within & harbours a terrible secret.

Whereas Vincent Price was the star of Roger Corman's gothics, and Cushing and Lee were the stars of Hammer, the star of a Mario Bava film was always the director himself, and this one is no exception. Like so much Italian horror cinema of the period, KILL BABY KILL is not so much about plot as it as about ravishing visuals, disorientating nightmare sequences and genuine scary bits. 

If you love this sort of thing then you'll easily forgive some of the stilted acting (especially between leads Stuart and Erika Blanc) and a music score from Carlo Rustichelli that plays as if it's trying to wake the dead all by itself. 

Arrow's disc comes with a brief introduction by Erika Blanc, Italian and English dialogue tracks, the usual fact-packed and erudite commentary by Tim Lucas that's an education in Bava's cinema in itself, but don't miss Kat Ellinger's excellent video essay on Bava as well. There's also an interview with the director's son Lamberto Bava and YELLOW, a short film homage to the director.

Mario Bava's KILL, BABY... KILL! is out on dual format from Arrow on Monday 11th September 2017

Caltiki The Immortal Monster (1959)

                                        “Tremendous Fun”

       If you like alien blob monsters crawling around the garden of a country house, that is, and who doesn’t? This cracking bit of late 1950s Italian SF directed by Riccardo Freda (credited as ‘Robert Hamton’) and Mario Bava (credited as no-one at all) gets a seriously decent dual disc Blu-ray and DVD release from Arrow.

Caltiki is not good for you, especially if you're an archaeologist

       A team of archaeologists is investigating the ruins of a Mayan temple where they find a a crack has opened up to reveal a set of descending steps. Before you can say The Rats in the Walls they’ve discovered an underground chamber with a massive (and it has to be said, very well-lit) subterranean lake. At the bottom of the lake are bones, jewels, and an enormous blob-like monster.

We love blobs!

       The blob monster presumably doesn't like being disturbed as it promptly eats one chap’s face off and latches onto the arm of another. The offending bit of the blob is hacked free but when they get the victim back to civilisation it turns out the blob has dissolved his arm and its poison has entered his bloodstream. Suffering a case of the Victor Carroons (Hammer’s THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT) our patient gets put into a bed where he begins to mutate.

Fun with a fridge!

       Meanwhile the square-jawed scientist ‘hero’ has taken some of the blob to his isolated country house where he discovers radiation makes it get bigger...and bigger...and bigger. Hooray! Then it starts to undergo binary fission and soon there are lots of blobs running, or rather squelching, about. Even more hooray! They have a great time pushing over a tiny model fridge, knocking over tiny shelves with tiny beakers on and generally crawling around a tiny model of the house, including climbing the tiny model stairs. It’s all fabulous late 1950s monster fun and you should know by now if CALTIKI is for you.

Totally justified in terms of the plot

       Arrow’s extras include two erudite and academic commentary tracks, one from Tim Lucas and the other from Troy Howarth. Mr Lucas’ is a little more fact-packed while Mr Howarth’s is a little chattier. Neither gentleman, however, points out that leading lady Didi Sullivan seems to be wearing the most see-through shirt in 1950s exploitation history during the jungle bits.

Stairway to Hell

       We also get a good 20 minute talking head piece from Kim Newman on the movie influences that led to CALTIKI’s production, plus some ported over archive stuff from a previous DVD release, including a profile of Riccardo Freda and a talking head piece from dear old Luigi Cozzi. Also included is an open aperture version of the film so you can see more of Mario Bava's effects work. Those who buy the first pressing will also get a booklet with new writing on the film by Kat Ellinger and Roberto Curti, which seems a bit unfair as everyone should be able to read what these guys have written.

 

The fabulous IMMORTAL MONSTER fun that is CALTIKI gets a dual format DVD and Blu-ray release from Arrow Films on Monday 10th April 2017

   
   

Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)

“The best thing about it is the title”

         Not one of director Mario Bava’s best (although it is better than DR GOLDFOOT & THE GIRL BOMBS which I had the misfortune of reviewing on here last week) FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON has been given the lovely Blu-ray treatment by Arrow. If you’ve never seen a Mario Bava film before don’t start with this. I made that mistake many years ago and wondered why on earth people thought his work was so impressive. Watch BLACK SABBATH (1963) instead (probably my favourite) or maybe LISA AND THE DEVIL (1972). But not this. If you’re undecided about watching this specific Bava picture then hopefully the following will help.

Nice framing

         A group of unpleasant Italians with appalling fashion sense and a taste for J&B (there are often two bottles of it on display) congregate at a “modern” (for 1970s loonies with no taste and no sense of practicalities) villa on an isolated island. Cut off from the mainland they soon start to be bumped off. Everyone’s there to try and bid for the formula to a revolutionary resin. But Professor Farell (William Berger) is sticking to his chunky sweater and sandal-wearing roots and says he wants to ‘do science for the good of mankind’. Or something like that. Which begs the question why is he there in the first place. 

More nice framing

         As we near the end virtually everyone is dead. We eventually discover who the killer was in one of the stupidest endings for one of these things ever filmed. Seriously - I’ve watched FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON three times now (because I’m possibly as mad as whoever came up with some of the dreadful costumes in this) and the final revelatory speech still makes my jaw drop. It’s a very poor ending indeed, and smacks of someone who has got so bored with the project they’re decided to do a Jess Franco and leave the audience with any old nonsense.

Horrible rotating bed in case you like nausea with your sex.

Ah yes, Jess Franco. If you had shown me the opening thirty minutes of this with no prior knowledge and asked me to guess a director it would have been His Jessness. The camera zooms in and out and in and out, there are a few wobbly shots of the setting sun, and an interest in weird architecture, all of which would suggest the slide-trombone-wielding hand of Mr Franco here. 

One reason to watch FIVE DOLLS

         But it’s not. It’s Mario Bava, who really should have known better. As should whoever approved the music score, which is another truly awful aspect to this film that cannot be forgiven. It’s as if someone lost the tapes for the orchestral Bruno Nicolai score that was intended to accompany this one and instead some bloke knocked it up on his Bontempi in 24 hours. Possibly one of the worst, most intrusive and most inappropriate scores to grace an Italian horror film, Piero Umiliani’s jazzy rubbish will be stuck in your head for hours afterwards, even though you won’t want it there.

Two reasons to watch FIVE DOLLS

         Are there any good points? Well, it IS Bava and so there are a few nicely framed shots, as well as at least one clever discovery of a murder. But the rest of the film is so boring that these are little recompense. At about forty minutes in one character says “Everyone seems to be waiting for something that’s not happening” and we know exactly what she means.

Bloody murder! At least you can't hear the music

Arrow’s Blu-ray comes with Italian and English dialogue tracks, and an option where you can just play the music if you’re completely insane. Tim Lucas provides us with his usual, thoroughly scholarly, work in a commentary track and there’s an hour long Bava documentary from 2000. 

         Oh, and I should probably mention FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON has got the supremely lovely Edwige Fenech in it. So there you go - one good reason for watching it after all. And I bet I end up watching it again someday for her if nothing else. If I ever get that theme tune out of my head. 

Arrow Films released Mario Bava's FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON on dual format UK Blu-ray and DVD on 

1st February 2016

Dr Goldfoot & the Girl Bombs (1966)

“Like the Chuckle Brothers tried to make a Bond film”

Another dose of kiddie-orientated comedy (at least I hope for all concerned that was the intention) arrives on UK DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of 101 Films in the form of this sequel to DR GOLDFOOT & THE BIKINI MACHINE. 

Vincent Price about to explain the plot of this one to the camera

         This time the dastardly super villain (Vincent Price once again, thank goodness) is blowing up NATO generals using girls in gold bikinis who explode when they’re kissed. Despatched to stop him is SIC agent Bill Dexter (1960s pop idol - it says here - Fabian - no, me neither). Helping, or rather ‘comedy hindering’ Bill are two Italian agents who respectively resemble Ron Perlman’s dad and Freddie ‘Parrot-Face’ Davies, whom nobody but the most obsessive of fans of 1970s British TV comedians will probably remember. Neither of them is as good an actor or as funny as Freddie, who was never that great in the first place, but he was much better than what we have to put up with here. 

Parrot face, Ron Perlman's dad, and two other people

         The exploding girl plotline is really the excuse on which to hang a series of increasingly poor comedy routines and chase sequences, culminating in a great long run around a park where Vincent Price gives up and disappears, only to pop up briefly again in the very end bit on a plane. It’s all supremely painful stuff, with the only reason to watch this being Price himself, who appears once again to be having a whale of a time. Although, when the highlight of a movie is seeing Vincent dress up as a nun, you know this is a film in trouble. 

Possibly the ONLY reason to watch this one

         Otherwise DR GOLDFOOT & THE GIRL BOMBS is unremittingly dire. Nobody else in the cast can act, there are lots of comedy effect boing noises, and the music by Les Baxter is reminiscent of the very worst of Max Harris or Ed Welch and wouldn't be out of place in ON THE BUSES or CONFESSIONS FROM A HOLIDAY CAMP.

More inspiration for Mike Myers

         DR GOLDFOOT & THE GIRL BOMBS was directed by Mario Bava when he was apparently having an off week. Certainly the only reasons to watch this are if you’re a Vincent Price completist (like me), a Mario Bava completist (like me) or if you’re a very undemanding seven year old (not me anymore). 101 Films offers a pretty good-looking transfer for the Blu-ray in 1:1.85 aspect. There are no extras and the film doesn’t really deserve any. Not the film to ever show to someone who wants to know what a Mario Bava film is like. 

DR GOLDFOOT & THE GIRL BOMBS is out now on DVD & Blu-ray from 101 Films

Black Sabbath (1963)

One of the most praised and appreciated of all anthology horror films, Mario Bava’s BLACK SABBATH (I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA in its native Italy) came about partly because of the huge success of AIP’s Tales of Terror (1960), which presented three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe directed by Roger Corman. Sidney Salkow’s TWICE TOLD TALES (1963) attempted to repeat that movie’s success by casting its star, Vincent Price, in three tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was AIP again, however who, in the middle of their Poe cycle and with Boris Karloff under contract, saw the lucrative potential in the casting of the then-host of the successful US anthology TV series THRILLER in an anthology picture and have him star in one of the episodes as well.    

        Mario Bava’s BLACK SUNDAY had been a big success all around the world and hence the film was retitled BLACK SABBATH everywhere except Italy. That, however, was not the only change. Apparently the content of the version Bava turned in was deemed too controversial by its US distributors who recut, reordered and rescored the film such that the two different titles ended up referring to quite different movies. These two versions are included in Arrow’s splendid three disc release of the movie so now fans can make up their own minds which they think is the better.

I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA (The Three Faces of Fear) presents three short horror tales allegedly written by authors as diverse as Gogol and Tolstoy but actually all made up by the screenwriters for the purpose of the movie. First off is The Telephone, in which pretty Michele Mercier comes home one evening to her Paris flat to be terrorised by a mysterious caller who claims to be her ex-lover. The only problem is he’s in prison - or is he? It’s the right story to begin the film with, easing the viewer into a scenario that gradually becomes more and more disturbing until the payoff.

The Wurdalak stars Boris Karloff and, for that reason alone, is probably the most famous segment. In the wilds of 19th century Russia Mark Damon comes across a headless corpse with a knife in its heart. Later on he stops at a cottage to ask for shelter for the night. The family within are awaiting the return of their patriarch (Karloff) who has been missing for several days. Apparently he went to do battle with a wurdalak - their term for vampire. At midnight Karloff returns, but it transpires that he is now a wurdalak himself as he proceeds to infect and destroy the entire family.

The Wurdalak is a step up in horror after The Telephone, and a step up in lush visuals as well. In fact this remains one of the most gorgeous and atmospherically shot segments of any horror film. The fact that it’s the middle segment makes one wonder how it can be topped, but Bava does so - superbly.

The Drop of Water is set in Victorian London. Jacqueline Pierreux plays a nurse who is the kind of heartless self-centred schemer that you know is going to meet a sticky end. She is called to a house where its owner, a medium, has just died. She steals the ring on the corpse’s finger, setting in motion a chain of events that allows Bava to bring the film to an end with an horrific tour de force of worrying sounds and creepy visuals. It’s a testament to the episode’s effectiveness that it’s better than The Wurdalak.

I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA ends on a somewhat curious note and those who would rather leave the film with a sense of delicious horror rather than stunned confusion may prefer to switch it off at this point. Apparently there was a demand for Karloff to appear at the end against Bava’s wishes and so he does, riding a prop horse as the camera pulls back to reveal the action is taking place in a studio. It’s the only misplaced note in one of the classic horror films of all time. It was Bava’s own favourite of the many horror pictures he made and it’s not difficult to see why.

The AIP US cut of BLACK SABBATH is also present in Arrow’s set and it’s probably best viewed only after watching the definitive Italian version described above. It would be unfair to those who haven’t seen Bava’s original to describe some of the changes as they involved excising some of the more controversial plot elements. First off the order is changed so that The Drop of Water is first and The Wurdalak comes at the end. The Telephone, now in the middle, was drastically recut to change the plot entirely. Karloff’s opening narration has been shot differently as well, and now he pops up between stories to introduce them whereas in the original there are no linking sequences. The restored BluRay of BLACK SABBATH played at Glasgow FrightFest a couple of years ago and critic Alan Jones commented that there were more people present at that screening than at the UK premiere of the movie back in 1963.

I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA in both its forms finally made its debut on UK DVD and BluRay a little later than originally planned but it was all the more welcome for the top-notch job Arrow Video managed. As well as BluRay transfers of both films, the three disc set includes both movies on DVD as well, and you’ll need to watch all three discs to see the fabulous bounty of extras Arrow has seen fit to provide. First off is a commentary track by Bava expert Tim Lucas for the original Italian print. As one has come to expect from Mr Lucas, it's packed with facts and interesting bits of information and is well worth a listen if you’re interested in aspects of the movie’s production.

Possibly the best extra, and one that will prove fascinating to those interested in the American repackaging of European product, is the thirty minute featurette Twice the Fear. This allows direct comparison between the two versions, and shows that not just picture editing, but music and sound effects were radically changed to create the two versions. This is definitely worth watching, if only to see how Bava creates more tension with dripping water than AIP does with Les Baxter’s blaring horn section and a lot of other noise as well.

With the two versions of the film, the commentary, and Twice the Fear the Blu Ray comes to an end and so one has to turn to the DVDs to see the introduction from Alan Jones, the trailers, the picture gallery, and another goodie - a twenty minute interview with star and future film producer Mark Damon, who talks about his entire career from being discovered by Groucho Marx up to and including producing the Academy Award-winning MONSTER starring Charlize Theron. 

All this, plus the usual excellent Graham Humphreys artwork, a booklet with an essay on the film and an interview with Samuel Z Arkoff, rounds off a package that is one of Arrow’s best contributions to the preservation of cult horror cinema yet. An essential purchase and well worth the wait.

Arrow Films released Mario Bava's BLACK SABBATH on 13th May 2013 in a triple disc dual format edition (Blu-ray and DVD) which is still available

Blood and Black Lace (1964)

A gloriously stylish, colourful and original movie that virtually invented the Italian giallo subgenre and blazed a trail so bright that horror cinema was never quite the same again, Mario Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE gets an all-singing all-dancing Blu-ray & DVD release from Arrow that's already had more favourable reviews than you can shake a stick at. In your black leather gloves. Before picking up a razor and brandishing it at a pretty girl who will react by saying lines like 'Oh it's you' and 'Why are you waving that razor at me?' while you say nothing at all.

Oh yes it's giallo time, big time. 

After Hammer changed the face of horror cinema forever with their Eastmancolor marvels in the late 1950s, exploitation movie companies all over the world sought to emulate the success of the new British gothic. In the US, AIP went for adapting Poe, while Italy jumped on the bandwagon as well. BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, though, is anything but a ripoff of another country's cinema, even though it owes its existence to Hammer's gothic renaissance. In fact Bava's film might well be the perfect example of a genre Italian cinema made its own. When BLOOD AND BLACK LACE came out the horror murder mystery genre was still doing its best to copy Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960), and Hammer's imitations were just as bland as the rest of them.

Warming up with his own THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, Bava went on to revolutionise the Ten Little Indians / Body Count murder mystery genre with this, a movie that features many of what would soon be considered giallo tropes (or even cliches) for the very first time. BLOOD AND BLACK LACE features beautiful girls, stylish murders, gorgeously lit scenes that would be at home hanging in the Louvre, a collection of colourful red herrings, and a story that is less a masterpiece of intricate twists and plotting and more like one of the movie's fashion model victims - something on which all the above elements can be draped and shown off to their best advantage.

Models at a top fashion house are being stalked by a faceless killer who is bumping them off in a variety of stylish (and actually rather cruel) ways. Who will be next? Who is the murderer? Is that diary important? Does it actually matter when this film is such a sumptous feast for the eyes? You might not be entirely convinced by the denouement, but if that worries you then you've missed the point, because who actually did the murders is usually one of the least important elements of this kind of cinema, where style is far more important than logic.

Arrow's Blu-ray and DVD set comes packed with extras. The transfer itself is absolutely beautiful. I saw this version on the big screen at Glasgow Frightfest and the quality is so fine the film almost looks as if it was made yesterday rather than 50 years ago. There are both English and Italian dialogue tracks  - I'd go with the Italian if I were you, along with the newly translated subtitles. Tim Lucas gives us the commentary he was born to do, packed with so many facts and anecdotes it deserves several listens.       
        Psychoanalysis is a documentary that traces the origins of giallo and features, amongst others, Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava and one of my personal idols, screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. Argento & Lamberto also feature on a panel discussion about Mario Bava, and there's an episode of David del Valle's TV series The Sinister Image all about BLOOD & BLACK LACE star Cameron Mitchell. Exclusive to the Blu-ray is the short 'neo-giallo' Yellow, but both formats have everything else, including alternate opening titles, a trailer, a short appreciation by Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani (who made STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS), and Gender & Giallo - a visual essay that sets the subgenre in context with the times in which these films were most popular. There's also the usual booket and a reversible sleeve unless you've bought the steelbook, which is just gorgeous. One of the Blu-ray releases of this year and thoroughly deserving of all the good reviews and everyone's support.

Arrow Films released Mario Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE in steelbook Blu-ray and standard DVD and Blu-ray dual editions on 13th April 2015

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)

The genre of giallo as many of us know and love it apparently had its roots in this black and white offering from director Mario Bava. If that truly is the case, then it’s a reasonable, if fairly uninspiring, start but I suppose all such things have to begin somewhere.

Pretty Nora Davis (Leticia Roman) travels to Rome for a holiday. By the time she has got off the plane from New York and is at her Auntie Ethel’s she’s already had a pack of marijuana cigarettes passed to her by the drug smuggler who was sitting next to her on the plane, and she’s met local doctor John Saxon. Auntie Ethel dies, Nora sets off for the local hospital to tell someone, and on the way there she gets mugged and knocked out. When she wakes up she gets to see a dreamy blurry woman with a knife in her back and a bearded man tugging the knife out. No-one believes her, except of course the ‘Alphabet Killer’ who has already done away with girls whose surnames begin with A, B & C. Could Miss Davis be next?

Aping an idea first popularised by Agatha Christie in her 1936 novel The ABC Murders, which was itself made into the entertaining THE ALPHABET MURDERS by Frank Tashlin in 1965, THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH doesn’t really have that much going for it other than some stylish sequences which are so beautifully lit they’re almost worth the price of admission. Bava fans will want this anyway, but it will also be of interest to anyone who’s a fan of early 1960s black and white thrillers. Everyone else may well find it doesn’t have quite the substance of contemporary Hammer psycho-thrillers like PARANOIAC or SCREAM OF FEAR - there’s too much travelogue footage of Rome and the romantic subplot never really gels. The unmasking of the killer, which should be the climax in a film of this type, is just a bit too confusing and underwhelming for it to work.

Arrow’s Blu-ray looks good on the whole. There are a few  scratches and print damage but this is still a fine-looking version. Extras include THE EVIL EYE, which is the US cut of the film. It’s actually longer but that’s due to some not-terribly-effective comedy sequences that really are of their time. As with some of the other US versions of Bava movies, Roberto Nicolosi’s score has been replaced by one by Les Baxter. I have to say I much prefer the Nicolosi, even if the opening song sounds like The Cramps doing a send up of early 1960s Euro-crooning. Fans of Douglas Gamley’s Amicus work (VAULT OF HORROR, ASYLUM and the like) may well want to give Nicolosi’s score a listen as he uses quite a few similar musical effects and motifs and I wonder if Gamley (who had already done the music for Amicus / Vulcan’s CITY OF THE DEAD in 1960) was inspired by them later on.

You also get a commentary track by Tim Lucas, an introduction from Alan Jones, and a featurette entitled All About The Girl in which directors Richard Stanley, Luigi Cozzi, and others talk about the film. Trailers and a reversible sleeve with the usual excellent Graham Humphreys artwork complete the package. 

Arrow Films released Mario Bava's THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH on dual format Region 2 DVD and Region B Blu-ray on 17th November 2014