Deserves its place in horror history

Often cited as the movie that gave birth to the giallo film genre, Mario Bava's classic still holds up pretty well after 60 years. There's a truly international cast (headed by Hungarian-British actress Eva Bartok and American actor Cameron Mitchell), and the performances are mostly good - although the version I watched suffered from an English dub which made the dialogue sound stilted at times. The kills are pretty convincing and must have seemed extremely 'hard-hitting' at the time the film was released. It's easy to see why as well as being credited for kick-starting the giallo genre, Blood and Black Lace is also widely regarded as a 'proto-slasher' (although by slasher standards there aren't that many kills). The exposition dump towards the end is a bit heavy, but this is still entertaining - and stylish as hell.