You have to love a film that starts with a woman running out of a decrepit mansion, screaming and impaling herself on a pointy fence.

Dashing Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) arrives at a dreary village in the Carpathian Mountains to perform an autopsy.

“I’m dashing.”

Inspector Krueger (Piero Lulli) wants to find the cause of death of Irena (the impaler) and the villagers are stonewalling him. They can’t or won’t talk about the young woman’s death because they fear the curse, plaguing their village for years, will afflict them too. The doctor performs the autopsy with the help of Monika Shuftan (Erika Blanc), a beautiful science student who happens to be in town visiting her parents’ graves. They’re a cheery bunch.

“I’m not sure we should use this picture for the brochure.”

Meanwhile, the burgomeister (Luciano Catenacci) pretends to help Krueger while simultaneously not telling him anything and conspiring with his lover, sexy witch Ruth (the mesmerizing Fabienne Dali) to insert coins into the hearts of all the corpses. Yeah, I don’t know. Oh, all right. Ruth, places the coins in the victims’ hearts to ward off Baroness Graps’ supernatural powers. The baroness (Giovanna Galletti), who lives in a huge derelict castle that looks like it was decorated by Miss Havisham for her Halloween layout, blames the entire village for the death of her daughter twenty years before.

Ruth

Paul does some sleuthing himself, asking the locals about the curse and trying to convince them that a cold compress is better for a young girl’s fever than wrapping a weird barbed plant around her chest.

More villagers die violently and Paul runs around town getting locked into places and yelling “Monika!” a lot. Monika keeps seeing a little dead girl everywhere and wakes up after a nightmare to find a bald doll on her bed. She tries to hold it together, but the ghost kid keeps appearing and by now the corpses are really piling up.

“I wanted granite.”

I won’t delve too deeply into the plot because I recommend you see Kill Baby, Kill and I don’t want to spoil it for you. It’s a cool, suspenseful film with a few nice scares and solid performances. Paul and Monika make a pretty pair. They’re both likable, intelligent, and not swept away by the hysteria of the townsfolk. Even when Monika is completely terrified, she listens to reason, and I love the way Paul scoffs at the barbaric medical practices of the locals. He’s too logical for this crap, but even he gets a little freaked out when doors start closing on their own.

Nice arm sconces

Kill Baby, Kill has a cool medieval look to it. The dilapidated stone castles give the film a worn-out gothic look that fits in with the idea of a remote town that’s given up. Director, Mario Bava, must have blown the budget on dry ice and cobwebs and he was right to do it. The whole atmosphere lends itself to spooky goings-on. Bava and his cinematographer, Antonio Rinaldi, who also shot Danger: Diabolik and Planet of the Vampires, used the set, including a gorgeous spiral staircase, beautifully.

See?

The scenes with the little ghost girl gazing through windows and bouncing a white ball are wonderful.

Wrong kid.

Kill Baby, Kill is a fun watch. The characters are worth caring about and the story, by Bava, Romano Migliorini, and Roberto Natale, has enough going on to keep you interested. It’s a fun Halloween-y film.