The Whip and the Body (1963)

I wanted to but couldn't!

Good concept, poorly executed.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Christopher Lee plays one of his most scary characters here as Kurt, the black sheep of a family living in one of those numerous scary castles you get in Italy. He's been banished for some time, but the family are still suffering from his antics.At the request of his father, Lee's brother has now married his old love Navenka, even though he's really in love with his cousin Ida Galli. Even the servants seem to have suffered, with the old maid cursing Lee's name as he seems to have caused her daughter's suicide. She even keeps the dagger her daughter used to kill herself in a jar.As you would expect, Lee returns from his exile to everyone's horror, and it looks as if he's out to get revenge on the family that hate him until someone sticks a knife through his throat. Death of course is a kind of mild hindrance in a Gothic horror, so shortly afterwards Lee's ghost starts appearing everywhere...so far so normal, right?It would be your standard Gothic horror if Lee didn't like whipping the crap out of his old girlfriend Daliah Lavi. When he returns he manages to get her down on the beach, and even though she protests, Lee states in his loud Shakespearean voice "Yeah, ya like that, dontcha bitch?" which gives this film a weird S&M flavour way ahead of the pervy excess of Jess Franco. This being a Mario Bava film the cinematography is probably better than any film of it's time, with every frame looking like some demented oil painting. This just adds to the atmosphere, however, as does Lee's huge, hunky, evil frame.Bava always found some angle to make his films stand out from others and although I wouldn't put this among my personal favourites of his films, it's another example of him being way ahead of his time, and a true master of Italian cinema. I would have gone mental at all those muddy footprints everywhere. There's only so much Shake N Vac can do.

The Whip and the Body was a controversial film in its day. This was because of its scenes showing Christopher Lee sadistically whipping Daliah Lavi. These may not seem like so much today but back in the early 60's this was pretty edgy stuff to say the least. Nowadays, this film is celebrated mainly for other reasons; chief amongst them being that it is yet another stylish movie from the legendary Italian genre film director Mario Bava. It starts with a sadistic nobleman returning to his family home after years of banishment. He immediately starts pursuing his brother's wife in a lecherous fashion and before long they embark on a secretive sadomasochistic affair. The trouble is, he is soon murdered by a mystery assassin and to make matters even more complicated he subsequently seems to return from the dead as an evil spirit.Like the other Gothic horror films directed by Bava, this one's strength isn't so much in its story as in its presentation. This director is remembered as a cinematic stylist and this is another of his films that illustrates why. It's visually beautiful with excellent compositions and cinematography allied to Bava's typically great use of coloured lighting. Of particular note are the scenes involving Lee's character returning from the grave in the dead of night. These are typified by kaleidoscopic colours and the emphasis on unusual details, such as spider-like hands. Adding to the atmosphere is a lush score from Carlo Rustichelli which was also partially reused in Bava's later cinematic milestone Blood and Black Lace (1964). It all adds up to a film so rich in style an atmosphere that it makes up for deficits such as its slow pace. It's basically yet another film that illustrates how brilliant and important a director Mario Bava was.

Sadistic scoundrel Kurt (Christopher lee), black sheep of the family, returns home to find that absence hasn't exactly made the heart grow fonder: his father (Gustavo De Nardo), brother Christian (Tony Kendall), ex-lover Nevenka (Daliah Lavi) and housemaid Giorgia (Harriet Medin) still find him utterly loathsome. Unsurprisingly, Kurt winds up being murdered, but even death cannot stop his cruelty...In keeping with its Sadean theme, The Whip and the Body is both a pleasure to behold and a pain to endure: aesthetically, the film cannot be rivalled, with excellent costume and set design, and exquisite direction from Mario Bava, whose camera glides gracefully through pools of coloured light and ominous swathes of shadow to great effect; the story, however, is less impressive, a trite exercise in Gothic cliché, replete with a creepy cliff-top castle continually battered by strong winds and thunderstorms, a raft of morbid characters, all of whom harbour dark secrets, loads of tiresome symbolism, and some ridiculous psychological claptrap.The sado-masochistic nature of the central relationship between Kurt and Navenka (which is surprisingly way ahead of its time) prevents the film from attaining coma-inducing levels, but with extremely long periods where nothing much of interest happens, the film is far from the perfect perverted and poetic love story that its ardent supporters claim it to be.8 out of 10 for the lovely imagery, but 4/10 for the story—so that's an average rating of 6/10.

Whip and the Body, The (1963) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Christopher Lee plays a sadistic nobleman who returns home to terrorize his family after leaving home years earlier after forcing his girlfriend to commit suicide. Soon he is found dead with his throat slit and soon after he ghost begins to appear as more bodies start to pile up. All the praise thrown on director Bava is certainly needed because it's obvious he could take some mud and make it look wonderful but that doesn't mean all his films turn out great. I think the biggest flaw with this film is the rather weak story, which doesn't really contain any shocks and it's fairly simple to figure out what's going on so in the end, when the climax happens, there's no real shocks. Christopher Lee turns in a terrific performance, even though, for some reason, his voice is dubbed in the English language version. That fantastic look that Lee brings says all we need to know about his character. The supporting cast isn't as impressive but they fit their roles just fine. The cinematography is top notch and the use of lighting is also what makes this film stand apart from others in this era.