The Whip and the Body

1963 horror movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: I'd rather not.

Hopes were high with this since the other two Mario Bava movies from 1963 are fantastic. Both Black Sabbath and The Girl Who Knew Too Much are classics, but maybe it's just asking too much of a director to have three great movies in a single year. Also, there's the tantalizing title. Now, it's entirely possible that some really terrible dubbing sank this one, but I'm fairly positive it wouldn't have been good without that problem. Maybe the problem isn't even the dubbing. Maybe it's how many times the characters say the name "Kurt" in this movie.

Christopher Lee is in this. He plays "Kurt," but he wasn't able to lend his own voice to this one.

There are a handful of atmospheric moments and a few shots that were at least capable of reminding me that I was watching a Mario Bava movie, but this is unfortunately really flat. And cheap. And it's not nearly as scandalous as the title might make it seem. Yes, there's a whip, a body, and even a whipped body, but it's hardly the sort of thing anybody would find sexy unless said person has a back and/or shoulder fetish.

This almost seems like a parody of a ghost story instead of an actual ghost story. There are more moments capable of causing eye rolls or chuckles than there are ones that you'd call horrifying. And once a deceased character starts walking around and leaving really thick muddy tracks, it really gets ludicrous. It's all really silly and dull simultaneously, not a combination you'd expect from Bava.