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Mario Bava's thrillingly titled Kill, Baby, Kill is one of the director's greatest gothic works. Set in the early 20th Century, the film finds a doctor arriving in a small European village to perform an autopsy on a woman who mysteriously bled to death. The locals insist that the village is haunted by the ghost of a young girl who was killed decades ago, and that she is the cause of a series of inexplicable deaths in the town. The doctor begins working with a nurse and a local inspector to try to get to the bottom of the alleged curse.

The film's eye-catching cinematography is radiant, casting lurid strips of light against grand baroque architecture. The film's innovative use of colour has been cited as an influence on Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ 1988 – with Scorsese even declaring the film Bava's best. The spectral girl at the heart of Kill, Baby, Kill is a truly eerie presence, with her white dress and bouncing ball unforgettable pieces of horror iconography. Bava treats the film as a chance to consider morally grey notions of fear and revenge, in this wonderfully surreal voyage into the heart of gothic cinema.

Alternative titles: Operation Fear; Curse of the Dead; Curse of the Living Dead; Don't Walk in the Park