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OPERAZIONE PAURA (1966)
Director/Cinematographer: Mario Bava
Story: Roberto Natale and Romano Migliorini.
Screenplay: Mario Bava, Roberto Natale, and Romano Migliorini
Camera Operator:
Antonio Rinaldi
Editing: Romana Fortini
Music: Carlo Rustichelli and Roman Vlad
Main Players: Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (Dr. Eswai); Erica Blanc (Monica); Giana Vivaldi [Giovanna Galetti] (Baroness Graps); Fabienne Dali (Ruth); Max Lawrence
(Burgomaster Karl); Piero Lulli (Inspector Kruger); Giuseppe Addobbati (Innkeeper)
Alternate titles: Kill, Baby... Kill!; Curse of the Dead; Curse of the Living Dead; Operation Fear; Curse of Melissa
Aspect ratio:
1.85:1 (Matted to 2.1 Panoramico for Italian
distribution) |
SYNOPSIS:
Dr. Eswai, a coroner, arrives in a secluded Transylvanian village to
perform an autopsy. At the inn, he meets with Inspector Kruger, who is
investigating the death of a young girl who was employed as a maid at
Villa Graps. The inspector has summoned Eswai to the village so that he
can perform an autopsy on the girl, much to the dismay of the locals.
With the assistance of Monica, who has just recently returned to the
village for the first time since she was a child, Dr. Eswai performs the
autopsy. They make an incredible discovery, namely the presence of a
gold coin imbedded in the girl's heart. Monica reveals that this is
consistent with local superstition. "Only with money in the heart," she
says, "can one who meets a violent death ever rest in peace." The theme
of greed, so central to Bava's work, factors into this film as well, so
it is doubly ironic that money should be the only way to insure a
peaceful afterlife in this particular narrative.
 Following the autopsy, Eswai assists Monica back to her home. He his then attacked by several villagers, who swear vengeance on him for
"profaning" the dead girl's body. Only the sudden appearance of a
mysterious woman, clad enirely in black, saves the doctor. Before he
can thank her, the woman disappears into the fog.
Back at the inn, Eswai receives a note instructing him to join Inspector
Kruger at Villa Graps. When the doctor asks Nadine, the innkeeper's
little girl, to direct him to the villa she warns him to stay away from
the place. She then runs off in terror, begging the doctor to forget
that she ever mentioned the place. Eswai then departs, and hen Nadine
goes to lock the door behind him, she is terrified by the sight of a
ghostly little girl, perring in at her through a window. She then tells
her parents what she has seen, and so they send for Ruth, a sorceress
who has the power to ward off evil spirits. When she arrives, it turns
out to be the same black-clad young woman who had earlier saved Dr.
Eswai from the vengeful villagers. Ruth says several prayers over the
girl, before giving her a leech-vine to wear around her chest. As long
as she wears this, Ruth promises, Nadine will be safe.
Villa Graps is surrounded by an aura of fear and mystery that the doctor
is anxious to resolve. Years earlier, Baroness Graps placed a curse on
the villagers when her little girl, Melissa, was trampled to death by
drunken townspeople during the village festival. Now the ghost of
little Melissa haunts the guilt-ridden people, and all who make mention
of the Baroness and her child meet with violent ends.
At the villa, Eswai is confronted by the Baroness. Shut away from the
outside world in a morbid environment dominated by black lace curtains
and remnants of the past, the Baroness appears to be haunted by
supernatural apparitions. She curtly tells the doctor that she never
receives guests, denies any knowledge of Inspector Kruger's whereabouts,
and slams the door in his face. The doctor then sees Melissa, who is
dressed in a blindingly white dress and is bouncing a ball. He attempts
to talk to her, refusing to believe the superstitions of the villagers,
but she seems to disappear into thin air.
 Meanwhile, Monica is plagued by nightmares. When she awakens, she finds a doll (similar to one which figured into her dream) laying at her feet.
Terrified by this bizarre occurence, she flees from her home and runs
into the doctor. Together they return to the inn. Monica confesses her
fears to the doctor, who still stubbornly denies the existence of the
supernatural. Like the characters of Gorobec and Kruveian in LA
MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO, Eswai places his faith in logic; like them, also,
he will soon be forced to abandon these pre-held beliefs and notions
when the supernatural forces become too tangibly real to explain away.
While Monica is shown to a room by the innkeeper, Eswai is distracted by
moans coming from Nadine's bedroom. He goes in and sees the girl
writhing about in the bed, apparently suffering from a fever. Pulling
back the sheets, he discovers the leech-vine. Though her mother assures
him that it is there for her own protection, the doctor removes it,
angrily pointing out that Nadine would bleed to death if she kept it on.
His care for the girl does no good, however, and later that night the
ghost of Melissa reappears, compelling the girl to stab herself to
death.
Eswai and Monica begin to delve even deeper into the mystery. A
mysterious light appears in the cemetery, and when they go to
investigate, they discover the body of Inspector Kruger, who has been
shot in the head. Eswai brings the crime to the attention of
burgomaster Karl, who reluctantly agrees to shed some light on the
situation. After telling them the story of Melissa, the burgomaster
then reveals that Monica is actually the dead girl's sister.
Unfortunately, before he can produce Monica's birth certificate, he is
driven to suicide when Melissa's ghost appears to him in the attic.
Monica then disappears, and Eswai returns to the villa in the hopes of
finding her there. His suspicion is correct, though she is already in
grave danger: the Baroness, her mother, has set Melissa's ghost against
her. Yet, it is Ruth who puts an end to the Baroness' schemes. Spurned
on by the death of the burgomaster -- her lover -- Ruth confronts the
crazed Baroness, who mortally wounds her nemesis by plunging a poker
into her ribs. With her last ounce of strength, Ruth stranfgles the
countess to death; upon her death, Melissa's spirit is set free. Eswai
and Monica are then free to leave the villa, and all of its unpleasant
memories, behind them.
CRITIQUE:
 OPERAZIONE PAURA is truly one of the last -- and best -- subtle pieces of horror filmmaking. In this case, Bava sets out to chill the audience
instead of shocking them, and he does so admirably. The atmosphere he
creates is so powerful that the film seems to exude a hypnotic,
hallucinatory effect.
The elements of sex and sadism -- so central to SEI DONNE PER
L'ASSASSINO and LA FRUSTA E IL CORPO -- are down-played in favor of
concentrating on supernatural dread. The villagers' guilt and fear are
readily apparent from the beginning. The attempts of the coroner to
shed the cold light of reason on the supernatural events is totally
useless. The ghost is terrifyingly real and, though she never comes
itno physical contact with her victims, her mere presence is enough to
drive them to their deaths.
One of the most interesting things about this film is the way in which
Bava inverts the conventional symbols of good and evil. The monster
here is an angelic-looking little girl, clad entirely in white. The
mere sight of this figure is enough to send the characters (and the
audience) into a state of fear and anxiety. In this way, Bava is again
able to delve into his obsession with the nature of appearances. The
film is certainly not without sympathetic characters (in fact, one could
argue that this is Bava's most humane horror film), but the actual hero
is not the doctor -- likable he may be, but his actions have little
positive effect, and he is actually responsible for at least one death
-- but rather the black-clad witch. This clever inversion of
conventional archetypes succeeds in giving the film a complexity that is
quite beyond the simplistic narrative conventions of LA MASCHERA DEL
DEMONIO.
Bava is sometimes criticized for depicting women as weak, even deserving,
victims. This is an accusation which is commonly based on conjecture
rather than objective observation, as a single viewing of this film
makes readily apparent. More so than any of his other films, OPERAZIONE
PAURA is driven onward by strong female characters: the vengeful spirit
of Melissa, strong-willed medical student Monica, the witch, the
Baroness, etc.
 Like Freda's I VAMPIRI (1956), this film provides a brash commentary on the aristocracy. In I VAMPIRI it is the aged and selfish Duchess Du
Grand who instigates the murders of various "commoners" in order that
she can retain her beauty. The message is clear, and it provides a
telling portrait of what privilege/social standing can breed when
combined with moral bankruptcy. Bava uses much the same idea in this
film, though his treatment of it is more complex and expansive.
Baroness Graps is not only "bleeding" the poerty-stricken villagers dry,
but she is using the enslaved spirit of her "favorite" daughter to act as
an avenger. The little girl was accidentally killed by the drunken
villagers, but the Baroness never explains where she was when all of
this was happening; it was the neglectful parenting of the Baroness
which made the accident possible. When Monica returns to the villa, the
Baroness acts like the perfect mother, urging her to flee before the
"evil" Melissa decides to kill them both -- the truth, of course, is
that Melissa is powerless to act on her own, and only does what her
demented mother tells her to do. Greed and insanity have totally
distorted the Baroness's mind -- an idea rendered visually by Bava's use
of fun-house imagery -- and she is even willing to kill her only
surviving daughter in order to hold onto her power and authority.
Locked away in a crumbling and decrepit mansion which symbolizes both
her physical appearance and moral degradation, the Baroness punished
innocent villagers from a crime they had no part in. The crimes that she
commits through her daughter's ghost are symbolic of a tyrannical
aristocracy struggling to keep their hold over an under-privileged
populace.
OPERAZIONE PAURA is a masterful film in every respect, but perhaps
Bava's greatest achievement is the way in which he makes the
supernatural goings-on seem totally believeable. The characters have no
particular depth, but the viewer genuinely cares about what is going to
happen to them. The bleached colors of the landscape, the dead trees,
swirling mists and creeping camera movements (all achieved in a mere 11
days of shooting!) help to create a powerfully morbid and unsettling
atmosphere. It is as if the entire film is set in a graveyard in the
middle of the night. Though seldom seen today (like most Bava films,
one has to look for it), OPERAZIONE PAURA is nevertheless a masterpiece
of its kind, and a textbook example of how to make a subtly scary horror
film.
Review © Troy Howarth
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