Blood and Black Lace

 

An Italian Horror film from 1964 set the standard for Masked Villians. It starred an American, but its director Mario Bava was a scene stealer with Gillio's blueprint that made others want to make horror in the future. The film starred Cameron Mitchell who many probably remember from High Chaparral. Although, it is an Italian film. 

It's a thriller, a mystery, and the start of Slasher Horror. There is a European version and an American Version of this horror film. In the process, some dubbing went on since it was originally in Italian. Also it is a hard film to find to watch. Guaranteed! The 8 greatest shocks ever filmed!

Storyline: Isabella, a young model, is murdered by a mysterious masked figure at a boarding house run by Max Morlan and his lover, Countess Christina Como. When Isabella's boyfriend is suspected of the killing, her diary, which apparently has some incriminating evidence linking her to the killer, disappears, and the masked killer starts killing off all the models in and around the house to find the diary.

A giallo film is often credited to 20th-century Italian murder-mystery films which contain elements of both horror and thriller regardless of their national origin. Many English speakers use the term to specifically refer to a genre of Italian-produced thriller-horror films, also called "Spaghetti Slashers," with filmmakers like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci coming to mind as masters of the genre.

The giallo genre began as literal adaptations of the original giallo mystery novels with the 1933 film, Giallo. Filmmakers soon saw the genre as a place to experiment with cinematic techniques that played with the audience’s psyche, creating films that were filled with paranoia and perversion.