THIS WEEKS MOVIE pt.2

THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057078/

Last night i watched this Mario Bava film that i had never seen before. To be honest i had high expectations of this movie before even seeing anything about it. Hell, its Mario Bava for fucks sake. He has made two of my personal favorite movies ive ever seen (Black Sabbath (1963) and Mask of Satan (1960) ) as well as a slew of other great movies that ive loved. Another thing that got me all exited was that the great Christopher Lee was in this. I mean, what movie does he NOT make awsome....?
Well. what could be wrong with this movie? Two things i did not like. One, the pacing of the film. I know that Bava is a master at creating "mood" and having great sets and great lighting ect. but it did seem to me that for the first half of this movie the camera liked to linger and pan around too much to try and show a atmosphere that was already present in the movie with the creepy castle by the ocean and the suspicion of a lingering ghost. To me it just seemed overkill really. Second, and i know im giving to much away here but Mr. Lee's character (Kurt Menliff) died waaay too early and limited his spoken lines in the movie to only the first quarter. That sucked...
Those two things are really the only thing that i believe holds this movie back from being another gothic masterpiece from Bava as the rest of the movie was great. I thought the beautiful Ida Galli was wonderful and reminded me of the great Barbara Steele not only in her appearance but her acting as well. Just wish i would have seen some flesh in this one..... (yes, that means no nudity) but there is a rather sexy underlying tone of sex through violence hence the name which was pretty cool.
Al in all, if you like Bava's work and have never seen this then by all means do so cause its pretty enjoyable and definatly has his trademarks. If youve never seen a Bava film (!) then id start with something else honestly.
Heres the trailer (its in French i believe but i dont know...need to ask the wife)