KILL, BABY…KILL!
(Operaziona Paura/Operation Fear, 1966; d. Mario Bava, w. Romano Migliorini, Roberto Natale + MB, story RM + RN)

Screaming woman flees castle (fearful psychic material arising from unconscious + social "structure") for tower, from which she leaps onto spiked gate (cf prolog Black Sunday spiked mask: piercing pathology – à la later "leech vine" – to yield cure), giggling whitedressed girl descending stairs after (purity returned on ridding of mature self, she also symptom 2B pursued + examined thru’out film proper).

Post-credits (preceding information archetypal, symbolic or predisposing material "fleshed out" in dream), coachman arrives w/ coroner (analyst come to evaluate pathology) Dr Paul Eswe (again, after similar Sunday opening, that film’s 2 docs reduced to 1 suggesting step saved on resolution of that film’s elder Kruvajan character) following interment by robed figures (psychic agents seeking to "bury" material: dream-censor working to keep disturbing info from sleeping mind), escorted upstairs by cueball Burgomeister Karl (phallic not-the-consciousness taking doc to next level) to see Inspector Kruger (fellow-K consc’ss investigating "mysterious Irena Hollander": opening suicide of neutral middleground), who proffers on Eswe "problem you must unravel" (Self conferring on self personal + social issue encoded in dream): homicide? (film autopsy, her letter transmission from deepest unconscious); unearth hastily-buried body (fem self-img disposed-of at crisis time) before recalled by Karl (questionees fled on news of resurrection: irrelevant now that body itself – in which answer lies – available), who claims powerlessness here (Reason impotent in irrational unconsc).

While prepping autopsy, sent-for "witness" Monica (fem element again necessary to proper disposal of investigation: conscience to complement his science, together "reconstructing" neutral Holland-er) Schüfftan (after cameraman Eugen, w/ whom Bava worked on ’54 Ulysses: camera itself instrument of introspection for fellow cinematographer) arrives after 20-yr absence (when "curse" struck town, Self’s affliction her loss), having returned day Hollander died (mind compensating for loss, she blonde not-Irena returned at pivotal age à la Sunday’s 21-yr-old Asa/Katia/Masha), Girl outside swinging by graveyard (contiguity of youth + death Monica’s own childhood at end) as Eswe removes coin from corpse heart (where treasure lies for coldly rational doc); walks Monica home (catacomb-streets for doc/couple caught in mystery, town itself à la bowels he studying) as she describes returning to visit unknown parents’ grave (autopsy investigation into own past/i.d.) after living off inheritance (she $ embedded in heart, "Monica" meaning advisor or guide), Eswe followed on way home (additional witness; cf other Bava observers in Girl Who Knew Too Much, Planet o/t Vampires, Hatchet for the Honeymoon et al, he/camera witness to history) + ambushed by gravediggers (dream-censors again at work) stopped by sorceress Ruth (Remorse: raven-haired cousin of conscience for town w/ guilty secret + another in series [w/ Knives o/t Avenger, Hercules i/t Haunted World, Black Sabbath "Drop of Water", 5 Solls for an August Moon + Baron Blood] of redeemed Sunday witches/seers).

Back at inn (temporary resting-place aka sleep), pubescent maid Nadine sez Inspector Kruger gone to Villa Graps (from which "You don’t come back": permanent death + forgetting) then sees Girl at window (beyond threshold: own soon-expired girlhood, she stand-in for Monica à la Sunday village girl/Katia), followed by Ruth at door (dark antidote to Girl’s pale vengeance); Eswe (Pig-Latin for Planet’s Wes; just kidding) distracted from Kruger letter (à la IH missive, he gone to same place as she ie associated in mind – the authoritative masc + servile fem) by Ruth’s strafing Nadine w/ branch (natural bloodbringing à la later leech vine: menstruation, ritual bridging "maid" to adulthood) as Girl’s hand + face appear at window (corporealizing bit by bit as investigation develops, she Mystery all seeking).

Accosts Ruth outside (believes she implanted coin: intuition [physician going by zero forensic evidence the rational mind softening to fem/unconscious influence] that reward now in irrational methods despite protestations of trust in [dead] Kruger) + asks directions to Villa Graps (guided by sorcery) – observed by Monica (witness, again, she overseeing his progress like 2001 sentinel); at home (centered, like many in Bava, around hearth: warm center of Self + fiery origin of images; Latin focus for former cameraman), Ruth surprised by company of Karl My Dearest (couple harmonic unity of un/consciousness), who presents her w/ new corpse (presumably initialsake Kruger, his external/realworld other signaling 1st death of consc’ss) she implants w/ coin (to keep from resurrecting: richness of heart cure for vengeance) + has him cart off (or he’ll become "remorseless" ghost, ie w/o "Ruth", she placing part of self in their hearts).

Eswe reaches vacant Villa Graps (spiral staircase vortex o/t feminine sex + unconscious: center o/t physical + narrative labyrinth, à la spine or DNA helix) but for batty Baroness (no mention ever of Baron: villa femininity + Unconsc itself, she also denying Inspector ever came), who evicts him, he following Ball Girl ("My name is Melissa" – "Queen Bee" – acquiring i.d. same time as full figure: she enigmatic/unknowable force dandling world, blank resurrected non-Christ aka Death, seen shortly after in portrait w/ skull [cf Sunday nude w/ snake, aka lifeforce]) + toy thru corridors + down stairs (à la Sunday Kruvajan + lamp; cf also 5 Dolls’ cascading marbles: world tumbling bouncily downhill) to her tomb marked 1880-1887 (youth itself, now gone: life’s other great mystery); meanwhile, Monica stirs in dream (imgs of portrait, Baroness, 2 kids + doll: various facets of self she seeking to unify/resolve: adult, child + divided in-btwn) + finds Paul in streets (nightmare "brought on by the autopsy" – examination of dead girl à la mystery of Melissa, query into own lost yrs on leaving village), tolling bell (tho unrung: inner signal of both passing time + alarm) sending them to inn where ’keeper tells them it’s work of girl who fell from tower (as in beginning: reiterating catastrophic event rehearsing own fall – which Paul saves her from in end [as she he, Saint Monica having saved son Augustine from self-destruction], changing history [rehearsal also as for dream/play, acting out interior drama so she needn’t in life]).

While Paul + Monica investigate light in cemetery (illumination in "dead" unconscious that o/t imagination) + find Kruger corpse w/ bullethole in head (death of logical consciousness; non-spiked: not Melissa’s victim), fevered Nadine (Monica’s borderline self on way out à la other maid Irena) drawn by Mel to spiked candelabra (impalement losing virginity for former "maids" not accorded protection of Sunday milkmaid counterpart) she plunges thru throat (separating head/mind + body to permit unmediated exploration); P+M go to Karl (native, dream-consciousness), who tells M she not townie (Nadine’s passing opening room for new i.d.; absolved of social guilt) but spawn of Villa Graps (parents worked there: 1st indication of tie btwn villa/gers), his throat soon slashed (reiterating m/b separation, death of even drm-consc’ss permitting repressed irrational to really flood gates) by Mel in cabinet (phallic masculinity killed by own femininity; as sorceress's lover, his choice), who burns Monica's documents (physical record, mind separating from real world/facts + further removal from liability).

Unable to rouse villagers (mind detached from social/outside world), P+M drawn to secret passage to villa (her déjà vu the pull of muscle memory in absence now of documentary) + Baroness, who accuses vlgrs of letting Melissa die (society in collusion w/ lost innocence; Bava’s "witnessing" Italy’'s corrupt recent history) when horsetrampled while chasing ball during festival (time of heavy psychic activity; WWII [also 20 yrs prior to film], pursuing orb à la world domination, for which equally stomped, Baroness vestigial bitterness o/t ruined ruling class [cf later Austria-set Baron Blood]); Monica’s scream outside (threat to fem sensitivities of info raised to consciousness) sends Paul hurtling thru cobwebbed door (birth passage, webs afterbirth + caul) into room after identical room (bravura demolition of rational order, Baroness’s discourse throwing him into loop of inescapable history) till chasing + catching…himself! (owning history; cf conclusion to Monte Hellman’s next-yr western version The Shooting), collapsing against mural of villa exterior (house w/i house trad symbol o/t Unconscious, echo also of mirrors Baroness + Mel so fond of – the self-regarding Self) on his escape + falling thru (webs, again: reborn back into world having gleaned new meaning) to faint on lawn (transcending corrupt civilization to return to nature).

Wakes in Ruth’s hut (not-the-villa: ½way house btwn un/consciousness) to learn Monica Melissa’s sister (per initials à la Karl/Kruger: phases, or facets, of same entity), while Baroness (not-Ruth, referring to self as similar medium) tells Monica same (pic of her w/ 6-yrs-older sis the unified i.d. + advanced self split off from at convulsive moment; absence of Baron impossibility of sexual maturity for which drama here to compensate), adding Mel killed rest of household (she annihilating aspect of Unconscious, sister restorative function following psychic house-cleaning), herself last to go now curse (psychic mission) fulfilled (elimination of facilitating middleground); sends Monica out ("Melissa has waited 20 yrs for you": reclaiming part of self buried but not entirely dead – history + sense of own nobility), pursued by sis down stairway vortex (in-out camera coitus as identities conjoin) till falling unconscious on crypt floor (deepest unconsc + laying to rest of old, incomplete i.d.).

Ruth tells Baroness (mystical fem forces facing off while ego out of commission, à la Sunday climax) their pact off (R protecting B [healer permitting unmediated unconscious activity] as long as Karl safe [complex not affecting conscious personality]) + contradicts her version of killings (B’ss not acting out child’s will but vice versa: serving not welfare o/t self but dysfunctional ends) before throttling her (going for throat à la Nadine + Karl – mediating the medium) + knifing self (elimination of both mediums clearing way for opposite [sex]es to come together; cf also The Whip + the Body’s climactic double-suicide); Monica picks up doll from own undated tomb (retrieving "dead" childhood [img/meaning, as opposed to real thing] conferring unlimited new life) as Paul appears at door (on threshold, replacing menacing Melissa [victim-fem] img w/ that of masculine strength, 2 supernaturally pwrful wmn’s demise unification [Ruth falling on B corpse] + absorption into the self) + saves her from fall (cf opening plunge; keeping own fem img, once unearthed + separated from annihilating, negative profile, from returning to repression, film Bava’s homage to equally delirious Vertigo), fleeing couple in end revising opening solo flight at 1st sign of dawn in preceding film’s eternal night: eros redeeming history once more.