Hatchet for the Honeymoon
(Il rosso segno della follia, 1970)

Mario Bava

Italy / Spain

88 min, color, Italian (English subtitles)

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

Ridiculously mistitled (should have been a "Cleaver for the Honeymoon," not to mention that the original Italian title translates to the equally mystifying "The Red Sign of Madness"), this is one of the most satisfying Bava films all around. Although there's no Gothic castles, there's plenty of supernatural weirdness to give even this otherwise straight as an arrow serial killer fare a well-deserved place in the canon of the beloved director.

Actually, a cleaver for the honeymoon	I am quite mad, and that amuses me

Delightfully devoid of conscience as its protagonist, the film follows the self-confessed psycho John Harrington (Stephen Forsyth) as he attempts to work out the call of a childhood trauma by stylishly dispatching a sequence of well-attributed bimbos on their wedding nights. So far so good: the film is firmly in giallo territory with the weird preference of Italians to explain serial killers with some experience in childhood (recall Argento, among others?) Where Bava parts way with the genre is in his approach to the subject: rather than keeping the audience in the dark about the identity of the killer, John is revealed almost immediately in a rather startling confession to himself while shaving. (One almost expects him to hack at himself with the razor.)

The wild world of bridal gown modeling	Sick psycho makes out with mannequin

So the suspense is not going to be in finding out who the murderer is. Rather, it's going to be in the combination of three things. First, the cat-and-mouse game that John will play with the police detective Russell (Jesus Puente), who seems to conduct investigations in a particularly inept way by alerting his prime suspect of his thoughts and then periodically popping up unannounced at the suspect's home in the hope of catching him in the act of killing, dismembering, burning, potting, or otherwise disappearing his next victim.

With a wife like that, being normal is not an option	Euro-investigators are pansies

Second, we are all dying to know (figuratively speaking, of course, quite unlike the gorgeous ladies in the film) just what secret has warped John to the extent that he sees a pretty young boy every time he gets the urge to kill. At first one may think the boy a ghost of some sort but he's too passive for that, and it soon becomes clear that this is a vision of John himself as a body, and secret somehow involves his mother's death which he witnessed. (One is forgiven at this point to assume that the secret is going to be rather prosaic: it's obligatory that the innocent-looking one is the murderer.) Anyway, at least we want to know just how it all happened, and since each murder reveals the next step in the sequence, we are rooting with John to kill more bimbos faster.

Gratuitous shot of Femi Benussi	Typical Eurohorror creepy imaginary boy

Third, there's the undeniable suspense about how John proposes to procure the requisite number of pretty brides. Thankfully, women simply throw themselves at him (he's a hunk, at least when he's not sporting lipstick and a wedding gown). They don't seem to be fazed by his strange obsession with collecting all models of wedding gowns his firm designs and keeping them in a locked room full of mannequins. (Mannequins = psycho almost invariably.) So when the love-sick Alice (Femi Benussi) comes to confess that she has the hots not for her decidedly non-beefcake hubby as it would befit a proper bride but for her boss, the musical box (psycho alert!) comes out, she is asked to don a wedding gown (psycho alert!), then invited to dance among mannequins (psycho alert!), then asked to get acquainted with a cleaver (psycho alert!), then methodically hacked to death with astoundingly little blood spillage and carpet damage. The distraught John then Aushwitzes her somewhat non-hacked-looking body and enjoys the smell of roses and burnt flesh in the morning. All in a night's work.

And as my wedding gift to you... your head, on a platter	The hard labor of stuffing bodies in ovens

You'd think that we would somehow hate John but we cannot. First, he's clearly the victim of some horrible childhood experience which exonerates him completely. He has to be treated with tender love and care, not judged according to the primitive Biblical (I'm talking strictly Old Testament here) precepts of justice that govern our so-called civilized society. Second, his wife (the decidedly unsettling Laura Betti) continually refuses to give him the emotional support he so clearly and so desperately craves. She is the cliche of an evil wife: she is rich and old, she would not divorce John, she would taunt him with stories about her deceased former husband, and she would indulge in psychic seances where she would pretend to conjure up the spirit of said ex-husband to tell him how much he loves him and misses him. Obviously, John's home is not the healthy environment he needs to deal with his emotional issues. Naturally, he attempts to alleviate the problems... no, not with Aleve, it had not been invented yet, but by removing the source of his constant frustration: butchering his dear wife. He is a man who takes his "till death do us part" vow seriously.

Making out with a maniac is sexy	The unbearable nagging of marriage

Thankfully, there's a bright spot in all this relentless turmoil when the gorgeous Helen (Dagmar Lassander) falls for John. Now here's a woman who can heal any soul, no matter how twisted and tormented it is. Yes, sex with a stunning woman has this miraculous healing effect (check the Holy Book of any major religion). No wonder John considers forsaking his lone attempt to put the meat-processing industry out of business. Just think about it: rather than hacking off the limbs and potting the torso in his hot house, he can actually... ah, but even this salvation is beyond reach for the poor bastard because his evil wife now returns as a ghost to torment him! (The film veers resolutely into supernatural territory here.)

Divorce, Italian style	This guy---quite mad

At first it seems that perhaps she represents John's own guilt-ridden conscience, but of course this cannot be the case because there's not a hint of any remorse in his actions. Therefore, Mildred must be a real ghost, the bitch. She spoils a few of his dates (it's hard making seductive small talk when the other person sees your wife sitting demurely next to you), and proceeds to drive John crazy with her supernal nagging. If this does not turn even a sane man craze, I don't know what will. Naturally, John digs out her body, burns it, and when that fails to put a stop to her damnable and unnerving presence, he scatters her ashes to the wind. He then turns his mind back to rapine and mayhem, and almost gets nailed by the persistent cop who keeps harassing John instead of trying to help him.

Obligatory Bava eye shot	Conflicted between unburdening and killing

In the final scene, even his one true love betrays him. At this point, the entire society seems aligned against the individual, so no wonder he snaps as he is whisked away to a room with padded walls and a small peephole. This film stands as a powerful indictment of how society refuses to recognize the uniqueness of an individual to help him deal with his problems and instead hunts him down mercilessly for trivial offenses like reducing the number of potential future divorces. Stylishly filmed as only Bava could do it, Hatchet for the Honeymoon is a unique entry in the serial-killer genre for which I have no love lost. With plenty of nice Euro-trash settings to inspire any would-be aristocrat and enough eyecandy to keep even the most jaded viewer glued to the screen hoping for another gratuitous glimpse of a naturally beautifully sculpted female body (remember, this is before the glory days of cosmetic surgery). A sight to behold. As mind-food, it's the equivalent of a Tic-Tac.

Gratuitous shot of Dagmar Lassander	To be locked in a small room with a tiny peephole

I saw the Image R1 DVD and it was luminous. With a crisp widescreen video transfer at 1.66:1 (OAR but not anamorphic), the occasional scratch and line is just a minor distraction. Colors are saturated and look correct too (very important for a Bava film). The English soundtrack is basically solid although some distortion and a few drop-outs are discernible here and there. The disc is sparse when it comes to extras: there are liner notes by Tim Lucas, Bava bio/filmographies, and an image gallery. Not much to write home about, especially given the price of these Image discs, but at least it's a release that does justice to this often neglected film.

June 19, 2006