It's a big time for Mario Bava these days, with Anchor Bay Entertainment's release of their deluxe Bava box sets, Volume 1 and Volume 2, and the arrival, at long last, of Tim Lucas' bio to beat the band, the Saturn Award winning Mario Bava: All The Colors of the Dark. And if all that hoopla weren't enough, from March 13th to March 23rd, Hollywood's American Cinematheque will host a retrospective of the (mostly) fright films of the late, lamented maestro (who died in 1980), whose brutal narratives, innovative camera techniques and pioneering special effects inspired such American genre films as Halloween (1978) and Alien (1979) and such filmmakers as Marin Scorsese, Joe Dante, Tim Burton and Ernest Dickerson.

There was a mini Bava renaissance back in the early 90s, with film festivals in Los Angeles and New York City. I was living in Manhattan then and caught a few of Bava's films, onces I hadn't seen since I was a kid (and even then only on TV), among them Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio, 1960), Bava's first time out as a stand-alone director (having co-directed two films with countryman Riccardo Freda). Based oh-so-loosely on Russian writer Nikolai Gogol's supernatural short story "Vij," Bava's adaptation is like a Whitman's Sampler of Gothic horror tropes… and as hoary and overfamiliar as they may be, brother do they work! Backed with this next week is Black Sabbath (I trei volti della paura, 1963), Bava's anthology horror film offering "three faces of fear," with as many stories of the grotesque and the arabesque. I'll never forget how, in the middle segment "The Wurdulak," the sound of the undead child calling for his mother ("I'm cold") freaked an audience of snarky Greenwich Villagers into absolute silence. Priceless. (I half suspect that this setpiece was the inspiration for the undead Danny Glick tapping at the window in Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot.) These days I don't which chapter I find scarier, that Ukraine-set vampire tale or "The Drop of Water" segment (pictured below) that caps the triptych. It's super-freaky!

Those two classic Bava titles are paired again for the opening night of "Mario Bava: Poems of Love and Death," which runs from Thursday, March 13th until Easter Sunday, March 23rd." Both versions of these fondly remembered spookers will be the original European cuts rather than the American International Pictures acquisitions, which were rescored, revoiced and even recut to appeal (it was thought) to American tastes. If you are unfamiliar with these films, I urge you – nay, I command you – to get thee to The Egyptian and see Black Sunday and Black Sabbath together on the big screen, in 35mm, in stark, pellucid black-and-white and gorgeous, nightmarish color, respectively. For those of you whose palettes have been soured by the overuse of CGI in recent genre films, these 40 year old classics provide a master class in old school fearmaking. Film director and Master of Horror Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins), who paid homage to Bava in his first film Hollywood Blvd. (1976), will introduce the screening.

On Friday, March 14th, the festival continues with a double shot of Five Dolls for an August Moon (5 bambole per la luna D'agosto, 1970), a modern, sexy and ennui-laced oh-so-loose adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, featuring lovely Edwige Fenech (seen recently in Eli Roth's Hostel: Part II) and a high profile cast of Euro-Cult stalwarts, and Blood and Black Lace (Sei donne per l'assassino,1965), a surprisingly violent and no-holds-barred body count thriller starring American actor Cameron Mitchell as the head of a Rome fashion house whose models keep turning up dead. This film's faceless killer may have you flashing forward to Halloween's unstoppable Michael Myers… but I like this guy better. This blood-soaked two-fer really does qualify for the distinction of Killer Double Feature.

On Saturday, March 15th, it's All About Elke with Lisa and the Devil (1972), Bava's most personal (and perverse) film, and Baron Blood (Gli orrori del Castello di Norimberga, 1972, pictured above), a traditional monster-walks chiller in the vein of the great Universal classics. Bava's leading lady, Elke Sommer (whom I had the pleasure to know many years ago in New York) was originally slated to be on hand for this double bill but has since sadly backed out. Oh well… they're still great movies that drip with atmosphere… and not a little blood. Again, Joe Dante will serve as Master of Ceremonies and his guest will be the films' producer, Alfredo Leone. On Sunday, March 16th, Bava's once-lost crime film Kidnapped (aka Rabid Dogs, 1975) is paired with Shock (1977), his last official theatrical release, on which he shared direction with son Lamberto and which boasts an edgy performance by Daria Nicolodi, one-time consort of Bava's (figurative) protege Dario Argento. Oh you'll never again reach for an X-acto knife with quite the same sense of inner peace.

The fest picks up again the following Thursday, March 20th, for an ultra-cool pairing of Bava's comic book adaptation Danger: Diabolik (Diabolik, 1967, pictured above), starring John Phillip Law as that sleek master criminal in the rump-hugging silver unitard, and Planet of the Vampires (1966), whose terror tale of a team of astronauts who find only horror when they investigate a fog-shrouded planet was a direct influence on Ridley Scott's Alien. The screening of Planet of the Vampires will be the uncut, Italian version called Terrore Nello Spazio, and not the recut, rescored version released domestically by American International and source for the (albeit beautiful) recent MGM "Midnite Movies" DVD. The next night, March 21st, The Egyptian will run Twitch of the Death Nerve (pictured below) and Four Times that Night (Quante volte… quella notte, 1972), a Rashomon-style sex farce. While these latter day Bavas may seem on first pass to be an odd couple, both concern the peregrinations and perversions of The Beautiful People. Twitch was a direct influence on the slasher classic Friday the 13th (1980) while Four Times… anticipates the vivid chromatics of Pedro Almodovar. Eli Roth (Hostel, Hostel: Part II) will introduce the screening.

On Saturday, March 22nd, Bava's Gothic masterpiece The Whip and the Body (La frusta e il corpo, 1963), starring British horror king Christopher Lee, is paired with Bava's other Gothic masterpiece, Kill, Baby… Kill (Operazione paura, 1966, pictured below), the greatest ghost story ever told. Made by Bava at the height of his powers, both deal with the stranglehold the dead can maintain on the living. If you can attend only a limited number of these screenings, make this evening a high priority. Both films showcase Bava's mastery of forced perspective and, only if you look very closely, reveal how he was able to make miracles out of light and air. Ernest Dickerson (Bones) will introduce the double feature.

The festival comes to a close on Sunday, March 23rd, with the blowout triple bill of The Girl Who Knew Too Much (La ragazza che sapeva troppo, 1963, pictured below), which features a young John (Black Christmas) Saxon as the dashing hero, the seriously twisted and Psychoesque thriller Hatchet for the Honeymoon (Il rosso segno della follia, 1970) and – beware the blog! – Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (Caltiki, il mostro immortale, 1959), one of the two features Bava finished for Riccardo Freda. It's a cool, Mexico-set monster-on-the-loose story with the added twist of an insane, one-handed Aryan lunatic who complicates things considerably for our heroes. Playing host for the closing night screening will be actor Dante DiPaolo.

All of the double features begin at 7:30 pm and the final night's triple bill begins at 6:00 pm. Except for Caltiki: the Immortal Monster (which will be show via digital projection), all of the prints are handsome 35mm. I am informed that copies of the 12 lb., 1,200-plus page Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark are going to be raffled off or auctioned off during the retrospective for considerably less than the $260 asking price.

Even if you have seen these films via the many wonderful painstakingly restored, anamorphically enhanced DVDs that have been coming out for the past few years, I humbly suggest you come to The Egyptian and see them the way they were meant to be seen… BIG.  They don't make 'em like this anymore… but that doesn't mean we have to stop watching.