Baba Bah

I went into Baba Yaga (1973) knowing little except that it was a 70s European psychedelic horror thriller. That plus the title sold me. Should have looked a little deeper.

It is based on an erotic comic strip by Italian Guido Crepax. We first meet Isabella de Funes as Valentina, a photographer, at a modish party in Milan. Some men take her home, but she asks them to drop her off so she can walk home. But her walk is interrupted when she is struck by an expensive car driven by Carroll Baker. Baker is an chic. blonde older woman who says her name is Baba Yaga. She helps get de Funes home, and fondles her camera in an odd way, commenting that it can freeze time. 

De Funes visits Baker in her home for a photoshoot, and Baker gives her a doll in bondage gear. Soon, de Funes is having strange erotic dreams. Also, if she takes a picture of something, it freezes - a film camera stops rolling, and a person stops breathing. 

When de Funes goes to Baker's mansion to have it out, Baba Yaga lets rip - de Funes endures a series of hallucinations of Nazis, sees the doll come alive, and is stripped and whipped bloody. (Although the next day she finds no trace of wounds.)

All of this is surrounded by de Funes taking sexy photoshoots and talking crap politics with her boyfriend who directs commercials. 

It's a pretty drab affair, unless you enjoy the naked breasts enough to make up for it. The horror of Baba Yaga controlling de Funes mind, and torturing her in dreams is fine, but somehow static. It doesn't really raise the tension, just sort of sits there. 

And of course, Baba Yaga isn't Baba Yaga. You know how they call John Wick Baba Yaga, and it's ridiculous because (among other things), "baba" means "granny"? At least he's scary. Baker is to pretty and not scary enough - although she did have a creepy vibe. I don't insist on a cabin with chicken legs, but give us something.

However, although this Baba Yaga was missing a real Baba Yaga, it did have a real Golem (unlike Limehouse Golem). They watch the old silent film die Golem on TV at one point.