Classic giallo films can be divided into two camps. On one hand we have Dario Argento's The Bird with Crystal Plumage and its followers. These films have a strong main protagonist, who is trying to piece a visual enigma together to find out the killer. The protagonist is often accused of the murders himself and is paired with a character of the opposite sex. On the other hand we have Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace and similar bodycount films. There is no central character. The story is told through many characters of equal importance. Similar to famous first half of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho or Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers the audience cannot be sure which roles different characters play. They can turn out to be victims, red herrings or maniacal killers. Even though Mario Bava finally gave the giallo genre with its cinematic form with his 1962 film The Girl Who Knew Too Much after the Italians had released hundreds of paperback whodunits with trademark yellow covers, it was Blood and Black Lace which gave the genre the visual style it's known for. Operatic score accompanies the lurid colours of widescreen composition, when the faceless figure wearing a fedora hat, trenchcoat and black-gloves disposes his victims in gruesome manner. There are many great black-and-white giallo films, but, for me, this genre has always been about colour -- which is blood red. With Blood and Black Lace Mario Bava showed the world how to shoot suspenseful scenes in Technicolor. In ...