Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959) is one of the first films directed by Mario Bava, although the credits don’t say this. It’s a classic 50s monster movie done in the American style by a bunch of Italian filmmakers.
It’s recently been released on a beautiful Blu-Ray disk with lots of extras and it looks glorious. The black and white photography (also by Bava) is lustrous. I’m going to delve into Bava’s work over the next few months and I’m sure I’ll be blogging a lot more about him, if this film is anything to go by.
This is great fun genre filmmaking. Bava was always interested in special effects and photographing the fantastic is interesting ways. I found the film charming in an old fashioned way and a lot more fun than many American monster movies of the time.
So, I’m going to watch all of Bava’s stuff that’s available and this seemed a great place to start, I’d recommend it to you too…
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