Mario Bava’s glistening movie cocktail of violent murder, vivid color and opulent settings provides most of the book on classic Italian giallo. They’re films in which death is never peaceful, but it is ultra-stylish, downright beautiful sometimes, with every hue and shadow neatly arranged. Also, there’s a murder mystery going on, but the murders themselves are more important than the investigation. Our police inspectors here are mere warm bodies to push the plot forward. They lead us to no great crescendos or revelations. All of that happens when those crewcuts are off doing something else. The story begins when a fashion model gets sent down eternity’s runway one night by a crazed killer in a faceless mask. Then another fashion model gets her face turned into marinara sauce by a glove with knives in the palm (a variation on the spiked mask in Bava’s Black Sunday) and another one gets forcefully barbecued on a red hot furnace. More carnage follows. Their connection: all of our dearly departed worked for Cameron Mitchell’s modeling agency and all of them were mighty curious to get hold of the first dead girl’s diary (its cover appropriately blood-red). What did she write in it? We get a few hints. We know it’s full of seedy revelations, but it’s not all that important. Bava’s more busy shooting gorgeous shots of malevolent staircases, making mannequins look like demons and lighting both interiors and exteriors with sumptuous day-glo unreality. He’s doing exactly what he should be doing.