Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!
I do have a fondness for Gothic horror movies. I’m not sure if it’s the setting and the costuming, the stateliness and relative genteelness of the stories, or the presence of Christopher Lee in so many of them. While it’s certainly not the entirety of the genre, it’s hard not to view horror from the ‘60s without feeling that all of them took place a century previous in castles somewhere in Europe. That’s not the case, of course, but there are a hell of a lot of films that involve fancy people living in castles in the 18th or 19th century. A film like The Whip and the Body (or La frusta e il corpo if you prefer) certainly fits that whole Gothic idea, but certainly puts the idea of genteelness in question.
As you might get from the title, The Whip and the Body is very much a film about sadomasochism. Kurt Menliff (Christopher Lee) returns to his family’s castle after many years ostensibly to congratulate his brother Christian (Tony Kendall) on his marriage. Christian has married Nevenka (Daliah Lavi), who was a former lover of Kurt’s. The truth is that Kurt is a known sadist and no one in the castle is happy with his return. Particularly enraged are Kurt’s father Count Menliff (Gustavo De Nardo) and Giorgia (Harriet Medin), the family servant who blames Kurt for the suicide death of her daughter.
But hey, Kurt gets to stay for the night, and true to his past, he tracks down Nevenka when she is by herself and seduces her in part by beating her with her own riding crop. When Nevenka does not return to the castle, everyone goes out to look for her, leaving Kurt in the castle where someone sneaks up on him and stabs him in the throat with the same dagger that Giorgia’s daughter used to kill herself.
What follows is both a love triangle and a haunting. Nevenka is certain that she is seeing Kurt around the castle and that he is stalking her. Christian is sure that his father the count is the one who killed Kurt. We also learn that despite Christian being married to Nevenka, he is actually in love with his cousin Katia (Ida Galli), and that love is very much reciprocated, and Nevenka overhears their confession of love to each other. More and more, it seems that there is a presence in the castle. Nevenka shows signs of being whipped again, and Count Menliff is found killed in exactly the same way that Kurt was killed. When Nevenka is found inside Kurt’s crypt, claiming that Kurt was the one who dragged her there, the fact that something is going on cannot be denied.
The biggest issue I have with The Whip and the Body is that it doesn’t actually do much that’s very different from the standard kind of Gothic horror tale of the era. The only real difference here is that it aims for the more prurient by putting a riding crop in the hands of Christopher Lee and letting him use it. This is a movie that wants to sell itself by being sexually charged, and does very little with it beyond just suggesting it and showing a few whip marks on Daliah Lavi’s back. It’s disappointing. I don’t genuinely care that much about overt sexuality on film, but if we’re going to be promised something in the title, the film itself should deliver.
Was it good? I mean, it’s fine. It’s hard to see this kind of horror film with Christopher Lee in a central role and suggest that it’s somehow worthless. But Lee’s presence is really the only thing here that is very interesting. You’ve almost certainly seen the rest of this in one way or another, and while Bava is sometimes an interesting filmmaker, he didn’t do a hell of a lot here that you can’t find in some of his other films.
Why to watch The Whip and the Body: Because no one does Gothic horror better than Christopher Lee.
Why not to watch: It’s not as much fun as it should be.
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