1963 - Mario Bava's WHIP AND THE BODY is an S&M love story featuring the color green

Mario Bava was a cult director in Italy specializing in Gothic horror films.

Whip and the Body features Christopher Lee as an evil guy involved in a sado masochist relationship with his brother's fiancee played by Dali Lavi. Their fun and games involve him whipping her into a sexual frenzy on the family castle beach front while saying things like "you always loved violence." When he turns up dead, the film moves into the supernatural area. Is he actually dead or has he come back as a ghost?

Bava was a photographer before he was a director so he loads the film up with lots of Gothic trappings, he particularly seems to enjoy using the color green to cast a mood of mystery throughout the many nighttime scenes, and the look of the film is kind of interesting in a garish kind of way. I guess you would call this kind of film lurid.

If you have a taste for a version of Wuthering Heights where Heathcliff beats the crap out of Cathy with a whip, this is the film for you.

85 minutes.