Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon is a stylish thriller about a psychotic named John Harrington who murders recently married women in an attempt to recover his childhood memories surrounding the night his mother was killed. It's a seductively captivating film that is more Hitchcock than giallo. For even though we watch John kill several victims, the film is primarily concerned with his exploration of his own tattered psyche and his struggles with a nosy police inspector who is convinced he has something to do with a string of local disappearances. My favorite part of the film involves a sub-plot concerning his domineering wife. After psychologically torturing him for years, he snaps and brutally murders her. But John's wife returns as a ghost...that everyone but him can see. Here is an intriguing concept which puts a marvelous twist on a standard horror trope. Watching the film, one can't help but draw comparisons between John and Bret Easton Ellis' Patrick Bateman. This is particularly obvious during an opening scene where John internally monologues to himself: "My name is John Harrington. I'm 30 years old. I'm a paranoiac. Paranoiac. An enchanting word, so civilized, full of possibilities. The truth is, I am completely mad. The realization which annoys me at first, but is now amusing to me. Quite amusing." But Bateman was more a sociopath, in my opinion. John Harrington is irrevocably insane. And does Bava ever know it!
7/10
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