Shock

Year:  1977

Director:  Mario Bava

Screenplay:  Lamberto Bava, Francesco Barbieri, Alessandro Parenzo, Dardano Sacchetti

Starring:  Daria Nicolodi, John Steiner, David Colin Jr., Ivan Rassimov

Running Time:  95 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Dora (Nicolodi) moves back into the house where she lived with her husband who died in an apparent suicide several years before.  Dora is now remarried to Carlo (Steiner), an airline pilot, and she has a young son, Marco (Colin Jr.), from her previous marriage.  The family begin renovating the house, but Marco begins to exhibit increasingly disturbing behaviour, and as strange happenings begin to pile up Dora becomes convinced that they are being haunted by the malevolent spirit of her dead husband.

Mario Bava was one of the most important directors of Italian horror films, with his low-budget, but stylish films influencing filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Tim Burton,  and Francis Ford Coppola.  Shock was the last feature film that Bava completed before his death of a heart attack in April 1980, and his son Lamberto Bava, who co-wrote the film, served as an uncredited co-director for some scenes.  In Shock, Bava largely leaves behind the gruesome Grand Guignol excesses that had been his trademark for a slow-burning tale of supernatural horror, with gore largely absent until the final quarter of an hour.  While this is not Bava's best film, it does have a lot to recommend it.  The direction is stylish, and there are some arresting images.  Daria Nicolodi, who would become a familiar face to Italian horror fans through her appearances in five films by her then husband Dario Argento, gives a strong performance in the central role, and she pretty much dominates the film.  David Colin Jr. is fine, if not particularly impressive, in his role as the creepy child, who may, or may not, be possessed by the vengeful ghost.  There are plot holes, and the whole thing is very silly at times, and there are places where the low budget is painfully obvious, and some fans may be disappointed at the relative lack of gore, but it is a fun little spook show, which should entertain lovers of ghost stories.

Daria Nicolodi in Shock

Lisa and the Devil

Year of Release:  1973
Director:  Mario Bava
Screenplay:  Mario Bava and Alfred Leone
Starring:  Elke Sommer, Telly Savalas, Sylva Koscina, Alessio Orano, Alida Valli
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Horror, fantasy

Lisa Reiner (Sommer), an American tourist visiting Spain, sees a fresco in a church depicting a bald Devil hauling away human souls.  Wandering away from the tour group she winds up in a little antique store where she encounters a man named Leandro (Savalas), who looks identical to the Devil in the fresco. Unable to find her way back to the tour group, Lisa finds herself at a palatial villa owned by a strange young man (Orano) and his mother, a blind countess (Valli) and where Leandro appears to work as a butler.

This is only the beginning of Lisa's descent into a surreal nightmare.  This is a film with only the vaguest plot, and is kind of what you might come up with in a nightmare after reading too much Gothic horror stories and eating  a lot of very strong cheese.  Following the success of Baron Blood (1972), director Mario Bava was given a free hand to do whatever he wanted with this film.  The movie features some striking images, and it really is a beautiful film, full of offbeat camera angles, and it works if you see it as working with a kind of dream logic.  Elke Sommer walks through the film in a kind of sleepwalking daze, which actually works for the material.  Telly Savalas has a lot of presence, and is often quite sardonically funny as the mysterious Devil, whose fondness for lollipops was carried over to Savalas' most famous role in the TV show Kojak (1973-1978).  Following a disastrous premiere screening at the Cannes Film Market in 1973, the film was drastically re-edited and was further edited for its US release, with some additional exorcism scenes as well as additional nudity and gore, and was released under the title House of Exorcism, to cash in on the success of The Exorcist (1973).

Elke Sommers, Telly Savalas and Alida Valli in Lisa and the Devil   

A Bay of Blood

Year: 1971
Director: Mario Bava
Screenplay: Mario Bava, Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni and Sergio Canevari, from a story by Dardano Sacchetti and Franco Barberi
Starring: Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Laura Betti
Running Time: 84 minutes
Genre: Horror, slasher, mystery

Summary: In her mansion beside a beautiful bay, the elderly Countess Federica (Isa Miranda) is murdered by her husband, Filippo Donati (Giovanni Nuvoletti), and arranged in a way to make it look as if she comitted suicide. However, no sooner is Donati finished arranging the crime scene when he is brutally stabbed to death by a mysterious assailant.
Believing that the Countess killed herself and her husband has disappeared, real estate developer Frank Ventura (Chris Avram) and his girlfriend Laura (Anna Maria Rosati) travel to the bay to get Donati to sign a series of legal documents which will enable them to take posession of the bay to devlop it as a holiday resort.
Also travelling to the bay is the Countess' daughter Renata (Auger) and her husband Albert (Pistilli) who are determined to get control of the bay by any means necessary.
Already at the bay are four teenagers ready to spend a weekend of drinking and partying at one of the abandoned bayside cabins.
However, the mysterious killer is still stalking the bay and the bodies are piling up in the water.

Opinions: This film is one of the classic Italian giallo films. "Giallo" is the Italian word for yellow and it came to refer to a series of cheap pulp fiction paperbacks which had distinctive yellow covers. The term came to refer to a series of horror and crime films which were notorious for lengthy and stylish scenes of extreme violence.
Mario Bava was a noted and well-respected film maker who specialised in horror movies, and this film got a very negative reaction from many critics due to the gruesome violence.
The movie proved to be very influential though and it's impact can be felt throughout the "slasher" and "splatter" horror film genre. The Friday the 13th films in particular with their killers stalking bucolic woodland locations are a direct descendent from this.
The storyline is fun and full of countless twists and turns. The impressive special effects were provided by Carlo Rambaldi, who went on to huge acclaim for the effects in E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982).
The acting is kind of bland, although it is hard to really judge due to the dubbed dialogue.
It is definitely worth watching for horror fans and giallo fans. Although it is worth remembering that it has been released under a wide variety of titles including Twitch of the Death Nerve, Blood Bath and Carnage.



Laura Betti and Leopoldo Trieste in A Bay of Blood