Clint Eastwood in Swinging London

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 22, 2009

Categories | Actors, Italian Cinema, Westerns, Clint Eastwood, Sergio Leone

Clint Eastwood during the ‘67 promotional tour in London for A Fistful of Dollars

Over the last few years I’ve come across various photos taken during the promotional tour that Clint Eastwood did in London for the release of A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone; 1967) and recently Cinema Retro uncovered an interview that Eastwood did with a British reporter during that same promo tour. It’s a great interview and I highly recommend giving it a look if you happen to like Clint Eastwood and the westerns he made in the ’60s as much as I do. Eastwood looks incredible in the clip, but he also has a lot of smart and insightful things to say about Italian westerns. I only wish the clip was a little longer.

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March Madness

by Kimberly Lindbergs | March 7, 2009

Categories | Horror, Giallo, Italian Cinema, Blogathons, Lucio Fulci

Over at The Destructible Man blog an impromptu blogathon has started simply called Destructible Blog-a-thon.1.

The gory details:
We want everybody to bundle up, dig deep into the recesses of their consciousness, fiddle about a bit and then go over to your laptops by the fireplace and post about the cinematic ANIMAL dummy death that you covet the most!

I didn’t have to dig too deep to remember the dummy animal deaths featured in Lucio Fulci’s A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (aka Una Lucertola con la pelle di donna, 1971). As I’ve mentioned previously, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin is one of my favorite horror films (as well as on of my favorite giallo films) and it also happens to be my favorite Lucio Fulci movie. It’s easy to find copies of the film on DVD now, but for years it was nearly impossible to see an uncut version of A Lizard in a Women’s Skin due to the movie’s erotic content and one of the most brutally imagined vivisection scenes ever captured on film. The scene was so graphic and believable that it reportedly landed Fulci in hot water with Italian authorities. Special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi was even forced to present the fake dog props used in the film in court to save the director from a possible two-year prison term.

tube down the neck
flesh pulled back
to crawl underneath the skin
the corporate death no sentiment
the pain sustained at will
they preach on high morals lie
in this farce called vivisection
- song lyrics from “Ode to Groovy” by Skinny Puppy

Before making horror films, Lucio Fulci studied medicine and this experience colored his work and lent it an edgy realism that many viewers find incredibly disturbing. As a young medical student Fulci was undoubtedly familiar with vivisection practices and his choice to introduce them into his horror film as an element of terror is both surprising and enlightening. This personal aspect of Fulci’s work is often overlooked by critics who have trouble sifting through the unexpected emotional depths found in many of the director’s best films.

The graphic nature of the faux animal vivisection in A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin is shocking, but I think it’s made more unsettling by the way the director places it into his film. The particular scene in question begins when Carol (played brilliantly by the gorgeous and talented Florinda Bolkan) awakens from a nap she’s just had on the lawn of a psychiatric hospital. Carol’s a murder suspect and a sexually frustrated wife who’s been sent to the hospital to get some rest, but her troubled imagination is working overtime. Lucio Fulci used many creative camera techniques and directing tricks to give his film a haunting dreamlike atmosphere. The director clearly enjoys playing with Freudian dream imagery so the audience is never quite sure what’s real and unreal throughout the course of A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin.

Waking from her nap, Carol has no idea how much time has passed. She looks around the hospital grounds which are strangely silent and empty. A feeling of dread seems to come over her and she’s suddenly startled when she spots a gentleman watching her from the nearby bushes.

She begins to run towards the hospital, but many of the entry ways are blocked.
Carol is running from her past as well as her fears.

When Carol gets inside the hospital she’s greeted by twisting spiral staircases and stark white hallways that seem to go on forever. This Escher-like landscape is a reflection of Carol’s inner turmoil.

She finally finds an open door and steps inside, but the room engulfs her in darkness. This is not the escape Carol or the audience was expecting. As she makes her way through the gloom a light suddenly illuminates the shadow of a human hand behind a curtain. It appears to be holding a pair of sharp scissors. In this brief ode to Hitchcock, Fulci playfully hints at many of his film’s own themes.

Carol experiences a new level of horror after seeing the menacing shadow, but Fulci’s camera suddenly cuts to a doctor’s table carrying various medical instruments. There is no mad killer behind the curtain. Instead we find only a doctor and his tools. What is the threat now? Where is the terror coming from? Why should we fear the doctors?

She continues to run through the hospital before finally reaching another unlocked door and opening it. This time the light within the room illuminates Carol instead of hiding her in shadows. As Fulci zooms in on Carol, her face becomes a mask of terror.

The audience is suddenly shocked by the same revolting images of vivisection that terrified Carol. The dogs are not dead, but they are slowly dying and Carol’s face registers exactly what the audience is expected to be feeling at that moment. As the dogs whimper and twist in agony from the torture they’re suffering at the hands of medical men, Carol’s face becomes a reflection of our own horror and our own fears.

Suddenly Carol is overcome by the terrible site before her and she collapses. Beneath her crumpled body the ground is colored a deep shade of red that resembles spilled blood. The scene ends where it began, in dreams. Dark and troubling dreams.

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The Devil with Seven Faces (1971)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 9, 2008

Categories | Movie Reviews, Giallo, Italian Cinema, Crime, Thrillers, George Hilton, Carroll Baker

Top: Carroll Baker has just seen the final cut of The Devil with Seven Faces (1971)
Bottom: Even a cheap gorilla mask couldn’t make the movie any better.

Normally I neglect to write anything about movies I dislike. I never have enough time to write about all the films I like so why waste my time writing about films I don’t? But occasionally my disappointment in a film runs so deep that I feel the need to save others from suffering what I’ve just endured. This is one of those times.

I had high expectations for director Osvaldo Civirani’s 1971 thriller The Devil with Seven Faces (aka Il Diavolo a sette facce) when I stuck it into my DVD player. The film stars two of my favorite actors, the lovely American actress Carroll Baker along with the talented George Hilton. Stephen Boyd also has a major role in the film along with the always entertaining Luciano “the Italian Peter Lorre” Pigozzi, genre favorite Daniele Vargas and the cute Lucretia Love. The script for The Devil with Seven Faces was co-written by Tito Carpi who also co-wrote a lot of good spaghetti westerns such as Fistful of Lead (1970), Any Gun Can Play (1967) and Django Shoots First (1968). And last but not least, the film features a score by two of my favorite composers; the amazing Stelvio Cipriani and Nora Orlandi.

Top: George Hilton and Carroll Baker feign interest in one another.
Bottom: Luciano Pigozzi channels Peter Lorre.

The convoluted plot of The Devil with Seven Faces involves a diamond heist that goes wrong, some conniving twin sisters (played unconvincingly by Carroll Baker) and a large batch of bad guys who stumble all over themselves trying to get to Carroll Baker and the million dollar diamond. For some reason a lot of reviewers insist on calling The Devil with Seven Faces a “giallo” film and as far as I can tell, it’s not. Contrary to many critical opinions, I don’t believe that one mysterious corpse and a long irrelevant title with the word “devil” in it suddenly turns any Italian movie into a giallo film. The Devil with Seven Faces seems to simply be an original crime movie written by Tito Carpi and director Osvaldo Civirani without any literary basis. Or to be more exact; it’s a “heist film” in the same tradition as countless other European heist films I’ve seen. I love a good heist film but unfortunately The Devil with Seven Faces is not good.

Osvaldo Civirani’s direction is completely uninspired and hampered by Walter Civirani’s lackluster photography. Mauro Contini’s sloppy editing also doesn’t do the film any favors. The Devil with Seven Faces totally lacks suspense and even the car chases and shoot-outs managed to be uninteresting. The mild sex scenes seemed forced and were extremely ineffective, which is a shame considering they involved Carroll Baker and George Hilton. Unfortunately the terrific cast, wonderful score and a potentially worthwhile script could not save this poorly constructed film. I get no joy from saying that The Devil with Seven Faces is one of the worst films I’ve seen all year. I really wanted to enjoy this movie but it let me down again and again. It’s possible that an uncut version of the film exists that is somehow better than the version I watched, but I have no desire to revisit the movie if a new print does surface. There are only three reasons I watched all 90 minutes of The Devil with Seven Faces so I thought I’d at least make mention of them.

George Hilton’s character in The Devil with Seven Faces is underwritten and he doesn’t seem to get as much screen-time as his costars. But unlike Carroll Baker who seems to be sleepwalking through the entire movie, and Stephen Boyd who comes across as rather sleazy and unappealing here; Hilton at least seems to be trying to make the most of his role. He also looks terrific in his ’70s style fashions. Hilton’s wardrobe consists of lots of great looking racing jackets and expensive sunglasses. A sharp dressed man will often keep my attention in a lackluster film, especially if that man happens to be someone like George Hilton. And last but not least, Hilton’s multiple death scenes in The Devil with Seven Faces are the highlights of the movie.

The soundtrack for The Devil with Seven Faces was so good that it actually managed to elevate the film at times and made me forget how completely dull it was. Stelvio Cipriani composed the music and Nora Orlandi adds lots of lush vocalisms to just about every track. Their work together on The Devil with Seven Faces is truly fantastic and I’d love to get a copy of the entire soundtrack. I’m sure I have bits and pieces of the music on one or two of the library compilations I own but the score really deserves to be heard in its entirety.

One of the great things about European thrillers and crime films made during the ’60s and early ’70s is the fashions, hairstyles and modern design that can often make a potentially dull film much more interesting. Unfortunately The Devil with Seven Faces is sorely lacking in all these things. Even when the cast was wearing something that caught my eye, the horrible photography and direction usually made the fashions almost impossible to fully see. Most of the film seemed to be shot from the waist up or the waist down and it was littered with pointless close-ups that didn’t compliment anyone. Thankfully Carroll Baker and Lucretia Love had lots of unnecessary wig changes that managed to keep me entertained. I’ve seen a lot of bad wigs used in films before, but Carroll Baker’s ill-fitting bright blue fright wig and Lucretia Love’s messy red Ronald McDonald wig absolutely floored me. What in the world was hair stylist Iolanda Conti (aka Jolanda Conti) thinking? I do commend Steven Boyd for somehow keeping a straight face during the scenes where he was forced to appear opposite “the wigs.”

Top: Steven Boyd showing off his acting chops.
Bottom: Daniele Vargas was so bored on the set that he started looking at porn to pass the time.

I truly wish I had more positive things to say about The Devil with Seven Faces, but unless you happen to be a George Hilton or Carroll Baker completist like myself, a huge fan of Stelvio Cipriani and Nora Orlandi’s scores or just curious to see some of the worst wigs imaginable, then I can’t encourage you to spend 90 minutes with this movie. If you do decide to watch The Devil with Seven Faces I recommend doing so with a good bottle of wine by your side.

The Devil with Seven Faces is available on DVD from Alpha Home Entertainment and it’s currently selling for the appropriately low price of $7.98 at Amazon.

If you’d like to see more images from the film please see my Flickr Gallery for The Devil with Seven Faces.

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Zombies don’t like bad dancing!

by Kimberly Lindbergs | May 7, 2008

Categories | Horror, Italian Cinema, Blogathons

Over at Ferdy on Film the Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon is in full swing and lots of people are sharing their thoughts about their favorite dance moments captured on film and debating the merits of individual dancers. I’m currently writing a longer piece about one of my favorite dance movies that I hope to finish up soon. But in the meantime I thought I’d share one of my favorite dance scenes.

The following clip is from the 1980 Umberto Lenzi film Nightmare City, which was originally shot in 1979 and it features some of the worst dancing I’ve ever seen in any film. Thankfully I’m not alone in my dislike for the dancing showcased in Nightmare City. As the following clip will clearly demonstrate, zombies don’t care for bad dancing either and they proceed to dismember the female offenders and eat them alive. This clip is gory and not for the faint of heart. But if you can withstand the cheap special effects and Stelvio Cipriani’s electronic euro-disco score, you might enjoy it as much as I do!

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The Painter of Agonies

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 16, 2007

Categories | Movie Reviews, Directors, Horror, Giallo, Italian Cinema, Pupi Avati

Above: Pupi Avati

At this time of the year it seems like every film critic suddenly becomes an expert on horror films and starts publishing their quickly put together “Top 10 Scary Movie Moments” or “Best Films to Watch on Halloween.” These lists are often compiled by people who’ve seen a limited amount of films and their horror selections are often tired and stale. Does anyone really still need to be told that a Criterion DVD release like Carnival of Souls is worth watching? Or horror classics like Hitchcock’s Psycho and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead are “must see” movies? With that complaint out of the way, I’d like to bring your attention to the name of one director who really deserves a lot more attention, and that is Pupi Avati.

Unfortunately the name Pupi Avati tends to elicit chuckles instead of respect, which is a shame. Avati created some of the most fascinating and chilling horror films to ever come out of Italy during the seventies and eighties, and he’s worked with many well-known Italian filmmakers such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lucio Fulci and Lamberto Bava.

As a director Avati has never stuck to one film genre. Besides horror films he’s made musicals, comedies and romances. I’m sure that’s one reason why his films are often overlooked by horror fans, who tend to favor directors that work almost exclusively in the horror genre. Another reason Avati is probably not as well-known or respected as other Italian genre directors is due to the fact that so many of his films are impossible to find and most of them have never been released in America until recently.

The director has made at least 3 or 4 horror or fantasy films that I’m aware of, and I’ve only been able to see two of them myself (The House with Laughing Windows and Zeder) since they were released as part of the Image Euroshock DVD collection in the U.S. Even though I’ve only seen a few of his films, I find Avati to be one of the most fascinating filmmakers I’ve ever come across. His horror films are deliberately paced and extremely thoughtful. They explore esoteric themes and interesting concepts about life and death, but unlike many of his contemporaries, his films lack gore and effects. They also tend to lack nudity and sex which some critics find bothersome, since his perceived prudishness could be seen as conflicting with the sexual themes in his films.

The absence of excessive gore and nudity in Avati’s films is probably the final and most obvious reason why his movies have so often been overlooked by horror fans who tend to be male and often prefer their horror films with plenty of violence and bare breasts. That’s not to say that The House with Laughing Windows (1976) and Zeder (1983) don’t contain any violence or nudity, but compared to most Italian directors from the same period such as Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, Avati’s films could be seen as much less visceral. They tend to generate their scares and evocative mood more from what the audience doesn’t see, instead of what’s put before them on screen. I personally find Avati’s style of filmmaking extremely smart and sophisticated. He seems to mix the best aspects of classic gothic Italian horror films with the most interesting aspects of modern Italian horror films, and this gives his work a very personal look and feel that is all his own.

The House with Laughing Windows is the earliest Avati film that I’ve seen and it’s easily one of the best Italian thrillers made in the ’70s. According to the video interview with the director and his crew that accompanies the DVD, the script was written five or six years before the film was made, but it was re-written right before filming began. I suspect that the changes might have been somewhat inspired by Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, which was made in 1973 since both films share a few similarities, but that’s impossible to confirm since The House with Laughing Windows was supposedly written years earlier. Fans of the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man might also see some similarities between Avati’s movie and that British thriller. One thing seems certain; the script clearly has some references to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo (1975) in it. Avati contributed to Pier Pasolini’s original script for Salo right before making The House with Laughing Windows and it’s easy to make a connection between the two movies since they both explore ideas about torture and sadism.

The House with Laughing Windows opens with a brutal scene involving a mysterious man being tortured and stabbed. It’s creatively shot with muted tones and quick cuts that take away a bit of the shock it elicits, but some viewers will immediately be reminded of Pasolini’s Salo. Avati has said that his Catholic upbringing deeply effects his filmmaking and that becames apparent while watching the opening minutes of The House with Laughing Windows. Throughout the course of the film, Avati will evoke Catholic imagery and iconography over and over again in some subtle and very unsubtle ways.

After the film’s somewhat graphic opening minutes, we’re introduced to the movie’s main protagonist, a man named Stephano (Lino Capolicchio) who has come to a small and beautiful Italian village to restore a decaying fresco painting on the wall of an old church that vividly depicts the slaughter of St. Sebastian. We’re immediately made aware that this small town is a bit odd simply due to its unusual inhabitants which include dwarves, ghost-like women, depraved altar boys and raving drunks, among others.

Stephano finds the fresco in the church extremely lifelike and as the film progresses we follow him on a quest to learn more about the mysterious artist who created it known as “The Painter of Agonies.” Along the way Stephano is plagued by threatening phone calls and he receives unusual clues from the town’s odd inhabitants, which often lead to murder. As the bodies start to pile up, questions surrounding the fresco’s artist become more and more complex, and Stephano realizes he’s uncovering clues to a disturbing mystery that no one in the town wants solved. The House with Laughing Windows isn’t a typical giallo film and I hesitate to use the term here, but it does have plenty of giallo-style flourishes that should appeal to fans of the genre.

Avati manages to create an unsettling mood and sustain it throughout the entire duration of the film until it’s unforgettable climax. The director makes full use of shadows and the lovely local scenery. Avati also takes every opportunity available to him to shoot his characters out of windows and doors, or looking through and at windows and doorways. Windows and doors are impressively used as a visual motif over and over again throughout the film, which helps to beautifully highlight the movie’s primary themes.

Avati made The House with Laughing Windows with a crew of 12 and a budget that wouldn’t pay for the catering bill of most Hollywood productions. The movie is an excellent example of the creativity and ingenuity of European directors making genre films during the seventies, and I really can’t recommend it enough. Once you see The House with Laughing Windows it’s impossible to forget it.

Avati’s 1983 thriller Zeder is just as good, if not better than The House with the Laughing Windows, and it’s also well worth seeking out if you’re interested in seeing more of the directors work, or just want to watch a incredibly effective horror film.

As I mentioned above, The House with Laughing Windows is available on DVD from Image as part of their terrific Euroshock Collection and it was originally released in 2002. The film is presented in widescreen with English subtitles and the print is excellent. The DVD also comes with a really nice documentary about the making of the film, which features Pupi Avati, as well as many cast and crew members. Other extras include a Lobby Card Gallery and a Theatrical Trailer.

Avati is currently 69 years old and working on a new thriller called The Hideout, which should be completed this year. His latest film was shot in America and it features an international cast that includes Burt Young, Treat Williams, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Yvonne Sciò, Laura Morante and Michael Cornelison. I have no idea of Avati’s latest film will be released in the America, but since it’s an international production I hope it gets a wide release.

If you’d like to see more images from Pupi Avati’s film, please see my House with Laughing Windows Flick Gallery.

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10 Questions with Tim Lucas

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 8, 2007

Categories | News, Books, Italian Cinema, Cinedelica, Interviews, Mario Bava

Over at Cinedelica we’re starting a new feature today called “10 Questions” and my first interviewee is film critic and author Tim Lucas.

I’ve been reading Tim’s film criticism since first coming across it in magazines like Fangoria and Gorezone in the ’80s when I was a teenager. There are few critics that have inspired and influenced my own writing more then Tim, so I was really happy to get the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his new book Mario Bava - All the Colors of the Dark. Tim’s enthusiastic support of Bava’s films over the years has definitely colored my own view of them, as well as my love for Italian genre films in general.

Some of the information in our brief exchange might be familiar to regular readers of his Bava Book Blog and anyone who owns the book, but if you’re curious about Mario Bava - All the Colors of the Dark and the films of Mario Bava in general, you might find my brief Q & A with Tim Lucas an interesting read.

- 10 Questions with Tim Lucas

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Michelangelo Antonioni 1912 - 2007

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 31, 2007

Categories | News, Directors, Italian Cinema, Alain Delon, Michelangelo Antonioni, David Hemmings

You ask what you should watch. I ask how I should live. It’s the same thing.
- Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris) in Antonioni’s The Red Desert (1964)

Cinephiles have suffered some great losses in recent days with the death of Ingmar Bergman, actor Michel Serrault and now Michelangelo Antonioni. I was really touched by all the great tributes I read to Bergman yesterday but I never became too personally involved with Bergman’s work myself. I admired the man greatly and seriously respected his influence which was obviously enormous, but Bergman and I often seemed to see the world through different eyes. I definitely need to see more of Bergman’s work since my experience with his films is minimal, but in all honesty my personal relationship with Bergman could never come close to the long lasting and personal one I share with Michelangelo Antonioni.

My first introduction to Antonioni was on a rainy Sunday afternoon when I was only about 12 years old back in the early 1980s. I was at home watching television when suddenly good old channel 2 in the Bay Area started to run Blow-up. At first I kept watching because I thought actor David Hemmings was incredibly cute, but as the film went on I became more and more drawn into the film’s mysteries and silences. While I enjoyed the swinging London setting and the sudden excitement of hearing the Yardbirds perform “Train Kept A-Rollin”, as well as the colorful and frenetic moments of Hemmings’ character shooting beautiful British models with his camera, it was really the silence and the isolation infusing Antonioni’s Blow-up that truly touched me and fascinated me in ways that few other films previously had. Once the movie had ended I knew I had seen something very special. I can remember trying to explain the film to friends and having trouble finding the words. At the time I was alone in my appreciation for the film but that was okay with me.

As the years passed I would see more of Michelangelo Antonioni’s films and I would also continue to feel more alone and isolated from a world which contained astonishing landscapes and breathtaking beauty while often remaining extremely cold and incomprehensible to me. Antonioni captured the world I saw and experienced with his camera. His films have made me appreciate and understand human loneliness and isolation in ways that few artists have. I’ve been moved and deeply touched by his work, which seemed to grasp at beauty in the most unexpected places and embrace the mystery of life that so many other artists, directors and human beings run away from or try to avoid and fill up with noise.

Appreciating the silence in life is essential to appreciating the work of Antonioni.

I’m often astonished by the amount of talking that characters do in film after film. When I was younger I would watch movies directed by the brilliant Woody Allen, or countless wonderful Howard Hawks’ comedies and be surprised and utterly entranced by the amazing communication and humor shared between characters and the deep feelings openly expressed in countless monologues. And while I appreciate well-written dialogue, the real world around me has always been rather silent. In my experience people rarely communicate. We might chat about life, work and family but it is often just surface nonsense with very little substance to it. Real relationships are hard to foster. True friendships are rare and should be treasured. We seem to be naturally guarded creatures who roam the world alone and finally die alone, no matter how deep our relationships are with friends and family. Michelangelo Antonioni understood this like no other director I’ve ever encountered.

Monica Vitti and Alain Delon in L’ Eclisse (1962)

Antonioni often tossed out convention when he made his films and embraced ambiguity. He knew that real life was full of questions that rarely had answers and he knew human behavior was often unpredictable and motivated by the incomprehensible interior life of every individual. He brought all of this truth to his films and I love him for it. I’m grateful that the world I know was so beautifully captured and shown to me through his camera. Antonioni was able to communicate with me in ways that few other artists and human beings have been able to and I’ll be forever grateful to him for that. Within Antonioni’s silences I heard symphonies.

Unfortunately it hasn’t always been very easy to see Antonioni’s films. In recent years that has changed due to companies like Criterion which have been making Antonioni’s films more accessible to American audiences, but I’ve still only seen L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L’Eclisse (1962), Red Desert (1964), Blow Up (1966) and The Passenger (1975) myself. Each of his films has resonated deep within me and I’d have a hard time leaving any of them off a list of “Favorite Films” that I might put together.

With Bergman’s death and now Antonioni’s passing, critics are bemoaning the lack of respect these directors seem to have with modern audiences but I think it’s ridiculous to weigh their incredible achievements against popular opinion. Antonioni’s work is so incredibly modern that it still confounds critics and divides audiences. If that isn’t the mark of an important filmmaker who’s work is still worth exploring and has much to offer current audiences, I don’t know what is. I have no doubt that Antonioni’s films will be appreciated for years to come and new generations of film lovers will find themselves discovering his work and being as deeply moved by it as I have been.

Links to some Michelangelo Antonioni film trailers on YouTube:
- L’ Avventura (1960)
- L’ Eclisse (1962)
- Blow-up (1966)
- Zabriskie Point (1970)
- The Passenger (1975)

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Revisiting the Bay of Blood

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 13, 2007

Categories | Horror, Giallo, Italian Cinema, Blogathons, Mario Bava

Welcome to the Bay of Blood

When Stacie Ponder first announced her Friday the 13th blog-a-thon I didn’t sign-up right away since here at Cinebeats I try and keep the focus on sixties and seventies era films, and the first Friday the 13th movie was released in 1980. Then I remembered the obvious.

Long before Jason put on a hockey mask and started terrorizing camp counselors at Crystal Lake, Italian horror maestro Mario Bava took audiences on a trip to the Bay Of Blood (a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve, Reazione a catena; 1971). I decided to revisit the Bay of Blood and examine just how much influence it had on the Friday the 13th films following its 1971 release.

Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood takes place in a quiet bayside Italian resort area where lots of holiday homes seem to lay dormant and empty waiting for their owners to return. Some of the homes are more luxurious than others, but they were all built close together and in some ways they resemble a sort of “summer camp.” For better or worse, the neighbors also seem to know one another and the bay itself actually looks like a lake. Naturally the homes all have their own weather beaten boat docks and the area is heavily forested, which comes in handy since a lot of the action takes place in the local woods.

A killer stalks these halls

The film opens with the crude murder of a poor wheelchair bound woman who’s killed inside her luxurious villa. Her smug murderer is shockingly disposed of as well by another unseen killer lurking in the shadows. This stunning double murder sets the stage for the rest of Bava’s bloody film.

Soon afterward a group of four sex starved young people arrive at the bay looking for some summer fun. They break into empty homes, drink lots of booze and dance like crazy until the mysterious killer decides to murder them all in quick order. Much like Jason in Friday the 13th, the killer uses a machete on his victims and brutally hacks them up in what are easily some of the goriest scenes put on screen in the early seventies. One girl has her throat cut while her boyfriend gets a machete in his head. The other couple is murdered brutally when the killer decides to use a spear on them while they’re busy having sex. These now classic murders were copied to the letter for the Friday the 13th films.

The killers in Bay of Blood don’t wear hockey masks, but at some point one of the murder victims puts on a tribal mask and tries to scare his friends before they’re all killed. Surely the makers of Friday the 13th must have jumped a little when they watched that memorable scene.

Other murders soon follow and the corpses continue to pile up in the Bay of Blood until it’s dark comedic end arrives with a bang. But the moments that have always remained with me the most in the film are the pointless and brutal deaths suffered by the four innocent young people who were just out for a good time.

Victims R Us

The young people in Bay of Blood have become the prototype victims for countless slasher films that followed it’s lead. They were all complete innocents who just found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their only crimes were being party crazy and sex starved, which made them easy targets. For the past 35 years similar victims have been getting hacked, slashed, strangled and mangled in movie after movie.

Forget everything you’ve read about Halloween, Black Christmas and so on. It’s impossible to watch the four young people get murdered in Bay of Blood without realizing that you’re watching the birth of the slasher film. Bava had conjured up plenty of murder and mayhem in his previous films such as Blood and Black Lace and 5 Dolls For an August Moon which were both groundbreaking gialli, but those films were a bit more restrained and the victims were rarely as innocent or as young. Bava goes for broke in Bay of Blood and seems unwilling to hold anything back. His camera lingers longer on each gruesome murder and the award winning special effects and makeup he used was incredibly realistic for 1971.

As in other slasher films like Friday the 13th, a lot of the action in Bay of Blood is shot from the killer’s perspective and Bava even uses a shaky camera effect to make us feel like we’re the killer at times. What separates Bava’s film from every other slasher film that followed is his amazing photography and great editing. Bay of Blood makes other similar efforts look childish in comparison. Almost no one shoots interiors as masterfully as Bava, and he brings lots of his signature gothic styling to this bayside thriller.

At the Bay of Blood sex can be deadly

The Bay of Blood features a terrific international cast including many genre favorites such as Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Claudio Camaso, Anna Maria Rosati, Laura Betti, Isa Miranda, Claudio Camaso, Brigitte Skay and young Nicoletta Elmi. The movie also contains one of composer Stelvio Cipriani’s best film scores.

I enjoyed the first two Friday the 13th films. I could have lived without the third one, but the fourth one wasn’t half bad. With that being said, all the Friday the 13th films combined can’t hold a candle to Bay of Blood in my opinion. If you watch one slasher film this summer, make it Bava’s blood-soaked visit to an Italian bay. You’ll have fun spotting all the film’s influential scenes.

You can find more screen shots at my Bay of Blood Flickr Gallery which I put together just for the blog-a-thon.

More info about Bay of Blood (a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve) and it’s influence on the Friday the 13th films can be found at the films’ page on Wikipedia.

Also take a moment to check out this week’s Horror Roundtable where we all discuss our favorite murders from the Friday the 13th films!

The local octopi seem to be enjoying all the carnage

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