bay of blood

Italian horror auteur Mario Bava's 1971 Bay of Blood (also known as Twitch of the Death Nerve and Bloodbath among others--supposedly has the most alternate titles of any movie) is a twisty giallo that has been influential on many subsequent slasher movies (particularly Friday the 13th and perhaps Adam Wingard's recent dysfunctional family home invasion thriller You're Next).  Bay of Blood follows a murder spree, with different members of a family killing one another in order to gain an inheritance of an estate on the bay.  Set to a spare, repetitive drum beat (the score is by prolific Italian film composer Stelvio Cipriani), the plot is a bit murky and at times confusing (who's killing who and why?) and everyone goes down like dominoes (13 is the final body count) in a bloodbath of sick and gory makeup effects (by legendary Carlo Rambaldi).

Something tells me Bava made this with both a slight bit of wrath and a tongue-in-cheekiness.  There are zoom shots galore, moments when shots go in and out-of-focus, as if to illustrate the messiness and opacity of the proceedings. And there's a lot of trickiness and black comedy in it too, especially in the gag coda. Supposedly the actual location was a bit bare and Bava compensated for this with close-ups and shots through trees.  It does end up feeling like a secluded, woodsy setting and looks very similar to Camp Crystal Lake.  There are even some through-tree-branch POV shots that are reminiscent of Sean S. Cunningham's movie. As noted many times by horror fans, a double impalement figures that is exactly like the one in Steve Miner's Friday the 13th Part 2.

There are some groovy pieces of furniture, costumes, hairstyles and some beautiful shots among all the gore--including a well-captured sunset--but this movie is a departure from Bava's previous, heavily-stylized work and part of the film industry's transition of the lush cinema of the sixties to the more raw work of the seventies. Because of this, it was panned upon release, including by actor Christopher Lee, who is said to have walked out on a showing of it. The effects are indeed shocking and they have a sense of texture and realism to them (squids and hatchet in the head are definitely the squirmiest); the gore lingers much longer than what we're used to in the MPAA edited era. While a bit disjointed overall, Bava's film remains an important movie in horror canon.  ***

red lamp, necklace & hell-portal: a fulci triple feature

The films of Lucio Fulci vary in content and how gory they are (The New York Ripper is one grimy shocker that pushes the graphic limit about as far horror can go).  Though few of his films are as polished or sophisticated as Dario Argento's (whom Fulci often voiced personal contempt for) giallos, Fulci definitely has a distinct style. His 1977 The Psychic (aka Seven Notes in Black) is one of his more under-seen films.  It centers upon a woman (Jennifer O'Neill, another one of Fulci's ravishing but emotionally distant leads) renovating a villa.  She begins to piece together a mystery through her violent psychic visions.  It sounds a bit like Eyes of Laura Mars, but Fulci's film predates the glossy Faye Dunaway flick and it's a bit more subtle and eerier, though undermined by schlocky dubbing.  Cinema afficiandos may catch that Quentin Tarantino lifted portions of its music score (by Franco Bixio, Fabio Frizzi, Vince Tempera) for Kill Bill, Vol. 1. **1/2

I actually enjoyed his Manhattan Baby more than I thought I would (it usually appears on his worst-of list).  A wealthy Manhattan family's trip to Egypt unearths an evil spirit within a necklace that the young daughter is given.  Fulci's film isn't nearly as intense as its inspirations (namely Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby) but it finds a groove in its dream logic. Part of the reason why it works is that it seems to have fun in its referencing; note that one of the kids and the doomed au pair are named after a character and the lead from Halloween (Tommy and Jamie Lee).  There's even an unsettling scene right out of The Birds, this time with swooping killer stuffed ones, that is flamboyantly filmed and edited.  It's pretty tepid plot-wise and takes too long to get going, but I reveled in its late-70s, early 80s Manhattan-set cheesy horror vibe. **1/2

Most thrill-seekers consider The Beyond Fulci's masterpiece.  In this blood-soaked, New Orleans-set fever dream, a young woman is also doing some renovating -- this time at a haunted inn which houses a portal to hell.  It's familiar territory for Fulci but The Beyond is especially gory in its death sequences. These violent scenes, including one with flesh-eating tarantulas, in which I had to cover my eyes, are almost-agonizingly long. The Beyond has some arresting visuals, including an eerie moment set on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.  There is something about the highly stylized nature and the gruesome pitch of Fulci's death scenes, which mixes shock and black humor, that is pretty much unparalleled in horror. Many have wondered if Fulci's sad past (his wife committed suicide and years later, his daughter died in a car wreck), have shaped his artistic vision and the relentless cruelty that's afflicted upon his characters.  Even if the films can have shoddy production values, their garishness and viciousness still can pack a punch and haunt the viewer afterward. ***

-Jeffery Berg