For today’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse And Exploitation Film Trailers, we share some trailers from the maestro of Italian horror, Mario Bava!
Black Sunday (1960)
After starting his career as a cinematographer and a visual effects engineer, Mario Bava made his directorial debut with 1960’s Black Sunday, starring Barbara Steele!
2. Black Sabbath (1963)
In 1963, Bava directed one of his most popular films, the horror anthology Black Sabbath. The trailer put the spotlight on the great Boris Karloff.
3. Planet of the Vampires (1965)
One of Bava’s best films, Planet of the Vampires, was later cited by many as an influence on the Alien films.
4. Bay of Blood (1971)
One of the first slasher films, Bay of Blood was also a social satire that featured Bava’s dark sense of humor.
5. The House of Exorcism (1974)
When it was released in the United States, Bava’s Lisa and the Devil was re-titled House of Exorcism and, after new scenes were filmed, sold as a rip-off to The Exorcist.
6. Shock (1977)
Bava’s final film as a director was Shock, which starred Daria Nicolodi as a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of her first husband.
8 Shots From 8 Films is just what it says it is, 8 shots from 8 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 8 Shots From 8 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
This October, I am going to be using our 8 Shots From 8 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!
Today’s director is Mario Bava, the maestro of Italian horror and one of the most influential and important filmakers of all time!
8 Shots From 8 Mario Bava Films
Black Sunday (1960, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Mario Bava)
Black Sabbath (1963, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Ubaldo Terzano and Mario Bava)
Blood and Black Lace (1964, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Ubaldo Terzano)
Planet of the Vampires (1965, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Antonio Rinaldi)
Kill Baby Kill (1966, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Antonio Rinaldi)
Bay of Blood (1971, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Mario Bava)
Lisa and the Devil (1974, dir by Mario Bava. DP: Cecilio Paniagua)
Shock (1977, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Alberto Spagnoli and Mario Bava)
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, the Shattered Lens pays tribute to the memory and the legacy of the maestro of horror himself, Mario Bava! Bava was born 109 years ago, today.
6 Shots From 6 Mario Bava Films
Black Sunday (1960, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Mario Bava)
The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Mario Bava)
Planet of the Vampires (1965, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Antonio Rinaldi)
Kill, Baby, Kill (1966, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Antonio Rinaldi)
Bay of Blood (1971, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Mario Bava)
Shock (1977, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Alberto Spagnoli)
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
106 years ago today, the greatest of all director, Mario Bava, was born in Italy! Today is a bit of a holiday here at the TSL Bunker. In honor of the great Mario Bava, here are….
Like many Italian horror films, Mario Bava’s 1971 film, Bay of Blood, is known by many different names.
The original Italian title, or at least one of them, was Ecologia del delitto, which roughly translates to Ecology of Crime. That may sound a little dry to our English-speaking ears but it’s actually a totally appropriate title. The film is about a series of crimes, all inspired by greed and the desire to take control of a bayside mansion.
The film was also called Reazione a catena, which translates to Chain Reaction. Again, that may sound a bit bland but it’s a totally appropriate title. This film takes the concept of a chain reaction to its logical extreme. Everyone in the film wants control of the bay and everyone is willing to kill to do it. One person murders someone just to get murdered themselves. As dark as that may sound, this film actually finds Bava in a rather playful mood. Bava’s direction is wonderfully self-aware and totally cognizant of how absurd the film’s plot occasionally is. It all ends with a perfectly sardonic little twist, one that not only feels earned but which perfectly epitomizes the film’s darkly humorous worldview.
When the film was released in the UK and the United States it was given several different titles. (At one point, in the United States, it was actually sold as being a sequel to Wes Craven’s Last House On The Left, which it definitely was not.) One title was Carnage. Another was Blood Bath. Again, bland titles but totally appropriate to the film. Over the course of the film’s 84-minute running time, 14 people are murdered. With the exception of two innocent bystanders and four teenagers who made the mistake of trying to party in the murder mansion, they were all bad. Still, fourteen is a lot of carnage.
In fact, Bava’s film would later be cited as one of the first slasher films. That’s true, though this film has considerably going on beneath the surface than the average slasher film. If the average slasher often can be defined by sex=death, Bava’s film can be defined as greed=death. That said, several of this film’s murders were “borrowed’ by the early installments of the Friday the 13th franchise. Remember that double impalement from Friday the 13th Part 2? It was taken, almost shot-for-shot, from Bava’s film.
My favorite title for Bava’s film was Twitch of the Death Nerve, which is just so wonderfully over-the-top and melodramatic. It’s the title that most captures the film’s combination of blood and satire. If I was solely in charge of picking the film’s official title, I would have selected Twitch of the Death Nerve.
However, the official title of Bava’s film appears to be Bay of Blood and I guess that’s an okay title. I mean, it’s appropriate. A lot of blood is spilled in that bay, starting with Countess Federica (Isa Miranda) and then going on to include the majority of her family members and business associates. The film opens with Federica’s murder and then doesn’t waste any time in revealing that Federica was murdered by her husband, Filippo (Giovanni Nuvoletti). Filippo murdered his wife on behalf of her estate agent, Frank (Chris Avram) and now, Frank just needs Filippo to sign the property over to him. Of course, what Frank doesn’t realize is that Filippo was murdered just minutes after he murdered Federica….
And that’s just the start.
Bay of Blood is one of Mario Bava’s best films, featuring a cast of wonderfully sordid characters and grisly murders. The film itself becomes a bit of a black comedy, as one murder leads to another. Bava directs with his usual bravura sense of style, making the bay both beautiful and menacing at the same time. If you want to know why almost every horror film made since 1970 owes a debt of gratitude to Bava, Bay of Blood is a good place to start.
This the one where the nice guy in the wheelchair gets a machete to the face.
There’s a lot of different ways that you can describe Friday the 13th Part 2. It’s a horror movie, a slasher flick, and a sequel. It’s the first Friday the 13th movie to feature Jason Voorhees as the killer. It’s also one the best installments in the franchise. However, to me, this will always be the movie where the nice guy in the wheelchair gets a machete to the face.
Originally released in 1981, Friday the 13th Part 2 is, of course, about more than just the nice guy in the wheel chair getting a machete to the face. The film opens with Alice (Adrienne King), the sole survivor from the first film, struggling to get on with her life a year after the massacre. She has a small apartment that, in a nice touch, is full of drawings of the disfigured boy who attacked her at the end of the previous film. One night, Alice’s cat startles her by jumping out of a closet and shouting, “Watch out, there’s a mysterious killer in here.” Foolishly, Alice ignores her cat and ends up getting an ice pick rammed into her head.
(If only people listened to their cats…)
Five years later, Camp Crystal Lake is once again reopening, this time under the direction of alpha male Paul Holt (John Furey). Paul and his annoying sidekick Ted (Stu Charro) tell everyone not to worry about any old rumors about some mysterious murderer killing anyone who goes to Crystal Lake. Meanwhile, Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) is wandering around, going all “You’re all doomed!” and then watching as Paul’s girlfriend Ginny (Amy Steel) undresses in her cabin. Bad Crazy Ralph! Luckily, Crazy Ralph then gets strangled with barbed wire. (Ouch! I guess he was the one who was doomed, huh? Get it? Anyway…)
Paul, Ginny, annoying Ted, and the rest of the counselors decide to head into town so they can spend the night getting drunk. However, a few counselors decide to remain at the camp. (Again, this just goes to prove that slasher films are not only about punishing people for having sex and doing drugs. If the majority of this installment’s victims had simply been willing to go get drunk, they would have survived.) Remaining at the camp: horny couple Jeff and Sandra (Bill Randolph and Marta Kober), Terry (Kirsten Baker), who for some reason refuses to wear underwear, Scott (Russell Todd), who is obsessed with Terry but could do so much better, sweet-natured Vicki (Lauren-Marie Taylor), and finally Mark (Tom McBride), the nice guy in the wheelchair.
Anyway, if you’ve ever seen a slasher film than you can guess what pretty much happens. Jason (played here by Steve Daskawisz) shows up and kills everyone until eventually Ginny and Paul return to the camp. (Annoying Ted stays behind to keep drinking and somehow manages to survive the film. It’s an odd slasher film where the nice guy in the wheelchair gets killed but the obnoxious, dorky guy somehow makes it through.) There’s a big, genuinely exciting final battle with Ginny and Paul on one side and Jason on the other. Ginny survives, Jason escapes, and Paul … well, who knows? One moment, Paul’s there and the next he’s gone. I’m still trying to figure that one out.
Friday the 13th Part 2 is controversial among many horror fans because so many of the killings are identical to the killings from an earlier slasher film, Mario Bava’s brilliant Bay of Blood (a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve). One especially obvious example is the double impalement of Jeff and Sandra and when I say obvious, I mean that the exact same scene can be found in Bay of Blood. In Peter M. Bracke’s history of the franchise, Crystal Lake Memories, Part 2’s self-important screenwriter, Ron Kurz, claims to have never heard of Bay of Blood. And to that, I say, “Whatever, Ron Kurz. You’re either a liar or you actually don’t know who Mario Bava is. Either way, you suck.”
Though Friday the 13th Part 2 is obviously a rather derivative film and frequently doesn’t make much sense, it’s also a personal favorite of mine as far as 80s slasher films are concerned. The cast is likable and attractive (especially Russell Todd, who gets killed way too early as far as I’m concerned) and some of the kill scenes are genuinely well done. Amy Steel, much like Adrienne King before her, make for a strong heroine and her final battle with Jason is actually pretty exciting. The true star of the film, however, is director Steve Miner who fills each scene with a sense of genuine menace that goes a long way to making up for Ron Kurz’s sloppy script. As opposed to Sean Cunningham (who directed the first film), Miner shows a genuinely inventive visual sense. My favorite shot in the film is a rather minor one of a bunch of cars driving down a shadowy road. The scene doesn’t really add anything to the story and it almost feels like filler but it’s still effectively eerie.
It could be argued that Friday the 13th Part 2 is the first true Friday the 13th because it’s the first film to actually feature Jason Voorhees killing camp counselors. The character of Jason makes even less sense in this film than he did when he was just some kid living underwater in the first film. It’s impossible to watch the film and not wonder how 1) Jason suddenly went from being a 13 year-old living in a lake to a 40 year-old living in a shack in the woods, 2) how Jason managed to track down Alice, 3) how Jason managed to then walk all the way to Alice’s new home and then all the way back to Crystal Lake without anyone noticing him, and 4) why exactly has Jason been hiding in the woods all this time and apparently allowing his mother to believe that he was dead. That said, I actually think that Jason is probably at his scariest in Friday the 13th Part 2. A lot of that has to do with the fact that, instead of wearing that famous hockey mask, Jason spends most of the movie with a burlap sack over his head. As opposed to the hockey mask (which makes Jason look rather Canadian), both the sack and Jason’s odd overalls make him look like a faceless demon that’s sprung, full of fury, out of rural folklore.
Though it made less than the first film, Friday the 13th Part 2 was a financial success. Audiences ignored the film’s many critics and they flocked to see it. Not surprisingly, Paramount Pictures immediately called for a sequel.
The end result — Friday the 13th Part 3 — would be one of the worst horror films ever made.
It’s time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers. This week’s edition has no set theme beyond the fact that, in-between typing up the six trailers featured here, I was also trying on different outfits. Multi-tasking!
From 1970, it’s the debut film of Nicolas Roeg (though technically, he co-directed by Donald Cammell). Reportedly, acting in this film led to costar James Fox having a nervous breakdown.
This is the trailer for Mario Bava’s infamous, trend-setting giallo. Bava’s preferred title for this film was Bay of Blood though it was released under several titles, including Carnage and my personal favorite, Twitch of the Death Nerve.
This 1978 film is from the criminally underrated director Pete Walker. The trailer has a similar feel to Lamerto Bava’s A Blade in the Dark. Who is Jack Jones and was he actually an international singing sensation? So many questions.
This trailer is from 1968, which — if you’ve seen the trailer — is kind of one of those “well, duh” facts. Based on a book by my fellow Texan Terry Southern (hence, the tag line), the film features Walter Matthau, Richard Burton, Ringo Starr, Marlon Brando, and James Coburn all taking advantage of Ewa Aulin (who, much like James Fox in Performance, reportedly had a nervous breakdown as a result of making this film). The film was directed by Christian Marquand who, years later, would play the main French Plantation Guy in Apocalypse Now Redux.
Through the Shattered Lens 