And thanks a bunch for checking this out! It means a lot to me when people read the dumb things that I write. The reviews won't follow any particular format, as some movies may not deserve so many words... But, if you're pressed for time, I'll try to do a very brief summary at the end of every review so you can get a sense of whether or not it would be something you'd like to check out.
Enjoy!
Bay of Blood (1971)
Mario Bava
"All's well that ends well..."
Despite being a big fan of gore, bloody special effects, and nudity, I'm not super enamored with slasher movies. I respect the classics and I understand their appeal to both audiences and filmmakers. What better way to fill 90 minutes than with boobs and murder and blood? It's so easy to generate suspense when there's a seemingly unstoppable killer hacking his or her way through a cast of doe-eyed teenagers. The trope of people yelling advice to characters on screen always comes from slasher films, because they generate a visceral reaction from the audience.
Well, the good ones do anyway.
Well, the good ones do anyway.
Even the great films of the subgenre (Nightmare on Elm Street; Halloween; Friday the 13th) usually devolve into lazy tropes after the studios smell a way to make an easy buck off of a cheaply produced franchise. When the series departs from the algorithm (like with New Nightmare, Halloween 3, Chainsaw Massacre 2, or Friday the 13th Part 6) they're usually not well regarded initially and only benefit when their satirical or unorthodox elements gain some appreciation.
The lesser additions to the series are films I'll likely never watch. Some of them just seem completely lost to time now. Who is really going to sit down to watch Nightmare on Elm Street 5 in the year of our dark lord 2017? Who could possibly be interested in a detailed examination of the origins of Freddy? That's as stupid and pointless as wanting to see a whole movie about what Han Solo was like as a little boy.
Anyway, it's October, and I'm trying to get a broad cross-section of horror movies, so I've got to get some slashers in. And what better way than to follow Coldplay's immortal advice, and go back to the start?
Bay of Blood is certainly a slasher film, and I gather is considered seminal. I was a little skeptical going in because I'd never seen it, but I knew Italian horror movies could be a bit hit-or-miss. There's a lot of brilliance from Italy, but there's also a lot of boring dogshit.
When I'd do bad movie nights with my friends years ago, there'd usually be a collective groan in the living room when we first heard the weird stilted dubbed dialogue that comes with Italian horror. Since we were young idiots and didn't research directors or films, we'd end up with something like "Night of the Zombies." It sounds so promising, but it's really just 100 minutes of gross sex scenes and terrible actors reading incomprehensible scripts. If you were lucky, there'd be a bit of shocking gore every 20 minutes or so, but often not.
Luckily Bay of Blood falls firmly on the good side of Italian horror (also known as giallo). Yes, the dialogue is dubbed, but it's not nearly as distracting as the cheaper, shlockier giallo films. Plus the rest of the movie is fucking awesome!
While I hadn't seen any of his films, I knew the name Mario Bava. I knew that he was well known for making bloody, sex-filled grindhouse type films, but that was the extent of it. I knew what other giallo directors like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci were capable of, but without a particular frame of reference, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect.
I will say I assumed that things would be somewhat tamer than similar giallo films that came along later, but I'm a stupid baby. During the second kill of the film, I said an audible "dang" based on how gruesome it was. In 1971, this must have been pretty shocking:
I will say I assumed that things would be somewhat tamer than similar giallo films that came along later, but I'm a stupid baby. During the second kill of the film, I said an audible "dang" based on how gruesome it was. In 1971, this must have been pretty shocking:
You can tell how seminal these kills are, because you've seen them a hundred times in a hundred different movies.
I assume a lot of people who have seen this movie in the past either saw it on crappy, cheaply printed film stock at a drive-in, or on VHS. I think that cruddy presentation probably would benefit the gory parts of the film by blurring the edges a little bit. I love living in 2017 and having access to all of these great weird movies lovingly restored in gorgeous 1080p, but the effects don't really hold up under the crystal clear HD. But I'm so glad the Blu Ray exists for everything that isn't a beheading, because it's a wonderfully shot film.
So, as fun as they are, let's take just a minute to look beyond the gory murders.
I think it's probably safe to say this: Mario Bava is a weirdo genius. There's a way to make Bay of Blood quickly, easily, and cheaply. The shock value of the murders would have been enough to sell tickets and make it a formative classic, but Bava is a real, honest-to-goodness filmmaker. And it shows in almost every scene.
There's a fantastic scene at the beginning of the film, when two characters who have just been introduced to us are having a conversation. At that point, the audience has no idea the impact they will have on the story, and based on the jarring nature of the first two kills, we're not even sure if they'll survive through the scene. But Bava gives us an interesting clue.
Watch this for 20 seconds or so:
It seems like standard exposition; just a couple of characters establishing their place in the plot. But take a close look at the glass decorations on the table in front of the actress:
Bava is framing her as someone with several faces, some twisted and distorted. It's subtle, but can be seen as serious foreshadowing as the character develops throughout the story.
There's a lot of cool cinema going on in Bay of Blood. Often after a murder scene, there's a jarring transition to something else. My absolute favorite comes after a couple are speared together while having sex (watch until 38:00):
First of all, I love how orgasmic the death is. There's an intense, dramatic penetration, a lot of clutching, a shudder, and then stillness.
Then the cut to the car. That might be the greatest transition in horror movie history, and really clues the audience in to the subtle farce of it all. Not only is it brutally violent, but it's also super funny! In 1971!
I mean, holy shit the goofy smile on that car...
That got me to do a full guffaw.
Here's another amazing transition (watch until 1:00:48):
That might be one of the greatest decapitations ever, and the smash (literally) cut to children dropping a weird clay head on the ground is brilliant. Just as you start to process the bloody, spurting stump of neck staring directly at the camera, you're laughing at the absurdity of the following scene. It's some master level toying with the audience, and I love that shit.
These are definitely some of the more memorable scenes, but the whole film is a delight to look at! Bava loves a kinetic camera and keeps the point of view moving and shifting, almost at all times. It gives you the sense that there's an unseen character in each scene, and we are looking through their eyes. Long panning shots, dramatic zooms, tracking shots that lead us into the scene, and a chase scene through the woods that was a clear influence on Sam Raimi make for some really interesting visuals.
And the plot isn't half bad either. Based on IMDB, it looks like Bay of Blood had a whole bunch of writers, and I don't get the sense that they were all working on it at the same time, or had the same level of influence. There's a lot going on, and it takes until the end of the movie to unravel all of the various plot threads, but it really works. The mystery of who killed who and why takes a long time to resolve, and has some pretty badass twists along the way. But it's never pointlessly confounding, and Bava does a great job of keeping the story together despite how complicated it gets by the end.
It's like a really good episode of Columbo, except there's no detective trying to solve the crime and people get their heads lopped off. In fact, it might be better to describe the story as downright Shakespearean, especially since the film winks and nods to this idea with one of the final lines of the film.
I imagine that for some of these film reviews I'll have no problem breaking down the plot, but since I hope you'll give Bay of Blood a whirl, I'm not going to spoil what happens. I will say that the ending is just as jarring and hilarious and absurd as the rest of the film, and was described as the greatest ending of all time by noted genius Joe Dante. Trust me, it's amazing and totally worth the paltry 84 minute run time. If any of this review looked or sounded vaguely interesting to you, definitely check it out.
The whole thing is on YouTube (and actually looks pretty good), so you've officially run out of excuses.
And if you're feeling extra fancy, the lovingly remastered Blu Ray looks great and is not terribly expensive.
Summary:
Bay of Blood is a gory, interesting, beautiful, absurdist masterpiece of slasher horror, and should definitely be on your list if you're a fan of the genre. Easy recommend.
1 comment:
I demand review number 2 now!
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