A Bay of Blood
1971 ‘Reazione a catena’ Directed by Mario Bava
Synopsis
They came to play, they stayed to die.
An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt to reduce the inheritance playing field, complicated by some teenagers who decide to camp out in a dilapidated building on the estate.
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Believe it or not, this is the first Bava movie I've ever watched.
I thought it was really great, even though most of the plot developments went over my head. I found the flashbacks helpful at first but then it became almost like a LOST-type situation where the flashbacks started piling up so heavy that I got a little unstuck in time. It was very helpful to me when [spoiler] the two little kids showed up from out of nowhere and murdered the last remaining characters with a shotgun. That relieved a lot of pressure I felt to understand the story.Basic gist is that everybody's fighting for this bay. Some people want to build a potentially lucrative resort there,…
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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There is a pretty massive Italian horror-shaped hole in my film-watching history. Not because of any great feelings against the genre and/or the country producing them, you understand.
No, in fact I've had several stabs (oh come on!) at the type and pretty much the whole time my overall conclusion has been the same about them - "I quite enjoyed that. No bloody idea what was going on, though." In fact, I was even of the thought that I would be quite satisfied if A Bay Of Blood turned out to suck just as long as I actually understood what the hell was going on.
I'm always wary of any film that is described as hugely influential because I don't…
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As far as left field endings go, is there any more left field? I'm pretty sure that came from the hot dog stand behind the bleachers.
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One of Italian director Mario Bava's ultimate cult classics and widely considered a slasher original. Bava gets an A for effort, he takes the traditional cheap-looking, campy setup of the subgenre that this film would inspire and actually attempts to put together a cleverly crafted plot. The result is a messy collage of plot lines - revolving around the murder of Countess Federica (Isa Miranda) who owns a great deal of land surrounding a bay - that aren't developed enough to be consistently interesting. What makes Bay of Blood extremely watchable is Bava's use of visceral atmosphere to heighten tension that is then capped off by his notorious use of excessive violence. With audacious energy and anarchic style he shook…
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Film 29 of "The December Project" 2012
84 minutesThis is my 2nd Bava film experience after watching Black Sabbath. I didn't read any reviews about it, so I went into it blind. And honestly I fucking loved the shit out of this movie.
For starters, this film was nearly non-stop fun, sure there were some weaker moments when they would show landscape shots of the bay and the music would be kind of sappy sounding. But those moments were only about 5 seconds long and went right into great moments. Regarding the score of the film aside from the shitty elevator interludes, it was awesome, very eerie and suspenseful sounding just like other Giallo films I've seen. That is…
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Quite possibly the most convoluted horror film ever made but quite stylish and very, very violent. More interesting for technique than story. ALWAYS entertaining.
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I'm not hugely familiar with giallo, or Bava for that matter, but after watching Psycho (1960) I decided to work my way through the slasher films I own. It's a slow process, but it made sense to include A Bay of Blood. The narrative is a little bit shambling and there are some characters which are obviously included just to ratchet up the body count, but most of the deaths are nicely executed and the story does end up making some sort of sense. This really is a must-see for fans of the slasher genre, and it's also not an awful entry point for Italian genre cinema.
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Reviewed/Analyzed here: automaticcinematic.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/good-lord-simon-you-make-me-feel-like-a-murderer/
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Horror-thriller about four young people on summer break who go hang out at the lake only to realize that there is a killer on the loose. One of Mario Bava's best. This is the one who created the template for the slasher film.
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An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What happens next is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt to reduce the inheritance playing field, complicated by some teenagers who decide to camp out in a dilapidated building on the estate. A lot of murder set pieces that inspired slashers in the following years. Slow by today's standards but a Bava Classic. The Arrow Bluray is recommended.
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Bava is on another level in regards to every thing that makes a good horror movie. Beautifully filmed. Creepy and disturbing. Over the top black comedy. And of course the basic viscera of the kills.
Seriously, this film is completely bonkers hilarity. Some say its story makes no sense, but I disagree, its just batshit. Everyone is a killer. There is no "villain". Everyone is murdering everyone else for the most selfish of aims. And everyone gets what is coming to them (except for some innocents).
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Mario Bava films to me can be slow paced but they are never boring, style, good storylines and great gothic visuals. This movie is for me probably the first slasher style bodycount film made. The slasher as we know it owes more to this than any giallo. Brilliant score builds up to a great and fitting way to end this story. One of the first, and probably one of the best of it's time, i will say it can be a little overated at times but well worth seeking out. A very good by the numbers early slasher movie!
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Believe it or not, this is the first Bava movie I've ever watched.
I thought it was really great, even though most of the plot developments went over my head. I found the flashbacks helpful at first but then it became almost like a LOST-type situation where the flashbacks started piling up so heavy that I got a little unstuck in time. It was very helpful to me when [spoiler] the two little kids showed up from out of nowhere and murdered the last remaining characters with a shotgun. That relieved a lot of pressure I felt to understand the story.Basic gist is that everybody's fighting for this bay. Some people want to build a potentially lucrative resort there,…
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As influential to the slasher film boom of the 1980s as this film was,the muddled plot and oddball characters leave A Bay Of Blood as a film which could have benefited from some simplification. The driving factor of the inheritance as a motive for murder is an old idea,but the sadistic delight the killer obviously takes in murdering his victims points more to him just being a complete psycho rather than someone driven purely by money. It's quite a big leap.
Worth watching for slasher and Bava fans but don't go in expecting a masterpiece.