A Bay of Blood (AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve/Reazione a Catena/Carnage/Bloodbath/Many, many more…) (1971)
Distributor: Arrow Video
DVD/Blu-Ray Release Date (UK): 13th December 2010
Directed by: Mario Bava
Starring: Claudine Auger, Luigi Pustilli, Claudio Camaso, Anna Maria Rosati
Review by: Ben Bussey
Deep in an idyllic wilderness lies a serene, unspoiled bay. Amongst all this nature, the only concessions to modern civilisation are a few buildings: a luxury mansion, a disused nightclub, and some rather more simple shacks which house the few human residents. Ownership of this estate falls to an aged Countess… for the first few minutes of the film, at least. Soon enough she’s bumped off. Even sooner, more people are getting bumped off. It seems there a more than a couple of interested parties looking to claim ownership of the bay, and they will stop at nothing to get it.
As the vast number of alternate titles reflect, A Bay of Blood is a prime relic of the grindhouse/exploitation era. As its body count and lurid murders reflect, it is also a clear precursor of the slasher genre, its influence on the early Friday the 13th movies being particularly apparent and well documented. All this considered, it is without doubt one of those must-see movies for all those of us who fancy ourselves more than casual horror fans. Some mighty oaks sprang forth from this acorn, for certain. Even so, to say that a film had a significant impact on that which came thereafter is not necessarily to offer any guarantee that it still holds up to contemporary audience sensibilities. It may well have broken new ground on release, but can A Bay of Blood still stand tall alongside the slasher stalwarts for which it was at least partially responsible?
To begin with, it is perhaps unsurprising that the deaths are by and large fairly tame by modern standards. It may have been one of the illustrious seventy-two titles to make the UK’s notorious Video Nasty blacklist back in 1984, but in 2010 I’m frankly surprised the BBFC still deem it violent enough to warrant an 18 certificate. Still, while the hack ‘n’ slash moments may not push the envelope and test the gag reflex the way they did for the early 70s audience, they do retain their gleefully ghoulish sense of humour. As I think can be said of much of Mario Bava’s work, A Bay of Blood bridges the gap between vintage and modern age horror in an interesting way; for while the gore may point forward to the Savini era, the labyrinthine plot in which seemingly everybody is literally out to stab everybody else in the back (not so much a whodunit as a who’ll-do-it-first) feels more in keeping with an old-fashioned slamming door farce.
But again, whether this is enough to command the attention of audiences today is debatable. The often languid pace tries the patience at times, particularly with a number of overlong and largely unnecessary flashback sequences in the final act. Oftentimes it’s hard to avoid playing Spot The Bit Friday the 13th Ripped Off (at least two key murders, and possibly the earliest example of that time honoured slasher staple: the skinny dip). This may be fun at first, but ultimately it only serves to distance the viewer further from engaging with the film itself on its own terms.
Even so, there can be little debate that A Bay of Blood is a landmark film in the history of the genre, and as such it’s a title that a great many horror aficianados will want to have in their collection. Happily, it’s another great edition from Arrow, the reigning champions of cult genre classics in the DVD/Blu-Ray age. In their signature white sleeve with specially created cover art, we have two discs boasting the movie in both its English and Italian versions; extended interviews with Bava’s cameraman Gianlorenzo Battaglia and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti (something of a hit machine, having also scripted many of Argento and Fulci’s most celebrated movies); two clips from Trailers From Hell featuring Edgar Wright giving his commentary on two of the trailers; and an interview with Joe Dante, discussing Bava’s significance in the grindhouse era. I do have a few minor complaints on these; the Dante interview suffers from poor sound, the trailers have no option to view without Edgar Wright’s commentary, and I do find it a little pompous and unnecessary for DVD mini-documentaries to boast full-length opening title sequences. Still, for the window they provide into the impact of the film and its director, the extras are more than welcome, and I understand the Blu-Ray edition has all the aforementioned and more besides.
No, all things considered A Bay of Blood does not hold up as well as many of the groundbreaking horror movies of the 70s, but it was a groundbreaker nonetheless. It’s a must-see movie, even if that only means must-see-once. A worthy purchase either way.