☆ ☆ ½
A Bay
of Blood (1971) – M. Bava
I keep hoping that I will find another
good Mario Bava film. There is a big
cult around him but they seem to be primarily focused on Bava’s ability to
stage a gruesome (and bloody) murder, rather than my interest in the
creepy/spooky mises-en-scene he was able to create in such classics as I
Vampiri (1957), Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), and even Planet of
the Vampires (1965). I suppose his
success with Blood and Black Lace (1964), which saw fashion models in an elite
agency picked off one by one, encouraged him in this direction. A Bay of Blood is supposedly the progenitor
of the slasher film, inspiring Friday the 13th (1980) and apparently
being ripped off directly in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). I wasn’t a big fan of that genre (although I
did see Friday the 13th Part III (1982) in the theatre in 3D), so
why did I watch this? I guess I am still
hoping to find a clearer missing link between Bava the mentor and his protégé Dario
Argento (who took the giallo form to higher heights with The Bird with Crystal
Plumage and then creeped/grossed me out with Deep Red, Suspiria, and Inferno
but has recently made nothing but crap).
Anyway, A Bay of Blood does capture some spooky feeling out there by the
lake (I mean, bay) where a few lonely houses stand and Bava’s prowling camera
peers at and stalks the cast. An initial
murder planned to spur an inheritance leads to a virtual killing spree (not all
by the same murderer, it seems) and a lot of opportunities for Bava to go grand
guignol (including with some young people who stumble into the action and get
naked and dead). But, in the end, I
guess I’m telling you that late Bava doesn’t seem to be worth it -- unless you
are a part of the gore cult (and I’m not).
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