Thursday, November 16, 2023

1971 - A BAY OF BLOOD, Bava's murder classic

Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood kills a lot of actors in fact it's safe to say the entire cast. The film set a new standard for grisly killing and was obviously important to the modern slasher movie which if that group of filmmakers didn't downright plagiarize from it were certainly influenced by it.


The gory killing effects were courtesy of Carlo Rambaldi who later on would build the cute little E.T. creature for Steven Spielberg amongst others.  The story such that it is involves people getting knocked off at a home on a bay.  It all comes down to a will that would leave property to whoever is left alive in order to build a luxury resort. Oh and whatever you do don't have sex in this movie if will not have a happy conclusion,

 

If you are looking for a serious catharsis of violence in your life this is probably the film for you, after 84 minutes of people getting their heads chopped off or spears run through their bodies or axes dismembering body parts you probably won't have a violence impulse for a while, at least a week anyway.

 

A Bay of Blood is some kind of classic I guess.  Bava a talented cinematographer and director was obviously attracted to this genre and he clearly had a lot of influence on many filmmakers.  The ending is actually kind of sick but seems to work for the film.

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