It helped kick start the slasher genre… [Bava’s] influence still resonates today (although somewhat dully) in movies such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream and Urban Legend. To create the deaths of Anna, Brunhilda, and Denise, wax effigies of the actresses' throats and backs were constructed and rigged to expulse brightly colored blood when cut. A vengeful witch and her fiendish servant return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant, with only the girl's brother and a handsome doctor standing in her way. A bloodbath of Horror Writing. No sooner has he exacted his revenge than Simon himself is murdered by Albert. Upon their arrival, Ventura attacks Renata, but Renata gains the upper hand and stabs Ventura with a butterfly knife in his femoral artery. Everyone is both a victim and a killer, and there’s no singular character to rally behind. . We see her face in focus, then the camera racks to the rain drops on the window. [7] When the film did poorly on its initial release, it was pulled from Italian theaters and retitled Reazione a Catena ("Chain Reaction"),[1] and was later re-released as Bahia de Sangre ("Bay of Blood" in Spanish). A Bay of Blood! [1], The film began production in early 1971, still under the shooting title Cosi imparano a fare i cattivi,[6] which was soon changed to Reazione a catena ("chain reaction"). Ed Sutton . This is one of horror master Mario Bava's best works. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. However, if it did, then it would be one of the greatest horror films of all time. A Bay of Blood - DVD (1971) for $20.00 from OLDIES.com Horror They came to play, they stayed to die. The murder of a wealthy countess, which was erroneously deemed suicide, triggers a chain reaction of brutal killings in the surrounding bay area, as several unscrupulous characters try to … Fossati's wife Anna tells them that Filippo was responsible for the Countess's death, and says that Simon will probably end up with the property. One of the most influential horror films of all time, Mario Bava's A BAY OF BLOOD (1971, aka Twitch of the Death Nerve) is the spurting artery from which all future slasher films would flow. [12] Writing in 2000, Tim Lucas wrote that Bava's film is "the acknowledged smoking gun behind the 'body count' movie phenomenon of the 1980s, which continues to dominate the horror genre two decades later with such films as Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and their respective sequels. "Chain Reaction"]) (also known as Carnage, Twitch of the Death Nerve and Blood Bath) is a 1971 Italian Giallo film directed by Mario Bava. This campaign prompted a lawsuit from the Motion Picture Association of America on the grounds that it intruded on their exclusive right to rate motion pictures, and the film was withdrawn and re-released under the now common title Twitch of the Death Nerve with a R rating appearing in advertisements. In this particular film there is a slight overuse of the zoom, where he probably wanted to use a more effective dolly shot. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Carlo Rambaldi created the gruesome special make-upeffects… Joe Dante, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about the film, writing in The Film Bulletin (later reprinted in Video Watchdog) that it "features enough violence and gore to satisfy the most rabid mayhem fans and benefits from the inimitably stylish direction of horror specialist Mario Bava (Black Sunday). Use the HTML below. 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