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16 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
Brilliant!, 9 September 2003

Author: Bryce David

BAY OF BLOOD (or TWITCH OF THE DEATH NEVER) is a brilliant film. The idea behind it is original and it's still a one-of-a-kind flick, even if the movie itself inspired a gazillion slashers. Regarded as the granddaddy of slashers, BAY OF BLOOD has a unique concept behind it that none of its duplicators have successfully copied: the concept of people being murdered one by one, not by just one killer but by several killers, in very gruesome ways, all in the name of super dry, jet black comedy.

There's something surprisingly stealthy about Mario Bava's approach to the deliberately confusing story. Throughout the labirynth like story-line, we bounce from one character to the next, never having enough time to get to know the people in the movie to care enough for them and when they are killed, their deaths suddenly take a surprisingly modern twist. Unlike most slashers out there, like FRIDAY THE 13TH or even HALLOWEEN and their endless sequels, many critics have said that in order for the horror element in those movies to work, you have to care about the people getting killed. Many critics have dismissed the whole slasher genre just on that basis: the films are not horrifying because the people getting killed either deserve it because they're annoying or the acting was really bad, or just because the writing was terrible and the characters were just token characters and it's not scary to see token, cardboard characters getting killed. Well, in BAY OF BLOOD, the ingeniously scripted story transcends this. The characters in BOB are not really deep or even memorable but their introduction to us, the viewer, is so quick and their deaths are so gruesome and so sudden and unexpected that the fact we know little about them hardly matters. It hardly matters because the killings aren't being made by a single killer with a singular reason but by several killers, whom all have a confusing number of reasons (which can all be traced to greed), with few of the killers knowing that others are also killing other people at the same time and as the film progresses, the killers, in turn, also become victims themselves. This is the brilliant aspect of BOB. People just kill each other left and right in a neverending succession of blood and violence, each people completely indifferent to each other. Watching this made me giggle and wince. The story cannibalises itself repeatedly, every ten minutes or so, snowballing into an all-out blood bath. The effect this creates is like being trapped inside a time-loop, in which the same thing happens over and over AND over again. Combine this with the fact that the story's actions happens mostly within a brief time-line (except for the beginning, everything happens on the same day) BUT that it also goes back and forth in time, with flashbacks and such, and BOB, oddly enough never feels grounded to one specific time. The killings in BOB feel different than anything I've ever seen in a horror film. Each killing is seemingly detached from the story itself and the film takes an all new unique approach, as the deaths come to the fore while the rest fades in the background. It almost feels like we're watching the killings happen "live". There isn't a single lone female survivor, or a surprise ending like most horror films (there is a surprise ending in BAY OF BLOOD but it's not a killer coming back to life).

The acting is good but the cast is mostly anonymous (deliberate?). Except for Claudine Auger, the rest of the cast seemingly all meld together. The location and sets were also good. Only the music was inappropriate at times and the cinematography was sometimes annoying, with Bava's constant use of out-of-focus shots, which I don't like at all. My favorite scene in BOB is the one when Claudine Auger goes to the bathroom. Arf!!!

Though I consider BAY OF BLOOD to be brilliant, the film is dated and there's a certain aloofness to it that even if it serves the story to a certain extent, this aloofness is carried to an unfortunate extreme which makes the film feel not as "passionate" as it could have been or should have been. I guess aloofness is a Bava trademark, which is one of the reasons why I'm not a big Bava fan. Except for HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON, I've haven't been impressed by most of his films. Well, BAY OF BLOOD has impressed me a lot and I have to say that it's probably my favorite Mario Bava film, along with HATCHET. All in all, I think BAY OF BLOOD is a unique, one-of-a-kind gruesome movie. Anyone who didn't like it just didn't get it.

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10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Greed twitches several death nerves in Mario Bava's brutal pioneering slasher flick!, 7 May 2006

Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England

Many films on the Video Nasty list are horror cinema's answer to well-respected classics; The Last House on the Left offers a new spin on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, Island of Death is a more brutal telling of the story of Bonnie and Clyde and, indeed, this Mario Bava film owes its plot to the French classic, La Ronde. Bay of Blood is often noted as being an obvious inspiration on the Friday the 13th series, and when taking things such as the setting and a certain murder sequence into account, that is certainly true; but let's not forget that this is also a fantastic movie in its own right. The film starts off with a glorious sequence that opens inside a beautiful manor house. We watch as a wheelchair-bound baroness is brutally strangled, only for the rug to be torn from under us moments later when her assailant is the next one to bite the bullet! It has to be said that the film never tops its opening sequence, but Mario Bava's gore-fest manages to remain fascinating all the way through, as it turns out that the first murder scene sets off a violent chain of events that results in a very high body count.

This film would be properly categorised as a slasher, but its Italian roots ensure that it's often labelled a Giallo, and indeed Mario Bava does include Giallo elements; from black gloved killers and an array of odd characters, all the way to an amazingly convoluted plot. Indeed, the storyline here gets so complicated at times that it's liable to give the viewer an extreme headache, but Bava is always on hand with another glorious murder scene, and as the film features thirteen deaths in it's eighty one minute running time - there's certainly no lack of the red stuff. Bava ensures that the murders are suitably varied, and we get treated from an array of methods of dispatch, including axes, a spear through a lovemaking couple and an excellent scene that sees someone skewered to a wall. Mario Bava's eye for detail doesn't wane with this film, as despite being a grisly slasher; there's still more than enough time for beautiful scene setting. The bay itself looks great and excellently lends itself as a location for savagery, while the decors of the character's homes are elaborately Gothic. With the pitch-black ending, the director shows us that the film isn't meant to be taken seriously, and overall, Bay of Blood is both influential and a great time - and therefore shouldn't be missed by horror fans.

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10 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Bava's finest hour and a half, 5 April 1999
Author: anonymous from London

This is one of Bava's few films where everything works. It does exactly what it sets out to do. The minimalistic script makes no attempt at either character motivation or logic, but serves merely as an engine for the 13 bloody murders. Here the main pleasure, as in all subsequent body count movies, is in seeing in which new and inventive manner the next murder will be committed, but as usual, it is Bava's visual style which sets this film above Friday 13th and all it's imitators, as well as a knowing sense of humour and a pounding jazzy soundtrack. Here Bava's style is refined and reduced ad absurdam, with intermittent atmospheric interludes making use of the natural features of the landscape, from slow pans across the horizon, focus pulls through the foliage, and rapid zooms in and out of each bloody murder. It is true that the script loses its footing in the final quarter, unable to maintain the intensity throughout, but that fact notwithstanding, this is one of the finest films of its genre.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
When Nobody is Innocent, 11 June 2005

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A handicapped and wealthy countess, who owns the lands of a disputed bay, is hanged by her husband and he is immediately killed. The crime scene is forged to simulate a suicide of the old woman. Later, two young couples are murdered in the bay. The inheritors of the fortune of the countess want the possession of the place and kill each other, in a bloodshed bath in the area.

"Reazione a Catena" is a gory slash movie with a different characteristic: there is no serial killer, but almost a chain reaction of murders. The deaths are motivated by the greed of different persons, and their motives are based on the interest of the civil construction in the ecological area, and the reluctance of the elder countess in selling her property. None of the character is innocent, except the two young couples that arrive in wrong the place for fun. The camera, with many closes and movements, is quite different. The black humor is very sharp; most of the deaths are very original and the conclusion is silly. The copy of the Brazilian VHS is a little dark, but it is watchable. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Banho de Sangue" ("Blood Bath")

Note: On 06 July 2009, I saw this movie again on DVD.

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12 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
Master Bava's most gruesome work! A blood-soaked and finger-licking black comedy., 30 June 2004

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

Eat your heart out, Jason Vorhees! Mario Bava's wicked slasher fantasies predate your Friday the 13th escapades by almost a decade. And `the Bay' is a much more efficient location than your pathetic Crystal Lake, I may add. Mario Bava is my favorite director of all time for multiple reasons. The most important one is that he's such a diverse storyteller. He brought us tense, atmospheric horror (Black Sunday) as well as colorful kitsch (Danger: Diabolik). This Bay of Blood is something completely different yet again. Twitch of the Death Nerve (another a.k.a of this film) is a blood-soaked satire, portraying 13 of the most stylish massacres ever shot on tape. The local countess of the bay-community is brutally slain by her husband. Then he himself is butchered by a mysterious third person. What follows is an irresistible search for the killer in which greed and ruthlessness overrule the more normal human emotions. Okay, the plot may not be very solid (which is an often heard reproach regarding Bava's work) but as a social satire, Bay of Blood is very effective. `Everyone's a killer when money and power are involved', Bava seems to shout out. The humor is oppressed, but it's definitely present throughout the whole film…if you don't see that, I pity you because the film's power depends on it. And then there's the gore! Needless to say this movie is light-years ahead of its time when it comes to showing explicit violence and detailed gore. The killer's hatchet plants itself in victim's heads and throats vulgarly while the camera seems to zoom in on the corpses endlessly. And then STILL this is an utterly stylish horror film. Only Bava can shoot filth on tape and make it look like art! The cast isn't very memorable, but who cares?? They die anyway so you don't need to pick favorites! Only main actress Claudine Auger impressed me, but I think that had more to do with her beautiful appearance. See Bay of Blood for the gore! See Bay of Blood for its importance as it was one of the most influential films in the genre! See Bay of Blood, period. I hate to sound pretentious but…if you don't like this film, you haven't got the slightest idea what the horror industry is all about. That statement goes for Bava's entire repertoire, by the way.

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10 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
The first is still the best., 20 November 1999
Author: jodekko from U.S.

Forget the overrated John Carpenter, the hack Wes Craven, and anyone who had anything to do with any Friday the 13th film, because THIS is the granddaddy of them all. Only a master like Mario Bava could both create AND send up the slasher genre in the same film. The murders come fast and furious, while the soap-opera intertanglings of the characters is so hilariously complicated you'll find your head spinning. And just in case you're wondering whether Bava really intended this as a send up, just wait until the unbelievable ending. This is the only slasher movie anyone ever needs to see, and the news that it's coming on dvd is cause for celebration.

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6 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
One of Bava's Best, 17 February 2000
Author: cblwrth from Charlotte, NC

This is one of horror master Mario Bava's best works. More than any of his other films, this one comes closest to a non-narrative "Ballet of Violence" with little regard for logic or plot line. What plot there is hovers around the struggle for control of a prime piece of seaside real estate, by the eccentric residents and a couple of outsider business people. A short but effective sub plot involves a group of kids who come to party down in a deserted house on the property. Little do they realize. . .! This is definitely the film that inspired "Friday the 13th" and no doubt many others of its kind.

This may be the most violent film ever made, if not the highest body count; no less than a dozen murders by various and often unusual means: Hanging, stabbing, decapitation, impalement (some two at a time!), choking, gunshot; quite a display of random, wholesale slaughter. While this may sound like a garden-variety slasher film; this is a prime example of the horror almost at its best, primarily due to Bava's excellent visual style. His camera is often prowling through the scene, in first-person and third, sometimes shifting from one to the other in the same shot; a technique pioneered by Orson Welles. In this particular film there is a slight overuse of the zoom, where he probably wanted to use a more effective dolly shot. This is probably because he had to work fast, however many of his zooms are absolutely beautiful, particularly the shots that move from the water on the lake to the house and trees in the distance. He also uses rack-focus to create a emotion within the same shot, as when the old woman looks out the window. We see her face in focus, then the camera racks to the rain drops on the window. This combined with the music creates a very deep mood of melancholia.

There are many great scenes in the film that display Bava's rich visual style and his ability to create suspense and shock. An lonely old woman sitting in her house and the brutal murder that follows, The girl swimming in the lake, the body in the boat, the prowler outside the house where the kids are screwing around, and of course, the out-of-left-field finale, one of the greatest endings in all of film.

I also admire Bava's control of pacing, emotion and mood; shifting from tenderness to horror, kindness to hate, trust to deception, often in the blink of an eye. He also makes it interesting with a bizarre assortment of characters; the milquetoast entemologist and his koo koo wife, a mysterious fisherman, with whom there's more than meets the eye, and those delightful children that any mother would love!

This genre has often been one of extremes; very bad films and some very good ones, and those are the ones from the hands of stylists like Mornau, Polanski, Freda, Romero, Argento, Franco (in some instances), and of course, Mario Bava and his son, Lamberto, and a handful of others much less prolific. "Bay of Blood" is a good example of the genre in the hands of a master. This is one of my favorite Bava films, although I must concede that I don't think it's his best. As always, he makes the most of his limited resources, but this film doesn't quite match the ideology or scope of say, "Black Sunday," "Kill, Baby, Kill," or "Beyond the Door Pt.2." "Bay of Blood" almost, but not quite reaches the same crescendo of delirium. However, if it did, then it would be one of the greatest horror films of all time.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
A landmark "body count" horror movie that delivers the goods in high style., 8 November 2007

Author: Scott LeBrun from Winnipeg, Canada

Known by many different titles, among them "A Bay of Blood", "Carnage", "Twitch of the Death Nerve", and "Last House on the Left, Part II", this marvelously gory predecessor to slasher movies is a fine exercise in style by Italian master Mario Bava.

A prime piece of bayside real estate is being coveted by some ruthless and sadistic individuals; one body after another drops, hence the title "Reazione a catena", translated as "chain reaction" in English. In addition to our major players, anyone else foolish enough to drop by (including a quartet of playful youngsters) is fair game. The film is packed with some memorably graphic mayhem; the sickle to the face will always be my personal favorite, although there's also a nifty decapitation, and a show-stopping, prime example of coitus interruptus that was ripped off later in "Friday the 13th, Part 2". Carlo Rambaldi, later a creator of creature effects in such films as "King Kong" (1976), "Alien", "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Cat's Eye" is the man behind the gore here, and his work is outstanding.

What will give this film the edge over the many North American imitators that it inspired is the elegance and flair that Bava (also serving as his own cinematographer here, and doing an excellent job) brings to the proceedings. The film is beautiful to look at; the setting is wonderful. I'll also find hard to forget the striking image of an octopus slithering over the face of one of the many victims. The film is also enhanced by the lovely music of Stelvio Cipriani, which at times involves lots of percussion and becomes heavily atmospheric.

This film gets right down to business pretty quickly; in short order two of the characters get knocked off although the first nine or so minutes, rather effectively, play out without dialog.

This is a genuinely great film that deserves a certain amount of respect, both for its entertainment value and its influence. I highly recommend it.

9/10

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Bay of Blood, 24 July 2007

Author: Scarecrow-88 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A husband hangs his wheelchair-bound ancient wife of wealth and is subsequently stabbed viciously. A developer, illegitimate son, and heiress(with her patsy husband who obeys her every command)all wish to secure the dead woman's land and bay for there's quite possibly a very lucrative tourist future in the area. Four young, horny adults make the mistake of stopping by the dead woman's empty home and fall prey to a killer spying on them. A neighboring couple who live nearby are against any development laying concrete over a place once dear to them(the husband, an avid bug collector, worries that it will disrupt his chances to collect any future insects..his wife, a supposed clairvoyant reads doom in her cards). The film shows the ongoing bloodshed committed by certain individuals who attack from behind so that they can gain the inheritance of prestigious land all to themselves.

One killer uses a spade to tear open a beautiful Scandinavian woman's throat, shortly after burying that blade into a young man's face(..and subsequently pulling it out;a very impressive gruesome sequence that puts a lot of slashers to shame). A young couple having sex get sandwiched when the killer decides to place his spade away for a moment using a spear, thrusting it into the male's back through the unfortunate french chick on bottom..the spear kill in Friday the 13th Part 2 pales in comparison. One woman gets beheaded, one is stabbed in the stomach with a pair of scissors, there are nasty strangulations, and a shotgun blast that puts everything about the gain of wealth by any terms in perspective.

The granddaddy of all slashers, this is Mario Bava unhinged letting loose his greedy characters to kill and maim. Nearly every last character is corrupt and dies. The ones who commit the final act of violence may prove that Bava was allowing this particular film to be so gratuitous as a means to poke fun at those loathsome heirs graveling for the scraps of their dying rich relatives.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Bava's highly influential slasher flick., 13 September 2006

Author: BA_Harrison from Hampshire, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Despite some dodgy camera-work (rapid zooms and shots thrown in and out of focus), a few plodding moments and some dated looking scenes involving 'groovy' teenagers, Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood is still an entertaining slasher/giallo movie, made even more notable by the fact that it heavily influenced Sean S. Cunningham's 80s classic, Friday the 13th, made almost a decade later. The waterside setting, randy teenagers, inventive bloody murders, vengeful son, and surprise ending were all elements borrowed from Bava's movie; all Cunningham had to do was dumb down the story a tad and he had one of the most successful horror movies of all time!

In Bava's movie, a wealthy elderly woman is killed by her husband, who has been talked into committing the murder by his daughter and her greedy spouse, who wish to inherit and develop the titular bay. The murderous husband is then killed immediately after, by an unseen assailant. As the film progresses, more and more people are killed in gory fashion, until Bava reveals that there are several killers responsible and each has their own reason for committing the murders. The film ends with a ridiculous twist, which makes one wonder whether Bava was having a bit of a laugh at the audience's expense.

Filling his movie with plenty of bloody mayhem and nudity, Bava establishes the slasher formula that would prove successful for so many imitators. The bloody death scenes include throat slashings, hangings, strangulation, and impalements to keep gore-hounds happy, whilst those who appreciate a bit of T&A with their horror will be more than happy with a gratuitous skinny dipping scene featuring a full frontal from Brigitte Skay.

Since A Bay of Blood has so much going for it, it is a shame that it tends to drag in places and has many dark scenes in which it is hard to see what is happening. However, this is such an 'important' movie that I do urge any self-respecting horror fan to see it, if only to witness the film that initiated a whole sub-genre—the slasher.

If IMDb allowed it, I would award A Bay of Blood a rating of six and a half out of ten—since I cannot do this, I will round my score up to a respectable seven.

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