“The director’s most complete failure to date. If you were appalled by the gore and slaughter in Blood and Black Lace, this latest film contains twice the murders, each one accomplished with an obnoxious detail … Red herrings are ever-present, and serve as the only interest keeping the plot in motion, but nothing really redeems the dumb storyline…“
JEFFREY FRENTZEN – CINEFANTASTIQUE
Who made it? Directed by Mario Bava | Written by Mario Bava, Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Otton (English Version Gene Luotto) | Director Of Photography Mario Bava | Special Effects (not credited)
Who’s in it? Claudine Auger | Luigi Pistilli | Claudio Volonté | Laura Betti | Leopoldo Trieste | Brigitte Skay
If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…
The Andromeda Strain | Willard / Klute | Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
Production notes and whatnot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bay_of_Blood
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067656/
What’s it all about?
Well I can’t lie, I’ve been looking forward to this one. What we have here is a glorious celebration of what can happen when you workshop around a table with flip charts and marker pens, eleven (yep, eleven) gruesome deaths. Spears, shears, guns, a noose, a blade, a bill-hook machete, there are no bad ideas. There are some creative and “blimey” and “good heavens” and “you’re kidding me” moments throughout, as you would expect, the movie never going more than about 10 minutes between another inventive stalk and slash.
Downside to this schmorgazbord of grue is of course the 3 writers and director then had to come up with some crazy-assed tale to link these gruesome moments together. This task, and I feel I’m being fair, might have been beyond them. Bay Of Blood has been called a lot of things. It also goes under the name of “Carnage” and “Last House On The Left 2”. But “unfollowable” tends to crop up in the word cloud more often than it should.
Anyway, without trudging through every single character, twist, couple, kid, another twist, an unmasking and about 14 red-herrings, let’s see what we get for our buck.
We start with a lovely score and scenes of tranquillity. Zithers and guyros do their plinky plonk and we pan around a charming bay in Lazio, Italy. All is well.
In one of the half dozen beach houses around a bay an old wheelchair bound dowager countess type trundles about in the halflight. Meet Countess Frederica. She has an old gothicy home decorated by whoever did Norman Bates’s mum’s gaff. Liberace piano tinkles and a coming storm is ominous. As she wheels about among busts and oils and doilies and velvet, little does she know what’s around the corner. It’s a nutjob. But a creative one.
Head in the noose, yank on a wire, kick away the chair and whoopsie, the Countess is hanging from her neck a foot from the floor. Blimey. Death #1. (Keep count, this is going to get worse before it gets better).
We see a swarthy moustachioed chap cleaning up after his deadly deed. A-ha! He plants what appears to be a fake suicide note! We have a villain. Well…for about 2 mins when – boom – death #2 arrives and our killer is stabbed violently in the back. Down he goes. And we’re only about 8 mins in.
Who would want to murder the countess? And make it look like suicide? And who would wait until he had, only to then murder the murderer?
Well we’re in the horny old plot of the “missing inheritance.” It seems The Countess and her now-stabbed husband owned the rights to this lovely bay and there is about to become a whole bloody stream of claimants to the property, most of whom are not beyond a bit of the old claret and carving to get their cut of the will.
Let’s meet the cast!
Well we cut next to some lawyery, solicitor big business swindler types. We know they’re wrong-un’s from the start. She’s a buxom “Tales Of The Unexpected” blonde, all anklets and baby-doll nighties. He’s Frank – the gruff, quoiffered medallion man, all chin-dimple, leather briefcase, tumbler of scotch and slip-ons. Straight out of Howards Way. If this means anything to you, “Marjory wants control of Derwent Enterprises.”
Think Bill Bixby via Thomas Haden Church for the casting.
Anyhoo, we meet them in a mid-afternoon canoodling (now acceptable fare since Janet Leigh and John Gavin got it on in the opening scene of Psycho). There are a large amount of balloons. We don’t know why. What we DO know is that Frank is trying to get hold of the deeds to the Bay. The Countess has killed herself and her husband is missing. Time for Frank to swoop in with his Duofold and his Hai Karate and get the deal done, goddammit.
Suspects one and two.
Meanwhile and next up, we have 2 further oddballs bickering at the edge of the bay. Simon, a weather-beaten fisherman type (all Arran sweaters and lobster pots). He snipes and jokes with oddball two, Paulo. He’s the classic scatty scientist living on the island with his odd wife. He chases bugs and pins them to boards and wears corduroy and is a bit giggly and twitchy. Think Doc Brown from Back To The Future or any other cinematic creepy science type.
Suspects (keep up,) three and four.
And add to the mix, unknown couple (we’ll call them Lee and James, as they’re the Lee Remick and James Caan lookalikes). Who are they? They are watching the bay-side shenanigans with binoculars. Hell, we’ll call them suspects five and six.
Got it so far? That’s six suspects. Six.
Ready for four more? Cue the arrival of what we can only describe as slasher-fodder. Hyped up, hopped up, drunk and in the mood to party as only 2 yanks and 2 European exchange students can, they appear in the bay hollering and whooping in a yellow Dune Buggy which, frankly, might as well have “please kill us” painted on the side. Classic “party” kids in this sort of 70’s caper, we have lots of denim, polo-necks, flares, big bottoms, knee-high boots and a transistor radio on a lanyard. They may well be playing randy 17 year olds but they’re all pushing thirty.
Are these the murderers? It’s unlikely, they’re thick and drunk and just here – frankly – to be a nuisance and get picked off. Still, that should be fun to watch as they all have it coming. We’ll call them suspects 7-10.
Ready for suspect eleven? Of course you are. Let’s meet Paulo’s wife. A standard loony hippy gypsy crazy lady. All hoopy earrings and tarot cards. She could have been played convincingly by Noel Fielding. She senses danger coming! It’s in the cards. Paulo is clearly tired and bored of his tarot-spouting wife and just wants to be left to his bugs and magnifying glass.
Back with the four kids (suspects 7-10) they’re partaayyyy-ing hard. They’ve broken in to one of the houses in the bay and there is much dancing and swinging. The German student decides she needs to cool off and a bit of nudie skinny dipping results in her finding Corpse #2 – the dead husband. Tangled in reeds and seaweed, he bobs about in the bay to much shrieking and running away.
Not that she’s getting far. (See where this movie is going?) As her desperate fleeing ends with death #3. A blade to the neck and down…she…goes. Rather craply, to be honest as Bava has clearly asked her to collapse in “as sexy way as possible.” Anyhoo. We’re three down.
Where has poor Brunhilde got to? (Honestly, that’s her name). One of the hapless party boys goes looking and walks straight into…yep, death #4. An absolute beauty of a murder – a billhook machete straight to the face. Boom. Down he goes, blade jaw-deep into his shocked visage. Probably the best death yet in the 11 movies so far. (Oh I’m keeping a tally).
We’ve lost 2 suspects. We’re down to nine again.
What of the other 2 partygoers? Well they haven’t a chance and its spectacular deaths #4 and #5. From behind, as they shag and giggle, our unseen assailant wanders in, all spooky POV, and thrusts a spear through the pair of them, pinning them to the mattress like so much shish kabab.
Keeping up? That’s murders #4 and #5 and we’re another 2 suspects down. By my count, we have 7 suspects left. Let’s crack on!
But a-hah! The spearing of the hapless lovers is followed immediately by Paulo at his desk, spearing another insect in his collection! Is this a clue? Does it matter? We have another six murders to get through. Don’t think too much about it.
Meanwhile James Caan and Lee Remick are heading back to the bay. Leaving their 2 kids behind in a caravan, they head to the Bay to face Paulo and Mrs Paulo (Noel Fielding) and fishy Simon and Bill Bixby’s chin. Someone’s getting this deed!
In a lot of chatty exposition we discover this mysterious couple with the kids in the caravan are, in fact, the step-daughter and husband of the murdered man. (Keeping up?) The chap stabbed in the opening 8mins had a daughter. She is here to collect her land.
But, before you can say “where there’s a will there’s a sobbing relation,” we discover none other than fisherman Simon is ALSO a claimant, being the illegitimate son of the countess! Born and hidden away on the bay to grow up a simple octopus hunter and lobster-pot flinger, he has as much right to the bay as anyone!
Look, you see where this is going.
So the rest of the movie, without leaving you feeling short, is a bloodbath. Bill Bixby, his sexy Tales Of The unexpected girlfriend, James Caan and Lee Remick, plus Mrs Noel Fielding, Simon and Doc Brown spend the next hour skulking, hiding, double-bluffing, hiding, running and failing to escape the next six murders. The whole audience, to be fair, loses track as everyone you think is the killer gets killed. And the murders keep mounting up.
To be fair, and that, I assume is why you’re here, we are treated to, in no particular order…
Suspects 7-10 found laid out, butcher’s shop window style, in a bedroom. Cue much screaming. Bill Bixby stabbed violently through smashed glass as he attacks Lee Remick. Death #6. James Caan promptly catches the insect-doctor on the phone to the cops so we get death #7 as he is strangled by the telephone cord. Noel Fielding tarot lady is decapitated gruesomely as her head and shoulders become distant penpals (death #8). It doesn’t matter who did it. By now, it’s every claimant for themselves. James Caan finds Simon – who is the rightful heir – and pins him to a wall on a spear. Is he dead? C’mon…you’ve seen Die Hard.
Simon then jumps out, just as Remick and Caan think they’ve got rid of everyone, giving us death #9 with a handgun.
And relax.
Phew. So, after everyone has bled quietly to death, Lee Remick and her hapless husband James Caan have the deeds. They can now claim the land. Time to head home with a blood-smeared parchment of ownership, to take the land they believe is theirs.
But wait? We are only on death #9?
Yep. Coz – in a brilliantly dark twist – upon returning to the caravan, their two spotty kids are having much fun with a loaded rifle and…”aren’t mum and dad good at playing dead!”
Death #10 and #11.
Cut to 2 kids leaving the caravan to frolick innocently in the woods to some 60’s sha-la-la Robin Asquith singalong theme as the credits roll and we all wonder what the fucking hell have we just watched.
Is it any good?
Weren’t you watching? It’s Mario Bava’s A Bay Of Blood for Chrissakes.
What we have here, and we’re going to have this term a lot in the next few reviews, is something film students, Kim Newman, Mark Kermode, Mark Gatiss and that lot refer to as the genre “Giallo.”
Wikipedia, if you fancy it, will give you all the details. But in short, Giallo is a genre of movie, known for certain tropes.
The first is considered Bava’s “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” in 1963, aka The Evil Eye. You can spot a Giallo movie from key ingredients. A murder mystery, lots of footsteps, men in black leather gloves, a slasher or two in the murder department, maybe a smattering of supernatural aspects, some booby sex action, red-herrings, femme fetales, psychological thrills and spills and a dramatic score. Bung in a baroque title and a number (the seven whatnots of such and such and such, the nine things of doo-dah) and you’re in Giallo territory. Other classics, if Bay Of Blood’s style tickled your whatnot, would include Bava’s Blood & Black Lace, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and A Suitcase For A Corpse.
Trivia fans will be thrilled to know the name “Giallo”, which is Italian for “yellow” is inspired by the lurid, shocking pulpy crime thrillers of the day, each one easily spotted by its distinctive yellow coloured jacket.
Bay Of Blood is classic of the type. However, for modern horror fans, the movie is not so much a masterpiece as a template. Despite what had come before in this series: Blood Rites; Mad Doctor Of Blood Island; Night Of The Bloody Apes, it wasn;t really until Bava hit the drive-in theatres with A Bay Of Blood, that young 70s film makers finally had their lightbulb moment.
What do you really need to make a movie kids will love? A single location. A killer on the loose. A bunch of extras, all contemptible enough to deserve a good killing. A flimsy motive. And ten or eleven decent murders, each one served up with as much gore, latex, blood, shock, surprise, creativity, originality and poor-taste as the censors will allow. Line ‘em up. Kill ‘em off. As long as someone is killed every 10-12 mins, we’ve got ourselves a show.
So A Bay Of Blood is not so much ground-breaking, as simply the FIRST movie to create the standard “slasher on the loose” template and play it out with as much fun, gore, colour, shocks and silliness as a teenage cinema audience could stomach. So to Mario Bava, we doff our hat. Without A Bay Of Blood, there would be no Friday The 13th, no Texas Chainsaw Massacre, no Prom Night, no Hills Have Eyes, no Sleepaway Camp, no Nightmares on any street, never mind Elm. It was the success of this simple line ‘em up and cut ‘em down model that pretty much paved the way for all the movies that followed in the genre. The good (Alien/Halloween), the bad (The Burning) and the ugly (I Spit On Your Grave).
Hirschell Gordon Lewis may have defined “splatter movies” with Blood Feast in 1963, but Bava invented the formula we’ve been “enjoying” for the last 50 years. Jesus… Not many movie makers can say that…
For all that, it has some wonderful touches.
The setting is a gothicy home straight out of Psycho and all the haunted-house Victoriana we’ve come to expect. All the now well-worn horror clichés are there, from the weasily lawyer to the party-hungry teens. Bava leans on the subtext rather than the text, which is to his credit. Much fun is had, for example, with the parallels of the stabbed couple and the stabbed insects. Not so gratuitous as to linger on the bloody killings (although there is enough gore to satisfy the most corn-syrup starved splat-fan), Bava spends more time setting up creeping suspense, creepy characters and potential “what’s around the corner” shocks to get the viewer involved in what is – let’s face it – an incomprehensible plot of red-herrings and surprise motives.
Bava knows how to use his music and there are terrified bongos and startled drums throughout to help get the pulse up. Being a 1970s production, the entire film is shot in a mixture of brown, beige, mushroom, taupe, caramel and fawn. An experience not unlike being stabbed by a box of assorted chocolates. Lit matches light up much more of a room than they should, the final frames are an absurd slap in the face. And the score, (maybe it’s just me) is a plonky piano version of Hackensack by Fountains Of Wayne from their album “Welcome Interstate Managers.”
But by god, if you’re here for the horror, there is no better place to start.
Nasty?
Yep. Very. Bava and his production crew take a huge giggling pleasure in making the murders as surprising, creative and gory as possible. There are no cut aways and if gushings of red are what you are in the mood for with your Friday night kebab and lager, then you have plenty to enjoy. It’s not “nasty” in its mood, which is a nice change. These aren’t deranged psycho killers on the loose, and we don’t have the uncomfortable guilt of watching a crazed woman-hating loner stalking New York streets. It’s a fun, albeit convoluted, murder mystery with each potential suspect being “offed” in bloody carnage every few minutes. More in common therefore with a particularly machete-filled Agatha Christie drawing room murder mystery. Certainly not for the gore-phobic or feint hearted, it wears a sense of humour and fun on its tattered sleeve and serves up plenty of shocks, surprises and splat for your video-rental fee. If you’ve seen Friday the 13th or any of its bastard sequel offspring, you’re on familiar territory with this classic.
Ban worthy?
For sheer body-count, close-ups and relishing of blade-on-flesh you can see why over-sensitive peer-groups considered this far from family fare. But, as I continue to relentlessly remark, there are films that are “mean” and films that are plain “unpleasant” that might make you question your morals, your taste and inspire weak-minded folk to try out some of the horrendous acts. But this piece of campy giallo is far too gothicy, arch and preposterous to be consigned to the bin.
What does it remind me of?
As I mentioned, it’s actually got the convoluted, plot-heavy, twist-rich, overblown characterisation and camp of a drawing-room mystery. So for all the blood and slash, the “inheritance” and family in-fighting is much more “Midsommer Murders”, “Morse” or Agatha Christie than anything else. The gore is rich and bright, like the best technicolour Hammer (think Christopher Lee’s bright ketchup 70s fangs). So if you enjoy Corman’s Pit & The Pendulum style high-camp and splashes of Middle England Kensington Gore, you’ll get a kick out of this pick-em-off plodder.
Where to find it?
Youtube (bless them) has it here. And Amazon Prime will rent you a copy for your laptop/kindle/whatever.
letsgetthebannedbacktogether.uk 