Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

james1-494-826857 This movie ranks in my top five all time of over 8000 movies I've seen. My other top four hour before the Devil knows your dead with Rochester New York's Philip Seymour Hoffman. Sherlock Holmes smarter brother with Gene Wilder Dom Deluise and Madeline Kahn. No country for old man with Javier Bardem and Lucille fulcis beyond the door and Autopsy from 1975 and Death Laid an Egg from 1968.

Prichards12345 A Bay of Blood is easily the most disappointing effort from Mario Bava I've seen to date. Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace and Baron Blood (did he have a thing about the letter 'B'?') are all superior to this effort, which in spite of good cinematography and an effective murder or two (or thirteen!) never quite gels and is often annoying and silly.Exploitation is to the fore as a group of randy teenagers hang out and get offed; one after a nude swim, two others caught inflagrante delecto! The influence on Friday the 13th is obvious (they ripped it off!), but like that movie Bay of Blood has perhaps acquired a reputation it does not really deserve.There's giallo-style plotting galore going on - which makes little sense - though the surprise opening murder of an old rich lady in a wheelchair is effectively done, but as the killings mount up it becomes pretty kitsch. All in all this is just not one of Bava's best, and not a very good introduction to him. Watch the other films I've mentioned first...

Mr_Ectoplasma Mario Bava's "A Bay of Blood" mainly follows Renata and Albert, a young couple vying for ownership of property on a remote bay after Renata's mother, an heiress, is mysteriously killed at her estate. The couple arrive on the property in the midst of a bloodbath in which just about anyone coming in contact with the area is dying in mysterious ways, but the worst is yet to come.The thriller to launch Bava's career into the seventies, "A Bay of Blood" (sometimes titled "Twitch of the Death Nerve") plays out like a gratuitous Agatha Christie novel brought to the screen. Punctuated by savage murder sequences, the film is a mystery and a morality play at its core, meditating on themes of greed and amorality. The script is jarring, shifting from character to character and disorienting the audience as each are flayed open on screen. When we finally do get to the ostensible protagonists, multiple bodies have already hit the floor; it's a double-edged sword as the disorienting nature of the narrative is both frustrating and effective at putting the audience on edge.The cinematography is fantastic, and the camera-work is frenetic, characterized by dramatic zooms and some chilling POV shots from the killer. The dreary bay and the kitschy seventies house sets are richly atmospheric, and a lively score adds to the proceedings. The ending is downbeat and also darkly humorous, and as ridiculous as it may be, it falls in line with the film's greater thematic aims.Overall, "A Bay of Blood" is a solid film even in spite of its narrative quirks. It does leave the viewer feeling somewhat debased among a sea (or rather, bay) of carnage, but it is, as all of Bava's films are, aesthetically interesting and attains its own weird atmosphere. The special effects are also nicely done, and the film delivers for gorehounds. Some have given it the title of the "godfather" of the slasher film, and while it feels more like a giallo, I can see where people come to draw that comparison. 8/10.

Roman James Hoffman Mario Bava is a horror auteur whose films such as "Black Sabbath" and "Black Sunday" have (rightly) inspired legions of horror directors (not least Dario Argento and the whole Italian Giallo subgenre) with his bold stylistic approach to horror. However, it must be said that after watching "Bay of Blood" (otherwise known as "Twitch of the Death Nerve", or otherwise "Reazione a catena") I was left cold. Sure, it's fun to see the scenes which were ripped off in later "Friday the 13th" movies, the cinematography is uniformly sumptuous, and giallo/slasher kills are always fun to watch in their ingenuity…but despite this, by the end of the film I was ever so slightly bored.The film begins strongly enough with a wheelchair-bound old woman being strangled. The killer is then revealed…only to be off-ed himself immediately after. From there the plot develops as a number of characters, who greedily vie for the land owned by the old woman, fall foul to the intentions of others with the same designs. Oh, and a group of teenagers come to the bay for a party and end up, well, dead. All in all, about a dozen people die as multiple killers and multiple motivations become known…which is certainly an interesting idea. However, this point also serves to be the films weakness as the plot becomes more and more convoluted and the lack of character development means that the violence is just stylized (which, due to the great effects, it certainly is) but has no real emotional punch. Fans of the film will say that this is the whole point…and as a big fan of Argento's films, which (more often than not) often have the "style over substance" tag applied as well, I can definitely see what's trying to be done…it's just that by the end I just felt bored and, what's more, slightly cheated by the tongue-in-cheek ending.All in all, Bava no doubt deserves his place in the horror pantheon, and I trust that the super-stylised violence, overly convoluted plot, and one-dimensional characters were wholly intentional. It's just that (call me a purist) I expect my horror films to scare me, and the above points generally serve to distance the audience from genuine horror and replace it with cheap thrills. Shame.