A Bay Of Blood

A Bay of Blood (Ecologia Del Delitto) (1971)

Runtime: 84 minutes

Directed by: Mario Bava

Starring: A bunch of actors playing a bunch of characters I couldn't give a crap about

From: Nuova Linea Cinematografica

No one is more surprised by this rating (2 1/2 out of 5 stars on Letterboxd) than I am.

Last night I went to Shudder and scrolled through my queue; as it's a movie from Mario Bava, is highly regarded and is said to be the proto-slasher of proto-slashers, how could I go wrong with it? Much to my amazement, it was not a movie I loved... in fact, it was totally “blah” for me aside from the graphic kills, some of which were lifted wholesale for 80's slashers-and a genuinely out of left field ending.

The beginning was fine: a Countess is murdered and there is intrigue surrounding her mansion, including a real estate agent wanting to take possession so that the land can be used for profit. Then a trope in actual slashers (dumb teens or young adults) appears and I suddenly lost interest as I did not give a damn about them... then the realization that I did not care about the rest of the story or the other characters either. The issue of the viewer having no sympathy for anyone on screen was a talking point I heard/seen before but it really impacted me. Most of the Bava I've seen have been at worst a good time so this not connecting much with me at all is a real shame.

The effects from Carlo Rambaldi are nice and I dug the score from Stelvio Cipriani; yet that and the expected visual flair from Old Mario was not enough to entertain me. At least it was incredibly influential (more than one death scene was lifted rather blatantly for a slasher made in the 80's) and you will likely enjoy this better than I did. If only this did not leave me feeling so disappointed by something which has more than one badass English title-Twitch of the Death Nerve is also a tremendous moniker.