A Bay of Blood

this italian horror flick is supposedly the first 'slasher' movie and an inspiration for the likes of 'friday the 13th', but that alone doesn't justify your time watching it. the photography is quite good (if a little dark) and the music is of some interest to those into that kind of thing, but the fact is that there is not much in the way of dialogue, and what there is (all dubbed in that weird continental-meets-mid atlantic accent that was fashionable at the time) competely fails to catch one's interest. even top-billed claudia auger (who doesn't actually appear until at least half-way through the film) is a relative let-down after her stunning appearance as domino in 'thunderball'.

after being bored senseless for about 20 minutes or so (despite the amount of superfluous naked female flesh on display - another fad at the time), i decided to make use of the fast-forward facility just to watch the killings, which were probably considered shocking at the time but nowadays look fairly tame. afterwards i read another review of this film on another website... and the author admitted to doing exactly the same thing!

I love italian horror and at times abstract presentation and while I had a good enough time here it wasn't a complete success

This movie was clearly the inspiration for many 80's slashers of which a scene directly ripped off in Friday the 13th part 2 - which I found more than a little amusing considering how much 80's/90's italian horror borrows from hollywood.

Bay of Blood really delivers when in comes to gore and it has a kicking soundtrack to boot but it faulters when it comes to story

Its very hard to know what the genuine threat is especially as we jump to different character perspectives along with leaps in logic that sometimes manage to defy explanation

That said the rather amazingly silly ending has to be one of my favorite WTF moments that really has to be seen to be believed

This is not the best example of Italian horror so please start somewhere else and return to this later

I find that I either love or really dislike films Directed by Mario Bava. This one, I dislike. Nothing much happens for long periods of time, drawn out by uninteresting and, somewhat, pointless dialogue. The characters are, in the main, irritating; particularly the young and groovy kids and you begin to look forward to their deaths almost as soon as each of them is introduced. It such cases, it's hard to form any sort of empathy with the characters and their deaths pass without too much notice. On the technical side, the sound levels vary greatly throughout, which means you spend most of your time adjusting the sound rather than watching the film. The picture quality is adequate. On the plus side, there are a few, nasty-type deaths, but they are not worth the wait. Unless you are a real Bava fan, stay clear.

A bizarre but entertaining slasher with a ridiculously convoluted plot about various characters scheming and double crossing others. For gore fans, there are some graphic kills but you can tell this is clearly a cut version. The transfer is pretty appalling. There's been no attempt whatsoever at restoration and remastering. In an era when even the most obscure film or TV show gets the full restoration treatment, there really is no excuse for putting out such a poor print. The bad dubbing of the Italian actors and the awful music are actually part of the film's strange charm. The pacing lags in parts and the structure is sloppy as it relies on flashbacks to explain the plot. In its favour though is an ending that's very startling and unexpected.