The 4th nasty on the list is one of the oldest and one of the best. A cleverly plotted murder mystery from horror maestro Mario Bava that's still influencing cinema nearly 50 years after it's release. It's one of very few on the list that would still be remembered today even if it hadn't been banned because without it bodycount slasher movies like Friday The 13th and ultimately the Scream series mightn't even exist and if they did they'd probably feel radically different. And it's not even the whole movie they rip off, just one segment that could have easily been lifted out without adversely effecting the film at all.
Which does not say much for slasher films does it.
A Bay Of Blood starts on a grim note with the murder of a wheelchair bound old woman by her husband who's then himself stabbed to bits by someone unknown. The mansion they live in and the right to own it is the motive for the murder. Numerous people want it and all are willing to kill for it. Heads are lopped off, bodies are skewered, faces are bisected, throats are ripped asunder and ultimately everyone gets what's coming to them because everyone here is contemptible and in the final twisted moments you'll see karma's a very big thing in Bava's world.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable rewatch and it was a lot more clever than I remembered. The films it's influenced seem simplistic in comparision because there's no single murderer like Jason Voorhees or Ghostface here, nope, everyone is in on the act here and even better is the fact that some of the murders are kinda justified from a revenge point of view. Now, did it deserve it's notoriety though? Looking at it through modern day sensibilities not really because it's lacking that transgressive edge plenty of the other nasties revelled in and while it is graphically violent it doesn't wallow in its gore. That said there are a couple of scenes here you know caused all the hassle. The murder of a couple in bed who are skewered together by a spear (ripped off totally by Friday the 13th part 2) has that mix of sex and violence that the BBFC have always had issues with. The teenager who gets his mush parted by a well aimed billhook (yet again ripped off by F13 part 2) is still a very effective scene due to some convincing effects by make up wunderkind Carlo Rambaldi ( the man who helped create ET by the way) and if that moment still works in 2020 you can only imagine the ructions it caused when it was being watched by the censorship board in 1984.
Then there's the end. An ironic post script that shows the futility of everything that came before it. The fact that there's kids involved must have really rattled some cages. It's a scene that would be played for dark laughs now but during that media frenzy of the early 80's it may have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
Some thoughts on the movie.
Unlike most other nasties there's recognisable faces here. Claudine Auger and Luigi Pastilli are two well known faces of Italian cinema but their biggest hits are the Bond film, Thunderball where she played Domino and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly where he played the priest Pablo, brother of Tuco.
Christopher Lee, who had starred in Bava movies in the past, went to the premiere of this and walked out in disgust. Now if that isn't a sign of a successful horror well then I don't know what is.
I love the fact that an entire horror franchise was based on a 10 minute segment from this. A segment that has everything the Friday The 13th series was built on. Stupid young people wandering off by themselves into the woods, terrible tunes, gratuitous nudity and eventually each and everyone one being picked off in visceral ways.
Plus they appear in a Dune buggy. A nod to the Manson murders from 2 years before maybe? It's hard to ignore the connection when a vehicle feels so out of place.
The octopus scene. A disgusting piece of imagery that definitely inspired some of the nightmarish sequences in 2019's The Lighthouse. There's no way that's a coincidence.
A Bay Of Blood is really worth a watch if you are in any way interested in horror, if only to see the genesis of so many 80's films and franchises. But it stands on it own as well, with clever storytelling and a genuinely unpredictable plot. It's one of the better video nasty experiences you'll have. Believe me.
Next up. The Beast In Heat. This one is repugnant.
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