The Original Slasher (Bay Of Blood (DVD))

Name: spencer_hawken

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Product:	Bay Of Blood (DVD)
Date:	22.03.08 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good clean bloodthirsty fun

Disadvantages: Poor care for the film stock

It may be nearly 40 years old but Bay Of Blood has a lasting impact on cinema; this Italian horror movie by director and some would say artist Mario Bava is said to be the movie that launched the term slasher in respect of horror. It is also said to be the inspiration for the Friday The 13th movies. Bay Of Blood is still very much swinging 60's while having a very 80's feel about it, and its a movie that menace floods into every scene.


As Bay Of Blood opens an old woman is seen violently murdered, as we later discover the death is all about her money. The mystery of Bay Of Blood however revolves around who is going to get the money. Initially its recipient seems and may actually be obvious, but at the movie progresses it shows exactly how money grabbing people can be when a small fortune lies in their way.


The story to Bay Of Blood is incredibly simplistic; the delivery from the original Master Of Horror Mario Bava is far from simplistic. In a sort of soap opera style Bava introduces us to a very heavy cast, he exposes their flaws and quickly lets you decide by yourself whether you'll support them or be waiting for their demise. This heavy cast and exposure of background stories make the story incredibly complex, but very easy to keep track of.


Bava selected a wonderful location for the movie, a deserted idyll in the middle of the Italian countryside. What once may have been a thriving resort is now a derelict estate with a handful of tenants occupying different parts of the bay. This allows the story to run freely and helps to provide a very claustrophobic overture for the film, horror is always far worse when there is nobody around to hear your screams, or even stop you from having a pretty bloody demise.


The ingenuity of death is the wonderful thing about this film, and you can see some real indications of its influence on big screen cinema of the more popular variety. As well as the obvious connections even a blind person could see from the offset to Friday The 13th; there is a most magnificent slaughter outside a very futuristic looking house the whole set up from this scene looking a lot like Wes Craven's Scream movie.



Bava puts some real atmosphere into this movie, nothing is quite straightforward, if there is going to be a victim there will always be a build up. The victim might discover one or a number of bodies on the way to their death, all the time the killer looking on from a distance, watching and observing everything. To add a sort of soap and thriller atmosphere the killings are almost put into chapters, as specific characters are introduced their demise is always on the cards and nine times out of ten that demise is imminent. No sooner has the character been introduced and despatched than the movie pretty much closes the chapter on that part of the story, almost as if these chapters were different parts of multiple films.


For an older film there are some quite disturbing moments, the encounters with the fisherman and his squid makes uncomfortable viewing as do the sad aspects to some of the deaths. These chilling moments are in some levels more disturbing than the likes of modern movies like Saw and Hostel, and certainly more memorable. Even the characters in the picture bare some terrible menace, the creepy old witch type woman with her insect obsessed husband being some of the most intimidating.


The bonus with Bay Of Blood is that you don't need to waste time trying to identify who is who and what there purpose is, despite their careful positioning the cast are the least important aspect to the movie, it matters not who they are or what they do. They are all twistedly placed to serve an important role, but at the same time the role has no importance, but then the film is all about human greed over everything else and never has greed been so cleverly displayed on screen.


Bay Of Blood is very gritty looking from the start, but I guess in part this is not helped by the poor quality of the film stock. Despite being an incredibly popular movie that most big name movie directors will signpost at the drop of a hat, this DVD release and others across the world have not been given the desperate clean up it needs. Vision is blurred as is the quality of the sound, especially the vocals which at times become incredibly muffled. The sadness is that the use of the lurid colours so often associated with movies from this time and genre is faded and actually now detracts from the movie due to the poor image quality, its like watching a VHS video with quite bad tracking for most of the movie, the image flaws are like carefully planned patterns.

The DVD has no special features and is somewhat unpleasantly priced at around £15 despite being released at the birth of the DVD in the UK, and never getting the rerelease treatment so many other movies do. Despite its poor quality Bay Of Blood is a phenomenally good film that anyone who ever considers themselves to be a horror fan should see, if not have in their collection.

Summary: The movie that launched a thousand slashers