A BAY OF BLOOD (1971)

 

(a.k.a. TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE; a.k.a. CARNAGE; a.k.a. THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, PART II; a.k.a. ECOLOGY OF A CRIME. Director/co-screenwriter: Mario Bava. Co-screenwriters: Fillipo Ottoni and Giuseppe Zaccariello, billed as Joseph McLee, their work based on Dardano Sacchetti and Gianfranco Barberi’s story and four other writers’ ideas.)

Storyline

The supposed suicide of a rich countess─shown as a murder─kicks off a spiral cycle of murders along a small shoreline over the course of several days.

 

Review

After a wealthy, wheelchair-bound woman, Countess Federica Donati (Isa Miranda, THE NIGHT PORTER, 1974) is killed by her husband─a crime made to look like a suicide─it sets into motion twelve more violent murders on the Countess’s privately owned island.

Her death is ruled a suicide, and it’s not long before other people come to the island, some to party (four young adults), some to kill and claim the old woman’s property.

BAY is credited with being a proto-slasher flick, a bleak, dark-filtered work that heavily influenced (possibly began) the slasher genre, along with Bob Clark’s 1974 grim-humored masterpiece, BLACK CHRISTMAS. Bava’s last giallo is an atmospheric, hazy, nightmarish succession of clever and cruel deaths, including the simultaneous spearing of two lovers, and a machete to another character’s face (both would later be used in FRIDAY THE 13^th PART 2, 1981─this recycling of these kills, according to FRIDAY producer/director Steve Miner, is because of Phil Scuderi, who co-produced and helped distribute both films. (Miner made these comments in Calum Waddell’s article “Steve Miner Talks About the ‘Friday the 13^th’ Franchise,” The Dark Side magazine, issue 210.)

For viewers trying to follow BAY’s wild storyline, good luck. Few clues are provided for much of the film, and the deaths─in their execution styles and order of dispatch─have a random feel until near the end, when certain facts come to light (via an exposition scene or two), and there’s only so many people left to off. Fans of bright red splatter may delight in Carlo Rambaldi and Bava’s FX, which were graphic, even for a Bava film.

What makes BAY distinctive from other stalk-and-slay gialli is its blending of distinctive quietness between kills (during locale shots of flora, buildings, and water), its spare-use soundtrack (courtesy of Stelvio Cipriani), and its mostly greed-based character motivations and palpable sense of mystery (giving it an almost traditional crime thriller feel).

There’s not a lot of backstory given about the twisty characters, but the actors are effective in their roles.

Claudio Camaso, billed as Claudio Volonté, played Simone, the fisherman. Chris Avram (THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS, 1974) played Franco Ventura. Anna Maria Rosati, billed as Anna M. Rosati, played Laura, Ventura’s lover. Claudine Auger (BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA, 1971) played Renata Donati, Filipo’s estranged daughter. Luigi Pistilli (YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY, 1972) played Alberto, Renata Donati’s husband.

Leopaldo Trieste (DON’T LOOK NOW, 1973) played Paolo Fosatti, one of the Donatis’ neighbors. Laura Betti played Anna Fosatti, Paolo’s wife.

An uncredited Renato Cestiè played Renato and Alberto’s tween son. His same-age sister was played by Nicoletta Elmi (DEEP RED, 1975).

BAY is a standout flick for many reasons, among them its stylistic choices, many of them made because of its ultra-limited budget─only a master filmmaker like Bava could turn serious monetary constraints into a spooky, dreamlike, shocking (for its era) and influential virtue, something he and his crew pull off with relative aplomb. It’s not perfect, but given the conditions it was made under, it’s nothing less than a nasty-minded and miasmic miracle, one that viewers seem to love or hate.

AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982)

 

(Director: Damiano Damiani. Screenplay by Tommy Lee Wallace and an uncredited Dardano Sacchetti, loosely based on Hans Holzer’s 1979 book, Murder in Amityville, re-released as Amityville: Fact or Fiction?)

Storyline

Before the storied Lutzes moved into 112 Ocean Avenue, the Montellis [cinematic stand-ins for the DeFeo family] did, with even more horrific results.

 

Review

AMITYVILLE II, released three years after THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979), is noticeably different than its source film.

AMITYVILLE II, a prequel, opens with an across-the-yard shot of the supposed devil abode. The Montellis─Anthony and Delores, with their four kids, various ages─arrive in three cars. Everything is idyllic until Sonny, the oldest, teenage son, is bullied by Anthony (Burt Young, THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS, 2018) for arriving five minutes after the rest of the family. Not long after that, Sonny sees something in the house’s iconic “evil eye” windows─something viewers are not shown.

Delores, Catholic mother, discovers the first-floor windows are nailed shut. A mover accidentally discovers a crawlspace-room in the cellar─an unlit, hidden room full of flies, stinking muck, and leaking water from the floor above. It’s not long before the camera POV switches to a fast-moving Demon POV (reminiscent of Sam Raimi’s THE EVIL DEAD, 1981). This Demon POV is often utilized to good effect throughout AMITYVILLE II.

In swift succession, more supranatural, how-do-you-explain-that stuff happens. Demon POV tracks an initially oblivious Sonny while he walks through house. A distorted, male voice speaks to him through his Sony Walkman headphones, uttering comforting lines like “Why didn’t you kill the pig?” (referring to Anthony). Soon after that, Sonny, sickly looking and creepy, seduces his slightly younger sister, Patricia (Diane Franklin, THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS, 2018).

The consensual incest between Sonny (Jack Magner, FIRESTARTER, 1984) and Patricia occurs off-camera. In the original cut, there was R-rated on-camera carnality, but test audiences complained mightily about it, so it was trimmed. Director Damiani wanted to push horrific boundaries with the film, especially this scene. Also trimmed, again because of test audience reactions, was a non-explicit anal rape scene involving Anthony and Delores.

While much of this violent, morally icky stuff happens (or doesn’t happen), Father Adamsky (James Olson, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, 1971) is in contact with the Montellis, trying to bless (then cleanse) the house, and later, trying to exorcise Sonny.

In its last half hour, AMITYVILLE II becomes a different kind of hybrid than its source film. It switches from its haunted house/possession storyline to a legal drama with tacked-on, blatantly thieved elements from THE EXORCIST (1973) and EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977).

It’s a jarring shift, an unnecessary and overlong follow-through to the happenings of the previous hour-and-fifteen minutes. AMITYVILLE II, excellent as a nasty grindhouse flick up to that point, could have been wrapped up with a shot or two showing what happened to Sonny, or─given where the demon ends up─could have easily placed one of AMITYVILLE’s key characters at the house during the killing scenes. Also, there are a few instances where the creature/possession FX feel too over-the-top for the movie; most of it works, but when it doesn’t, it feels like more like a knock-off of ALIEN (1979) than an AMITYVILLE sequel.

That said, the last half hour of the film does not entirely ruin it. There is so much to appreciate in this underrated movie, e.g. its simple bookend final shot, which recycles its opening shot. It’s simple and effective.

The talent behind and in front of the camera is, as with the first film, worth noting. The overall look and tone of AMITYVILLE II is mood-effective, even when holy frak stuff happens, and Lalo Schifrin, composer from AMITYVILLE, takes a different approach in AMITYVILLE II─his score work is composed of quieter, sadder compositions, with occasional heightened PSYCHO-esque-alarm moments (whereas in the first flick the score was constantly loud, sharp, and nerve-jangling).

The cast furthers the excellence of AMITYVILLE II’s better parts. Burt Young gives a layered, wow-worthy performance as a tetchy, insecure, and scared guy who honestly seems to love his family, despite his vicious, lash-out temperament (e.g., when he hugs Sonny at a birthday party─there’s sad, palpable tenderness between them despite their violence and tension). Rutanya Alda (CHRISTMAS EVIL, 1980) also stands out as the wife and mother who’s trying to keep her oldest son and husband from killing each other, while living in a satanic, tantrum-throwing house. Jack Magner’s Sonny is a nuanced character as well, an angry, sweet-hearted young man who’s struggling to maintain his temper and sense of familial propriety while fending off an insidious invader. Diane Franklin imbues Patricia with a balance of innocence and desire in the lead-up to her family’s murders─this balance makes Father Adamsky’s post-slaughter focus on her slightly less pervy (even if the house hellspawn is preying on his guilt).

Other noteworthy actors try to transcend their characters, thinly sketched and genre-typical on the page. They don’t always succeed, but it’s good to see these players anyway: James Olson as Father Adamsky; Andrew Prine (THE LORDS OF SALEM, 2012) as Father Tom, Adamsky’s co-worker and fishing buddy; Leonardo Cimino (THE MONSTER SQUAD, 1987) as their Chancellor, who refuses to allow Adamsky to perform an exorcism on Sonny; Moses Gunn (FIRESTARTER, 1984) as Turner, a homicide detective whose later actions are plot-convenient unlikely; Allan Dellay (BLOODSUCKING FREAKS, 1976) as the “Judge” whose reaction to Sonny’s not guilty plea is fun.

Ultimately, AMITYVILLE II is worth watching, if you can pretend its last half hour, aside from Father Adamsky’s last scene and its bookend final shot, didn’t happen. With this film, Damiani and his cast and crew made a film that is, in many ways, a more viewer-resonant work by embracing the gritty, nasty, and sometimes tender dynamics of its events and characters in its first, taut hour and fifteen minutes─in this way, it maintains a more serious tonal balance that eschews the feel of the first film. Yeah, AMITYVILLE II’s last half hour flies off the rails, but prior to that this flawed but gripping flick has a grounded (if more squicky) quality that its source work lacked.

BODY COUNT (1986)

 

(a.k.a. BODYCOUNT; director: Ruggero Deodato. Screenwriters: Alessandro Capone [billed as Alex Capone], Luca D’Alisera, Sheila Goldberg, an uncredited Tommaso Mottola, and Dardano Sacchetti [billed as David Parker, Jr.].)

Storyline

Fifteen years after murders where a campground killer was never caught, a campsite becomes the location for a new spate of murders.

 

Review

An eight-year-old boy (Ben Ritchie) sees a couple murdered on the campgrounds owned by his parents (Robert and Julia Ritchie)─the murderer is not caught. Fifteen years pass, and Ben (Nicola Farron) still lives there. When a group of fun-loving young people come up to party and hike, a fresh round of killing begins.

Set in Chicago but filmed in Italy, BODY COUNT is an intermittently entertaining and oddball film. It mixes the ribald humor of PORKY’S (1981), the stalk-and-slay focus of FRIDAY THE 13^th (1980), marital drama, and the dreamlike intensity of a giallo. As a slasher work, it’s solid in parts, intertwined with scenes where the campers run around the campsite enjoying nature, in and out of their clothes. Their oblivious-to-danger behavior drives Robert Ritchie (played with loopy relish by David Hess) closer to a violent breakdown─Robert is haunted by the escaped murderer fifteen years prior. He lays traps in the woods and walks around with a gun, ready to shoot the killer should he show himself again.

Robert is not the only one affected by the murders. His wife, Julia (Mimsy Farmer, THE BLACK CAT, 1981), tired of dealing with Robert’s moodiness, is having an affair with Charlie, a quirky, bad-ass deputy (played by Charles Napier, BODY BAGS, 1993). Of course, Ben, who witnessed the murders, is strange─he is a nerd with rage issues, made worse by his parents’ problems.

Following the start of the new brutal murders, a few of them taking place in the campsite’s bathroom/shower house (convenient for multiple female nude scenes), the killer hides their corpses. The other characters do frivolous things.

Eventually the bodies are discovered. Robert and Julia’s marriage comes to a death-struggle end. Charlie the Deputy shows up for the big killing show, after running around the campground, checking out one clue or another.

BODY runs considerably longer than it needs to, with odd tonal shifts and sometimes bad editing (e.g., two characters, start to kiss in daylight─seconds later, when their lips touch, it’s nighttime). 

The characters, aside from the older adults, are disposable and unmemorable (though Nicola Farron’s Ben is unintentionally hilarious when he emotes). Much of the blame for these issues might lie in having a written-by-committee screenplay and a few instances where the film blatantly adheres to FRIDAY THE 13^th tropes: several scenes in BODY are lifted straight from FRIDAY flicks, e.g. a body thrown through a window, and some of its soundtrack sounds like a direct rip-off of Harry Manfredini’s FRIDAY THE 13^th PART 3 (1982) scoring─while these elements are effective and nerve-jangling, they also distract from what’s going on in BODY.

What BODY gets right is noteworthy, too. When Claudio Simonetti, composer extraordinaire and keyboardist for the prog-rock band Goblin, creates original music, it’s effective and often subtle. Emilio Loffredo’s cinematography, murky during daytime scenes, lends a dreamlike vibe to BODY. The neurotic older characters are straight out of a giallo, furthering the flick’s weirdness.

It helps that the older cast members are standout players. David Hess (THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, 1972), a prolific and successful musician and actor, was known for imbuing his often-raw characters with unexpected sensitivity. Ivan Rassimov (THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH, 1971), a veteran player in action and gialli, has a brief role in BODY, but he makes his character, Deputy Sheriff Ted, interesting. Mimsy Farmer is palpably distressed (and later unhinged) in her portrayal of Julia. Charles Napier’s Charlie the Deputy has a good-‘ole-boy-but-heartfelt-about-Julia vibe.

Its sequel-inviting end-scenes are not shocking but appropriately offbeat.

The above elements make BODY a mostly mundane and sometimes badly edited flick with a few instances of standout acting and entertaining bits thrown into it. While I’m glad I saw it, it won’t be a film I revisit any time soon. It’s worth your time if you're really into slashers/gialli and keep your expectations low.