Schock

Plot synopsis:
Dora (Daria Nicolodi), is a woman who has suffered a nervous breakdown following the death of her husband Carlo, a drug addict who abused her. Carlo died under mysterious circumstances; he apparently committed suicide by throwing himself off a boat while at sea. After an year-long extended stay in a sanatorium, Dora is released into the care of her new husband Bruno (John Steiner).Despite the bad memories connected to her old house, Bruno insists that they, together with Dora and Carlo's young son Marco (David Colin Jr.), settle down there until a more convenient location can be found. Dora reluctantly agrees, and soon after resettling down into their home, mysterious events begin to happen. Marco strikes up a conversation with a unnamed, imaginary friend possible the spirit of his dead father. Later that night, Marco spies on his parents having sex on a couch in the living room. This voyeuristic scene unhinges the boy as he hisses "Pigs! Pigs!"When Bruno, a commercial airline pilot, goes away on business with the TWA Airline, Dora is left alone for a whole week. One evening, Marco asks if he could sleep in the bed next to her and she agrees. As she sleeps, Marco crouches over her body, and begins caressing her. Hallucinated, his hand takes on a putrid, rotting appearance.The next morning, Dora finds a pair of her panties, ripped to shreds, in Marco's dresser, and later catches him spying on her as she showers. The boy's behavior becomes more and more aggressive when he starts jumping out at her from the shadows, further unsettling his already nervous mother. Another day later, Dora notices a photo of her and Bruno is missing. Marco is shown with the photo, playfully cutting their images out of the photo with scissors and decapitating them.When Bruno returns, a fearful Dora tells him about whats going on. Bruno insists that shes only imagining things, and begs her to calm down. When this fails, he administers her sleeping pills to help her sleep. Dora begins to suffer from terrible nightmares which includes ghastly visions of her dead husband.In an effort to clear things up, Dora takes Marco to a psychiatrist (Ivan Rassimov). The doctor tells Dora that, based on his conversations with the boy, she has been neglecting her son and he is simply seeking attention. Dora insists that Marco is lying. A little later at home, when Marco accuses her mother of murdering Carlo, she comes to believe that the child is possessed by the dead mans spirit. Dora confides her fears to Bruno, who promises to take her away from the house as soon as possible.That night, Dora is awakened by sounds coming form the basement. She goes to investigate and finds Bruno tearing down a brick wall in the basement with a pickaxe. When Bruno notices her, he tells her to return to bed, but she demands to know the truth about what's going on. Finally, Bruno tells her that she did indeed murder Carlo after he beat and raped her. But she defended herself by gapping a utility razor and slashing him to death, before lapsing into some kind of coma. As he is in love with her, Bruno covered up the crime by pushing the dead man's boat out to sea to make it appear that he committed suicide by drowning, and then walled up the mutilated body in a false basement wall. It is for this reason that Bruno insisted that they return to the house for rather than someone discovering the body, he planed to use the time to dispose of it.But Bruno fails to realize that, by this point, Dora is completely out of her mind. She goes berserk and axes him to death, pushing his body into the same niche that hides the remains of her first husband. Soon after, Dora is assailed by a series of macabre hallucinations throughout the house by Marco who is using the power of the vengeful spirit of Carlos to use against her. In one of them, Marco runs towards his mother, only to transform into the ghastly corpse of Carlos. Dora retreats back to the basement where after seeing all the furniture in the house move toward her, she slashes her own neck with the same utility razor, imagining that Carlo's hands are controlling the blade.The next morning, Marco enters the basement where he moves his dead mother into the niche in the basement wall where his dead father and stepfather are, and walls it up himself. Marco then goes outside where he enjoys a cup of tea on the front lawn of the house with his unseen friend.

Tags: revenge, psychedelic, violence, romantic

Review:
I suppose it's because Mario Bava's direction was not flashy and concentrated more on telling his story and keeping us guessing.Finally, my enjoyment of this film has encouraged me to seek out Bava's other films and that can only be a good thing..
In Shock, we do know for certain that a mother, Dora, her cute little son Marco, and her second husband Bruno, are at a new house they just bought.
But what we don't know for certain, perhaps not fully even until the very end, what is really taking the shape of the horror, and that's the key to Mario Bava's success here (actually his last film, quite a feat for any time in his career).
It seems straightforward enough: the boy keeps getting weird, sneaking on his mother (even stealing her underwear) and acts generally creepy, and soon get some supernatural mojo with a doll made up of his mom and a swing that can control his stepfather's flight plan as he pilots a plane.There is that aspect, and Bava does get some good mileage out of the mannerisms and kind eyes of the child actor Colin Jr (his voice on the other hand leaves much more to be desired).
Again, could still all be the ghost going on - who we also learn soon after could allegedly be her first husband, who died from suicide as a junkie.But the fact that Dora was a former mental patient, and spent some time in an asylum and got some shock treatments, calls into question her reliability as a character.
The final film from Italian horror director Mario Bava was this chilling tale.Upon returning to the home where her former husband died, a woman begins to believe that her young son is possessed and is attempting to kill her.Plot-wise Schock is slim on sense, but those of us that love the films of Bava (or most any Italian horror period) know that the entertainment is all in the style and Bava's direction flourishes with style in this film as well.
The film's scenic locations, creepy music score, and its female star add all the more to the elegance that is this twisted spooker.The cast is good over all, but it is Daria Nicolodi that really shines as a wife/mother who begins to question her sanity.Granted, Schock may not be the greatest of Bava's films, but it certainly was a great last work.
Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), her husband Bruno Baldini (John Steiner) and her son Marco (David Colin Jr.) move to a huge house that belongs to her.
The final completed film for Italian horror master Mario Bava is a decent one.
It lacks the atmosphere of his very best work, but Bava still proves himself an expert at establishing a mood and putting macabre imagery on film.Although sold in North America as "Beyond the Door II", this bears little relation to the earlier Italian "Exorcist" imitation "Beyond the Door".
- and features a similar possession theme - but otherwise, that's it.The beautiful Daria Nicolodi stars as Dora Baldini, a young woman who moves with her son Marco (Colin Jr.) and second husband, Bruno (John Steiner), into her former home.
Now Marco is behaving strangely, and Dora begins to be tormented by various visions, to the point that she believes she may be losing her mind.Bavas' son Lamberto was assistant to his father on this show, co-wrote the screenplay, and also plays a minor, uncredited role.
Mario Bava's final movie 'Schock' may be far from his finest work, and will never gain the cult following of his classics 'Black Sunday' or 'Planet Of The Vampires', but it is still a very strong and effective thriller.
With her young son Marco (David Colin, Jr the only tenuous link to 'Beyond The Door' which this movie was sold as a sequel to in the US), and her new husband airline pilot Bruno (Euro-horror regular John Steiner) she returns to live in her old house.
Mario Bava's final film proved that his one true strength was surreal, nightmarish imagery (when that kid runs up to Daria Nicolodi...), and though I've found most of his body of work to be overrated and dull, I was able to tolerate, even enjoy "Shock" (though it does become talky and drawn-out); the presence of Nicolodi ("Deep Red," "Tenebre") as a mentally unbalanced mother adjusting to her family's new (and haunted) house, offers up enough paranoia and sex appeal to make the final act as suspenseful as the workings of a bad dream.
Scriptwise, it does a good job at being a 'regular ghost story' with an Oedipal twist, but overall, it is anything but original and, as a matter of fact, Bava already used a strikingly similar premise in the obviously superior "The Whip and the Body", and the endings of both films are almost exactly the same.
Mario Bava's "Schock"(1977)is an exceptional film.It's not only suspenseful and stylish,but its impact on the later Italian horror movies is clearly visible.The acting is pretty good-Daria Nicolodi gives a sympathetic performance as  Dora Baldini,a victimized woman on the brink of lunacy.Some of the nightmares that Dora has are sort of psychedelically strange and disturbing.The film was co-written by Mario's son Lamberto,who also served as the assistant director."Schock" isn't as good as "Bay of Blood" or "Blood and Black Lace",but it provides some genuine chills.Highly recommended..
Fairly well directed and very effectively photographed, this Italian horror film works so well on a visual level that it can still rate as above average stuff overall, despite having some definite weaknesses.
It deals with a woman named Dora (Daria Nicolodi, who does an awesome job), her new husband Bruno, and their son Marco moving into a creepy new house that has a mysterious past, involving Dora and her druggie husband, who committed suicide.
Soon weird things start happening and Dora suspects that sweet little Marco is possessed by her dead husbands.
After moving into an old house with her family, a mentally unhinged woman begins to increasingly suspect her former husband still haunts the property and tries to save her son from his presence.Overall this was an incredibly enjoyable and exciting effort with a lot to like.
Since she is a female protagonist in an Italian horror movie, you know Dora has some past mental problems and they surface right away as she has crazy dreams and her son begins acting very peculiar ("I have to kill you mommy" being the greeting that really unnerves Dora).
This final film of Bava shows his directorial talent and the script is really good also.It is a perfect Halloween film full of suspenseful music and creepy sounds, a great set, and just three main characters.Here, Bava has Argento's former partner, Daria Nicolodi, in the main role.
Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodia) returns back to her old place with her new pilot husband Bruno (John Steiner) and her son Marco (David Colin Jr.) to start a new happy life, but the place brings back bad memories of her dead ex-husband who committed suicide at sea.
(Though I personally prefer the workmanlike films of Antonio Margheriti and Riccardo Freda.) There is no denying that Mario Bava knew how to construct a shot, from the camera angle to the lighting to the color schemes to having the characters do bizarre, unexpected things that are riveting to witness, and then turn 90 minutes of such shots into what usually end up being amazing little movies.
Expecting a twisted, nauseating, Freudian EXORCIST/OMEN ripoff about a creepy kid possessed by the spirit of his murdered father in a haunted house, instead I found myself waiting with growing impatience through a nonstop parade of every low-budget Italian horror shortcut ever conjured up, including a fake near disaster on an airplane staged just like they did it on "Star Trek": shaking the camera and having people gyrate in their chairs like Sulu recoiling to a photon torpedo blast.Another reviewer here gets it right when he says not to bother with the plot and just concentrate on the images.
The second point is more problematic and this might annoy others, but I think a lot fans are overcome by the very human sentiment of SCHOCK literally being Mario Bava's final movie (though much of it us alleged to have been directed by his son, Lamberto Bava, credited here as assistant director), and their sincere wish that it was a better movie than it finally turned out to be.
Mario Bava, the cinematographer turned director, will always be fondly remembered by fans of Italian cinema.Throughout his long career he always displayed gusto and flair with miss-en-scene, colour and an individual style that would influence another genius, Dario Argento.
Dora, (Daria Nicolodi, Argento's onetime partner, in what a lot of people consider to be her greatest acting role) moves back into her old country villa with her son and new, hunky husband, Bruno (played by Steiner, who appeared as Christiano Berti in Tenebrae', where Lamberto acted as assistant director).
One feels extreme pity for Dora on one hand, but there's also something terrifying about her, we might like Bruno, but we know he's too good to be trueetc.Bava worked on two more projects after Shock.
This is the first Mario Bava film that I have seen and I'm sure this won't be the last.Though "Shock" has all the elements of a B-movie, it doesn't pretend to be otherwise.
"Shock" has Dario Argento muse Daria Nicolodi playing Dora, a housewife who returns to the home she shared with her deceased husband with her second husband and young son from the former marriage.
On edge as it is, things become increasingly unsettling in the home when she is plagued by visions, apparitions, and strange behavior from her child—behavior that is reminiscent of her ex-husband.Technically Bava's final film, "Shock" seems to be one of the famed director's least-praised and most criticized works.
Bava's last feature film is an incoherent but sporadically effective psychological study which lifts the back story of the haunted villa from Profondo Rosso (along with that movie's lead actress) and throws creepy, if random, manifestations of a malevolent force living in the house at its increasingly hysterical protagonist.
Shock (1977) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi) moves her new husband (John Steiner) and her son (David Colin, Jr.) from a previous marriage into the house that she once lived with the kid's father who committed suicide.
I thought Bava did a pretty good job at covering the psychological elements of the film as we really do seem to get into the mind of Nicolodi as she starts to crack under all the pressure she's under.
Mario Bava decides to frighten the crap out of us one last time with this one, a good old haunted house story, where John Steiner thinks it's a great idea to move his wife (Daria Nicolodi) and his step-son back into the house where his wife suffered at the hands of her now-dead junky husband.
Now it was around this time, when Marco starts winding his mother up by running around screaming, jumping out at her, wrecking the place and telling her that he's going to kill her that I realised that I hadn't watched this film since my son was born.
He spies on his mum in the shower, steals her knickers and tears them up, and even tries to dry hump her Daria goes from a loving mother to absolutely demented rather quickly, but then again, as psychiatrist Ivan Rassimov puts it: "It's as if all those years of suffering, your husband's suicide, your nervous breakdown, those six months you spent in a Sanitorium and that electric shock therapy are having some sort of effect on your relationship with your son." Gee Ivan, do ya think?John Steiner for the most part acts like Marco is just being annoying but also takes to looking guilty while hanging around that basement and drugging Daria when she's not looking, leading to some nifty hallucinations by Daria including seeing her dead husband's rotting hand grabbing at her, a wall bleeding and a Stanley blade floating about the place while Marco goes from 'annoying kid' to 'weird eyed possessed scareball'.This all sounds like a cheesy laughable mess but it's Mario Bava behind the camera, and he does a very good job at making reality itself unravel as whatever is possibly possessing Marco grinds away at Daria's sanity, leading to a couple of gory deaths and one creepy ass ending.
Dora (Daria Nicolodi, who should be canonized for giving birth to both Suspiria and Asia Argento, as well as roles in Deep Red, Inferno, Opera and so much more) and Bruno (Yor, Hunter from the Future's Overlord) are a newly married couple who have just moved back into her old home — the home where her drug addicted husband killed himself — with her son, Marco.Dora's had some real issues dealing with her husband's death.
Starting to watch this however I really couldn't understand why.I am no stranger to a good Italian movie and some of those can be very slow and lacking substance, so I was expecting big things knowing this was a cult classic, however I almost fell asleep in the beginning of this.It was just so slow to go anywhere, it felt like almost nothing was happening.
Considered one of the Best Italian Horror Directors, Bava Never Failed to be an Auteur, always bringing an Artistic Flair with His "on the move" Camera Work, Color Schemes, and a Fertile Imaging of the Genre (Horror/Giallo).This, His Final Film, was done during Failing Health, like Hitchcock, the Talent Remained and His Vision is Incorporated here even though much of the Movie was Relegated to His Son, Lamberto.It's a Creepfest of Considerable SHOCKS and the Strong B-Acting working with one of the Masters manages to Help in the Delivery.
When I began to watch "Schock" ,I was expecting the worst.Although it was directed by Mario Bava ,the most talented horror movies (along with Dario Argento) in Italy,the maleficent little boys and girls were very trendy at the time in the wake of "the Exorcist" and "the omen" and I was afraid "Schock" might be another story of the nice kid who....But I was surprised!
Dario Argento mainstay, Daria Nicolodi is a woman who goes back to a house she once lived in, this time with her son, Marco (David Collins Jr., who all but steals the film), and her second husband in tow.
Their son becomes possessed at random and the wife suffers from ghastly, violent images.Mario Bava's final outing as director is extremely disappointing (Plus people who want to become familiar with Bava's work should avoid this one for a while, as this is a bad place to start).
Very slow and very dull film from director Mario Bava--his final one.
Some of the visual FX (the "flying razor" scene comes readily to mind) are a bit dated and goofy - but overall this one holds up pretty well...Dora, Bruno, and Dora's son, Marco, all move back to a house that Dora lived in with her previous husband.
Bruno is a pilot and is gone most of the time, so he writes the strange happenings off as Dora's over-active imagination - but we find through the course of the film, that the history of the house is a lot more sordid than is initially let-on to - and Dora may or may not be as crazy as she seems...SHOCK is a solid film that Italian-horror lovers are sure to dig.
It's not the best of Bava's films but it ain't no dud, either.Bruno & Dora Baldini and her son, Marco, move back into a house where Dora and her late husband Carlo used to live.
Fellow Horror genius Dario Argento directed "Suspira", one of the most brilliant horror films of all-time, in that very year, and Mario Bava ended his career with "Shock", mainly in order to boost the career of his son Lamberto (Dèmoni), who is an OK director himself, but never came near his father's brilliance.
This last Mario Bava picture is an Italian-style Haunted House film, and while "Shock" is not as memorable as most other films by this brilliant director, it is definitely a creepy, genuinely scary and downright great film that Italian Horror fans can not afford to miss.Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi) moves into a house with her husband Bruno (John Steiner) and her son Marco (David Colin Jr.).
Especially the strange behavior of her little son begins to frighten her...Daria Niccolodi, the long-time girlfriend of Dario Argento who starred in many of his films, is a very good actress and she once again delivers a great performance, and while I didn't find her attractive in every movie she was in, she is very beautiful here.
Dora has returned to this house with her small son Marco and her second husband, Bruno.
Sadly, another crucial shock involving Marco is given away in the film's trailer, which I would advise that you avoid before watching the movie.I can't forget to mention the score by Goblin, working under the name Libra here.
Even though "Schock" isn't Bava's best moment, it still delivers an effective haunted house thriller, with the disjointed atmosphere of classic Italian horror..
Dora(Daria Nicolodi)returns with her new husband, pilot Bruno(John Steiner) and son Marco(David Colin Jr)to the home she once shared with her former husband.
Probably the nightmare sequences have the style we often are accustomed to when watching a Mario Bava film as he implements visual techniques that make Dora's visions so bizarre, surreal, & disturbing.
It more and more starts to look like the house is still possessed by the restless spirit of the dead husband The tension in Shock is built up very slowly and almost bloodlessThrough dazzling camera-viewpoints and creepy gothic music, Bava knows how to create a claustrophobic atmosphere before exploding into a disturbing and adrenalin-filled finale!
Most Italian movies have at least one character that the dubbing didn't quite work out for, and Marco is Shock's.