Reazione a catena
Tags: dark, cruelty, murder, cult, horror, violence, storytelling, flashback, insanity, revenge, sadist

Plot synopsis:
At a remote mansion overlooking a vast, empty bay lake, Countess Federica (Isa Miranda), wheels herself through her dark, empty house. She sorrowfully looks out her window at the rain when Filippo Donati (Giovanni Nuvoletti), her husband, appears and murders her by wrapping a noose around her neck and kicks her out of her wheelchair. The countess cannot stand on or move her useless legs and is strangled to death. But then Filippo is then murdered by a unseen killer who jumps out at him from behind a curtain, and drags his body away. The presence of a suicide note, stolen from the countess' diary, leads the police to believe that she has killed herself.Several days later, Frank Ventura (Chris Avram), a real estate agent, and his secretary/lover Laura (Anna Maria Rosati) are in bed discussing their plans to take over Countess Federicas property following her murder. They both realized the bay's potential to fetch a large price on the estate market, and they are the ones who have convinced Donati to murder his wife. All that Ventura needs to take control of the bay is Donati's signature on some paperwork, although he does not realize that Donati too has been murdered. Ventura plans to go to his cottage, which adjoins the desired property, to meet with Donati. Laura, jealous of Ventura's obsession with the property, asks to come along. When he tells her to stay put, she complains that he enjoys making her life miserable. Ventura tells Laura about a 'squonk' which is mystical creature who is crafty, but never stops whimpering. Laura understands the analogy and agrees to be patient.Back at the bay, Paolo Foscari (Leopoldo Trieste), an entomologist who owns a small house on the grounds, is hard at work trying to capture an insect. He runs into Simon (Claudio Volonte), a handyman who also lives on the property and makes a living by catching squid in the bay. During their conversation, Foscari suggests that the countess might have been murdered. Very defensively, Simon replies that the police ruled it a suicide. Foscari sarcastically replies that it was a suicide before running off to catch more insects.Meanwhile, four rowdy teenagers, Brunhilda (Brigette Skay), Denise (Paola Rubens), Duke (Guido Boccaccini), and Robert (Roberto Bonanni), arrive at the bay for a day of partying and fun. The trouble-making teens break into Ventura's vacant cottage to steal some liquor and smoke some dope. While Denise and Duke retreat to a nearby bedroom for sex, Robert, makes a fire in the fireplace, while Brunhilda goes swimming in the bay. There, she accidentally discovers the badly decomposed body of Filippo Donati floating under water. In a panic state, she runs out of the water, quickly dresses, and runs back to the cottage to tell the others of her find, only to get chased and attacked by a unseen maniac wielding a large billhook, who catches up to her and slashes her throat. Robert is next when he opens the front door of the cottage after hearing a noise and is whacked in the face with the same billhook. The unseen killer takes a fisherman's spear, and kills both Denise and Duke by impaling them in bed while they are in the middle of sex.As night falls on the bay, Renata (Claudine Auger), Donati's estranged daughter, arrives in a mobile home with her weak-willed husband Albert (Luigi Pistilli), hoping to lay claim to the bay estate. Leaving their two young children asleep in their camper, the couple pay a visit to Foscari and his wife Anna (Laura Betti), a fortune teller and tarot reader with a very supercilious nature. Sitting down for tea, Anna slyly insinuates that the countess' death was probably Renata's father's doing, and that Simon may be the one to inherit the property. Shocked to discover that she has a half-brother, Renata leaves with Albert who tells him that Simon will have to be disposed of.Renata and Albert meet with Simon to talk with him about the countess' death when they discover the badly decomposed body of Donati's in Simon's boat. Simon claims to have only found the body floating in the bay and will inform the authorities. Renata and Albert flee to stop at Venturas cottage hoping to meet with him, but find it apparently deserted. When Albert walks away for a moment, Ventura suddenly appears and attempts to kill Renata. She runs into the bathroom where she discovers the four mutilated, dead bodies of the teenagers. But Renata gets the upper hand by grabbing a pair of scissors, and stabbing Ventura. This is accidently witnessed by Foscari, and when he runs back to his house to call the police, Albert follows him there and strangles him to death. When Anna, hearing the commotion at Ventura's cottage, arrives there and gets decapitated by Renata weilding an rafting axe. Frightened by the aura of violence around him and disgusted with himself for killing an innocent man, Albert tries to persuade Renata to make a run for it. But the murderous Renata tells Albert that she has no intention of giving up when she's so close to inheriting the bay. She also reminds Albert that they still have to kill Simon.Things gets more complicated when Laura shows up at the bay looking for Ventura, when she stumbles into Simon's shack on the bay where he appears and threatens her with a machete. It is revealed by Simon that Ventura hired him to murder Filippo Donati with the promise that Ventura will give him his share of the property and money to leave the country. Simon really is the countess illegitimate son who was supported by his mother all this time and the one who murdered the four teenager after one of them discovered the body of Donati since he was ordered by Ventura not to let Donati's death be made public knowledge until after Simon inherits the bay. Furious at Laura when he finds out that she and Ventura were responsible for Donati murdering his mother, he attempt to kill her too. But at first Laura gets the upper hand by throwing a pot of boiling water on Simon, scalding his face. But he quickly recovers and strangles her with his bare hands.Simon then goes after both Renata and Albert hiding out in the property. But then Albert turns the tables on Simon by impaling him to a wall with the same fisherman's spear Simon used to kill two of the teens. With Simon finally taken care of, Renata and Albert search the countess' house for the missing will which has the listings of beneficiaries. But then Ventura, who was presumed to be dead, shows up and attempts to kill both of them, but is then dealt with by Albert who kills him for good.The next morning, with all the loose ends tied up and the countess will burned, Renata and Albert plan to return home to wait for news of her inheritance of the bay. But in an ironic twist, both Renata and Albert are shot to death by the very own neglected children, who playfully point a loaded shotgun at their parents and shoot them both down. The little girl says to her brother, "Gee, they sure are good at playing dead, aren't they?" The sister and brother then run out of the camper to playfully skip some stones by the water.

Review: Many films on the Video Nasty list are horror cinema's answer to well-respected classics; The Last House on the Left offers a new spin on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, Island of Death is a more brutal telling of the story of Bonnie and Clyde and, indeed, this Mario Bava film owes its plot to the French classic, La Ronde.
Bay of Blood is often noted as being an obvious inspiration on the Friday the 13th series, and when taking things such as the setting and a certain murder sequence into account, that is certainly true; but let's not forget that this is also a fantastic movie in its own right.
It has to be said that the film never tops its opening sequence, but Mario Bava's gore-fest manages to remain fascinating all the way through, as it turns out that the first murder scene sets off a violent chain of events that results in a very high body count.This film would be properly categorised as a slasher, but its Italian roots ensure that it's often labelled a Giallo, and indeed Mario Bava does include Giallo elements; from black gloved killers and an array of odd characters, all the way to an amazingly convoluted plot.
Indeed, the storyline here gets so complicated at times that it's liable to give the viewer an extreme headache, but Bava is always on hand with another glorious murder scene, and as the film features thirteen deaths in it's eighty one minute running time - there's certainly no lack of the red stuff.
Mario Bava's eye for detail doesn't wane with this film, as despite being a grisly slasher; there's still more than enough time for beautiful scene setting.
With the pitch-black ending, the director shows us that the film isn't meant to be taken seriously, and overall, Bay of Blood is both influential and a great time - and therefore shouldn't be missed by horror fans..
Regarded as the granddaddy of slashers, BAY OF BLOOD has a unique concept behind it that none of its duplicators have successfully copied: the concept of people being murdered one by one, not by just one killer but by several killers, in very gruesome ways, all in the name of super dry, jet black comedy.
Throughout the labirynth like story-line, we bounce from one character to the next, never having enough time to get to know the people in the movie to care enough for them and when they are killed, their deaths suddenly take a surprisingly modern twist.
Unlike most slashers out there, like FRIDAY THE 13TH or even HALLOWEEN and their endless sequels, many critics have said that in order for the horror element in those movies to work, you have to care about the people getting killed.
There isn't a single lone female survivor, or a surprise ending like most horror films (there is a surprise ending in BAY OF BLOOD but it's not a killer coming back to life).The acting is good but the cast is mostly anonymous (deliberate?).
Well, BAY OF BLOOD has impressed me a lot and I have to say that it's probably my favorite Mario Bava film, along with HATCHET.
Here the main pleasure, as in all subsequent body count movies, is in seeing in which new and inventive manner the next murder will be committed, but as usual, it is Bava's visual style which sets this film above Friday 13th and all it's imitators, as well as a knowing sense of humour and a pounding jazzy soundtrack.
I also believe "Blood and Lace" is under-appreciated in this regard, though I suppose "Bay of Blood" is the more influential.Aside from the obvious concept of kids going into the woods and dying, we have some of the classic slasher themes: camera from the killer's point of view behind a tree, the double impalement of a couple making love.
The Countess' daughter Renata (Claudine Auger) and her husband Albert (Luigi Pistilli) arrive at the bay and start investigating the goings-on themselves, only to discover the possibility that everyone could somehow be involved in trying to claim the bay for themselves.As a horror fan, the work of Mario Bava has somehow alluded me through the years.
Opening with a double murder, the film has proved to be highly influential, with many contemporary slasher movies (among them various segments of the "Friday The 13th" series) replicating some of it's key death sequences.
While Carlo Rambaldi's superbly well-done gore effects retain their shock value (and they assured that the film went onto the infamous "video nasties" list), it's Bava's gorgeous cinematography that steals the show and proves once again that the great Italian director did not just make horror movies - he made genuine art..
The screenplay features more plot holes than a piece of Swiss cheese,and it borrows a bit from Agatha Christie's "Ten little Indians" aka "And then there were none" .And the flashbacks are clumsily edited in.For that matter ,the movie does not attain perfection ,as in Bava's earlier works such as "la Maschera Del Demonio" ,"I Tre Volti Della Paura" or "Operazione Paura".Having said this ,Mario Bava was still quite capable of worthwhile directing in 1971.One can feel the huge influence he exerted over Dario Argento (whose screenplays were more complex and even more far-fetched ,but this is the kind of horror movies I ask more of) and over all the American "teenagers" thrillers of the eighties ,beginning with "Friday the Thirteenth" : the four young intruders' scenes set the pattern for all those gory flicks.Mario Bava smartly used the "subjective " camera ,he makes us feel an invisible presence ,sometimes with an eye (a trick D'Argento will often use),sometimes with nothing:only the place , a disturbing character (Laura Betti and her tarots),or even innocent ones (the children in the trailer).James Bond's fans will be happy to see again Claudine "Domino" Auger ("Thunderball"),a former Miss France.Bava used to cast "old" actresses too:Isa Miranda,who enjoyed a career both in Italy and in France portrayed the countess.Dario Argento,once more,would imitate him:in "Profondo Rosso" ,Clara Calamai made a stunning come back as Carlo's mother..
An lonely old woman sitting in her house and the brutal murder that follows, The girl swimming in the lake, the body in the boat, the prowler outside the house where the kids are screwing around, and of course, the out-of-left-field finale, one of the greatest endings in all of film.I also admire Bava's control of pacing, emotion and mood; shifting from tenderness to horror, kindness to hate, trust to deception, often in the blink of an eye.
He also makes it interesting with a bizarre assortment of characters; the milquetoast entemologist and his koo koo wife, a mysterious fisherman, with whom there's more than meets the eye, and those delightful children that any mother would love!This genre has often been one of extremes; very bad films and some very good ones, and those are the ones from the hands of stylists like Mornau, Polanski, Freda, Romero, Argento, Franco (in some instances), and of course, Mario Bava and his son, Lamberto, and a handful of others much less prolific.
Bava does exactly what it says on the tin and what it says on the tin here is "A Bay of Blood" so basically you know what you're likely to get and what you're letting yourself in for but Bava is as much an auteur as any Italian maestro and the killing that opens this film proves it.
Working almost exclusively within the genre of the horror picture Bava was, above all, a great visual stylist, (as well as directing "A Bay of Blood" he was also the DoP), and unlike most films that might be termed slashers this could almost be called art, albeit of a very kitsch kind.Budget-wise Bava had to achieve his effects with very little, other than sheer imagination.
Mario Bava's beautifully filmed and highly bloody thriller is hailed as the grandfather of the slasher film and rightfully so.Fueding over a piece of valuable bay-side property leads to a series of violent murders and a list of strange greedy suspects.Reazione a catena (also known as Bay of Blood or Twitch of the Death Nerve) is a true example of the Italian technique of film making, it's style over substance.
The music score is haunting and beautiful too.The cast of the film does well over all, although being dubbed into English it gets difficult to appreciate the talents of any actor.At any rate Reazione a catena is classic Bava, some of the great directors finest work in fact, and an excellent example of the Italian horror genre for those who have yet to discover it.
Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971)**** (out of 4)Mario Bava's landmark film can now be considered one of the very first slashers and of course a major influence on Friday THE 13TH.
Also known as A BAY OF BLOOD and a dozen other titles, this Bava film mixes the giallo with what would become known as the slasher and the end result is certainly something special and ground- breaking.
Fellini told him to just film the murders and make the plot up as he went along.What we end up with is the most violent movie Bava ever made.
It's a Sub-Genre of Horror that Survives to this Day. It has Survived Critic and Parental Wrath and Disdain and is one of the most Profitable.The Movie is Famous for its Body Count (13) that was used in Advertising Campaigns, Bloody Gore, No Redeeming Characters, Excellent Makeup and SFX, Haunting Mood and Cinematography (Bava), Fast Pace, and an Ending that No "Body" saw coming.Viewed Today it seems Familiar, due to the Hundreds of Imitations and Followups Churned Out in the last 35 Years.
Mostly Hacking the Maestro with Little Style and Wit and No imagination with Eyes Only on Box-Office Receipts.The "Slasher" Genre does have its Restraints with Repetition Punctuating the Pictures and One Upmanship the Order of the Day. Objectively even Bava's Movie is Missing certain Elements of Plot, Character Development and Overall Concern for Complexity.
My first experience with giallo movie is Tenebre by Dario Argento but last night I just found out the godfather of giallo genre is Mario Bava so I decide to check out one of his movie and I pick A bay of Blood.like most of giallo afterwards A bay of Blood featuring very beautiful cinematography by Mario himself with many POV shot from the killer and of course the gory kills that soon inspire the slasher genre.To proof how non cliché this movie is a group of teenagers get kill off right away in the most brutal way that even one of the kill later has been later used on Friday the 13th franchise.About the plot I actually really into the mystery but haft way through it turned into a complete mess that I hardly care about.The movie is enjoyable but not that impressive.
excerpt, more at my location - Mario Bava precedes the American slasher genre with 1971's A Bay Of Blood (also known as Twitch Of The Death Nerve, Blood Bath and Last House On The Left 2, among others), a violent landmark in Italian cinema.
Despite all the positive comments on Mario Bava's 1971 epic slasher film BAY OF BLOOD I found it to be extremely slow and at times just plain boring.
BAY OF BLOOD is actually my favorite Bava film so I guess that tells you I'm not much a fan of his work.
Mario Bava's "Bay of Blood" is a gory,early 70's mystery which has creepy atmosphere and plenty of gruesome gore.Feuds over who has the rights to a bay,following the murder of a town matriarch who controls most of the property,results in a massacre of almost every character in the story.It's easy to see where the first two "Friday the 13th" movies got many of its ideas of creative killings.But unlike "Friday the 13th" series,"Bay of Blood" has a complicated plot,interesting characters and plenty of suspense.The scenes of bloody carnage are still shocking:people are dispatched via axe,knife and spear.A must-see for fans of Italian horror!.
Sure, it's fun to see the scenes which were ripped off in later "Friday the 13th" movies, the cinematography is uniformly sumptuous, and giallo/slasher kills are always fun to watch in their ingenuitybut despite this, by the end of the film I was ever so slightly bored.The film begins strongly enough with a wheelchair-bound old woman being strangled.
I had extremely high expectations for Twitch of the Death Nerve, being the granddaddy of all the later 'body count' sub-genre, as well as coming from my favorite horror director of all time - Mario Bava.
**SPOILERS** Probably the most influential of Mario Bava's Giallo thrillers "Bay of Blood" set the stage form the mid 1970's and beyond for scores of slasher movies that copied many of the scenes that Brava put into that film.
This is what leads to the orgy of murder in the movie with everyone trying to get a hold of the land and not at all caring just what they have to do to get it.It's hard enough to follow the conniving and killing of those involved with the lake property but we have thrown into the mix, for what just seems to be a reason to jack-up the body count, a quartet of young people going down to the lake to have some fun.
Later both Denise and Duke totally oblivious to what's happening, as their both in bed doing it, get run through like a shish kebab with a spear by the same unknown killer.Everyone that were introduced to in the film get's brutally murdered in some of the most grizzly scenes even put into a movie, American or foreign, up until that time.
This is the grand daddy of all slasher films.Basically it is a >body count film but is the 1st one.(Friday the 13th etc all ripped this bad boy off).The plot is minimal.A prime piece of real estate is wanted by everybody and their brother.All of those in line to inherit it get whacked in different ways.Even the prototype horny teenagers having sex get viciously waxed.
The performances may not be the most important aspect of "A Bay Of Blood", but the cast includes several greats of Italian genre cinema, most memorably the great Luigi Pistilli (one of my favorite actors), the beautiful Claudine Auger, and Laura Betti, who also starred in Bava's "Hatchet For The Honeymoon".
Cunningham's Friday the 13th movie might have been inspired by Bava's earlier slasher flick but with better effect in terms of plot, suspense and gore.
The couple arrive on the property in the midst of a bloodbath in which just about anyone coming in contact with the area is dying in mysterious ways, but the worst is yet to come.The thriller to launch Bava's career into the seventies, "A Bay of Blood" (sometimes titled "Twitch of the Death Nerve") plays out like a gratuitous Agatha Christie novel brought to the screen.
One of the most popular Mario Bava's movies, Bay of blood starts in this fashion with a lengthy strangling scene.
I have been really getting into italian horror movies, so I checked out Bava's "Bay of Blood", the first Bava film I have seen.
Largely cited as the inspiration behind Carpenter's Halloween (1978), Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980) and the hundreds of countless other gory slasher movies, this is an entertaining horror film from Mario Bava, who is probably the greatest of the Italian genre directors.
Despite some dodgy camera-work (rapid zooms and shots thrown in and out of focus), a few plodding moments and some dated looking scenes involving 'groovy' teenagers, Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood is still an entertaining slasher/giallo movie, made even more notable by the fact that it heavily influenced Sean S.
Mario Bava's TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE (aka BAY OF BLOOD) is often noted as one of the main influences of the more modern "slasher" film, including Friday THE 13TH and many others.
The plot = An elderly wheelchair bound woman is murdered by her husband for her money and lakeside property and then he himself is also murdered by someone else who also wants the property and that's when the body count begins to rise, so who will succeed in the end."A Bay of Blood" is a great and incredibly brutal movie, especially considering the time it came out 1971,just before the rise of the slasher boom that was about to take place years later.Not a thriller as such it is more of black comedy, an wonderfully twisted one at that, and still even now still stands the test of time.
This movie does have some plot holes as well, like the senseless killings of the four teenagers, like it's not explained why they were murdered, but they're deaths scenes were great and entertained the hell out of me.All in all "A Bay Of Blood" is a gorefest which has layers and shows director Mario Bava's wicked sense of humour, a definite must see for all gore hounds, just make sure to see the full uncut version..
Mario Bava's "Bay of blood" is a very watchable slasher film that can more easily be enjoyed if not taken too seriously.
The influence on Friday the 13th is obvious (they ripped it off!), but like that movie Bay of Blood has perhaps acquired a reputation it does not really deserve.There's giallo-style plotting galore going on - which makes little sense - though the surprise opening murder of an old rich lady in a wheelchair is effectively done, but as the killings mount up it becomes pretty kitsch.
If you're a fan of slasher movies or you just like Bava's photography, then this film is really a must see.
Directed by Il Maestro, Mario Bava, BAY OF BLOOD (also known as TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE) was the film that single-handedly inspired and launched the slasher genre.