Cani arrabbiati
Tags: insanity, suspenseful, dark, murder, violence

Plot synopsis:
Four ruthless criminals wait outside the gates of a pharmaceutical company to steal the pay wages from an armored truck which will arrive at the gated complex. Upon the truck's arrival, the heavily armed thieves hold up the truck, killing a number of people in the process. But during the getaway, the thieves car is riddled with bullets from the company's security guards which kill the getaway driver, and damage the car so that it's leaking fuel. The clean-cut, cunning leader of the group, known only as Doc (Maurice Poli), and his two vicious and scruffy cohorts, the knife-wielding Blade (Aldo Caponi) and the hulking seven-foot tall Thirty-Two (Luigi Montefiori) are overjoyed at the stolen cash they now have. But when their car stalls in a downtown part of Rome, they are forced to flee on foot into an underground car park, persuaded by the police. The criminals grab two women as hostages, and when Blade accidentally kills one, the police, seeing the other female hostage Maria (Lea Lander) in danger, back away, allowing the criminals to steal her car and make an escape from the car park.Back on the street, Doc knows that its only a matter of time before a description of their new getaway car will reach the authorities, which will make it impossible for them to get out of the city. But the situation is resolved when they stop at a red traffic light, they hijack the car in front of them. The middle-aged driver of the other car, Riccardo (Riccardo Cucciolla) protests that he has to get his young child, a small, deathly-pail little boy wrapped up in a blanket, to the hospital. But the criminals, plus their female hostage Maria, force Riccardo to drive them out of the city.Once outside the city, Doc forces Riccardo to drive onto a local tollway to Naples which will lead them to their hideout outside that city. But aware that the police will be surveying the toll road for them, Doc forces Riccardo to turn around and exit the toll road, in which they decide to take a few secondary, but slower, roads to get to their hideout.During most the long road journey, Maria cannot stop herself from shaking and quaking with fear, which annoys Blade and Thirty-Two. Riccardo on the other hand, despite being somewhat unnerved and intimidated, takes what's happening to him very calmly. Doc, the most civilized of the criminals, is barely able to keep Blade and Thirty-Two in line who are both frequently fondling Maria who continues to tremble constantly. At a traffic construction site, Doc forces the group to roll their windows up, which attracts some attention for in the middle of a hot summer day, makes some of the motorists in front and behind them to question. But Doc has them roll their windows back down when it makes is look they might be made, and the group continues on.A little later, Maria ask Doc to pull the car over so she can relive herself. But she takes the opportunity to try to escape. She is perused by Blade and Thirty-Two, who chase to a farmhouse, which is unoccupied. Once Maria is re-captured, Blade and Thirty-Two torture the woman, both physically and mentally. Since she used the fact that she has to relive herself as a excuse to try to escape, they force her to urinate in front of them for punishment.Back on a main highway, Riccardo asks Doc if can pull into a rest stop for food and supplies, with Thirty-Two accompanying him, Riccardo buys some sandwiches, soda pop, while Thirty-Two buys a bottle of scotch. When a random woman at the rest area recognizes Riccardo, he manages to shake her off by saying that he's going on a picnic in the countryside with some friends.Back on the road, Thirty-Two becomes very intoxicated from the bottle of liquor he bought, and his actions begin to draw attention to the car from the other motorists. Doc and Blade try to control him, but he gets more and more out of control, and he attempts to rape Maria. Rather than risk attracting the attention of the highway police, Doc suddenly shoots Thirty-Two in the neck. Blade is completely shaken by this, but understands that Doc had no other choice. Thirty-Two does not die, but is completely helpless and immobile. Blade tries to help his friend by banding the bullet wound, but Doc knows that Thirty-Two is as good as dead.Soon after this incident, Riccardo tells them that they need to stop to get gas. However, when they finally reach a rural Esso filling station, the elderly attendant (Francesco Ferrini) tells them that he's on his hour break and won't help them for at least another 20 minutes. Doc, in a hurry to complete their journey, attempts to threaten the old man, who instead pulls a gun on Doc telling them that he was robbed the previous year and cannot be intimidated. Thinking quickly, Blade forces Maria to smooth things over by pleading with the attendant to come out and fill their car so they can get the comatose little boy to a hospital. The old man quickly relents and comes out to fill the car. But soon, another complication arises with the arrival of an overly cheerful young woman (Eriak Dario) who shows up at the station claiming that her car has broken down a kilometer away and needs assistance. Seeing the group, she pressures Doc to give her a ride to the next town where she is heading. When the woman opens the side door to the car, Thirty-Two's hand, covered with his own blood, slumps into view, the woman fails to see this, but the attendant does. Rather than risk a scene, Doc allows the woman to come along with them, and they drive off, with none of them knowing that the attendant saw the near-death Thirty-Two. The old man returns to his office with a shrug.The presence of this female hitchhiker is clearly annoying to Doc and everybody else since she cannot stop talking or ranting about how hot the day is and of the countryside. Ironically enough, the woman is also named Maria. But Maria the hitchhiker is a little too vivacious and outgoing, and her manner clearly has a grating effect on both the criminals and hostages. Maria the hitchhiker is completely oblivious to her situation and when she inadvertently removes the blanket covering Thirty-Two's neck, she notices the bullet wound. Blade kills the annoying hitchhiker by stabbing her in the neck with his signature knife. Doc forces Riccardo to pull over so they can dispose of the body. As the hitchhiker's body is thrown unceremoniously off a cliff, Riccardo helps Blade carry the still breathing Thirty-Two down the bottom of the cliff where Blade shoots his mortally wounded friend in the head to put him out of his misery.The group finally reaches their destination: a ruined villa just south of Naples where Doc has stashed a back-up car, carrying the appropriate papers that will enable him and Blade to leave the country. Riccardo and Maria are elated, but Doc reveals that he has no intention of letting them go for the hostages must be killed to secure their escape. Riccardo persuades Doc to let the little boy, who has been in a sedative-induced sleep for the whole duration, live. But Doc refuses and orders Riccardo to remove the little boy from the car. However, as Riccardo does so, he pulls out a gun hidden all this time in the child's blanket and shoots and kills both Doc and Blade, who fires off his machine gun fatally injuring Maria before expiring. With the tires of the car flat from the bullet hits, Riccardo moves the child to Doc's getaway car, and promptly steals the stolen money still clutched in Blade's fingers, and drives off.At a nearby rest stop, Riccardo, now alone, pulls over to make a telephone call. When a woman on the other end picks up, the film's big twist is when Riccardo says: "It's me again. I have something important to tell you. Yes, it's about your son. Yes, he's right here with me. Now, if you ever want to see him again... alive... it will cost you 30 million lire." Riccardo tells the sobbing boy's mother that he will call back to give her further instructions, and then hangs up. Riccardo casualty strolls back to his car, cheerily greeting a passing stranger on along the way. Upon opening the truck, the kidnapped child is shown, lying completely immobile as he has throughout the film. Riccardo gives the boy another shot of drugs to keep him sedated, closes the car truck, and drives away.

Review: The master of Italian Horror, Mario Bava, makes a heist film that is equal parts violent, ironic and vulgar, most of which takes place in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small car.
Rabid Dogs is a heist film from director Mario Bava (Black Sabbath, Hatchet For The Honeymoon, Diabolik).
It tells the story of a dangerous gang of criminals - Doc, Blade and Thirtytwo, who hijack a car in the aftermath of a heist to find themselves with three hostages: a woman, a child, and an innocent man.
It's truly a roller-coaster of a thriller- a pulpy little crime tale that deserves the attention of modern crime/horror audiences and critical acclaim.The film exhibits Bava's skill for cinema aesthetics, with its stylized editing and artifice.
These postmodern touches place Bava firmly ahead of his time- as if further proof was needed after his horror masterpieces Black Sabbath, The Mask Of The Demon and Bay Of Blood.Until recently, Rabid Dogs was thought to be a 'lost film', likely to have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair.
"Rabid Dogs" is a masterpiece of tension and suspense of Mario Bava.
This is the first time that I have seen "Rabid Dogs" and the dialogs and situations are still very impressive; imagine thirty-five years ago the impact of this movie.
This is Mario Bava doing a Reservoir Dogs type of film and doing extremely well.
Cani Arrabiati/Rabid Dogs is a terrific crime drama from the usually horror film-minded Mario Bava.
It would be one of the last films Mario Bava would direct(the next two would be Shock(1977), and a made for TV movie) before his death at age 66 in 1980..
Out of all Horror directors, Bava is arguably the one responsible for the most masterpieces - the man simply directed so many ingenious films that it is hard to pick out favorites.
"Black Sunday" (1960), but there are various other flawless masterpieces in this brilliant man's repertoire that no Horror fan, no, no lover of film in general, could possibly consider missing, such as "Blood And Black Lace", "Kill Baby...
Bava obviously was in for something different with "Cani Arrabbiati" aka "Rabid Dogs" of 1974, and the outcome was an incomparably breathtaking mixture of stunning Crime/Heist flick and sadistic thriller.
Due to the producer's bankruptcy, the completed film was withheld by courts until it was finally released in the late 90s, years after Bava's death.After a robbery, three criminals, their leader being a cold thinker called The Doctor (Maurice Poli), the other two sadistic psychopaths named Thirtytwo (none other than exploitation-cult-actor Greorge Eastman) and Balde (Don Backy), brutally murder a woman and take another woman hostage, in order to escape from the police.
Riccardo Cucciolla is excellent in the lead (if one can call it that, as the film is mainly set in a car, and all the characters have almost equal screen time).
This masterpiece was lost for many years, and while it is unfortunate that it never got released in Mario Bava's lifetime, it is more than great that it is available now.
It is ironic that Mario Bava, master of Italian fantasy, should make a gritty, realistic thriller as his last film.
Rabid Dogs represents the only directorial teaming of the great Mario Bava and his son Lamberto, and it also represents a huge diamond in both directors' filmography.
Rabid Dogs, however, is a crime come exploitation flick, and even though this sort of film isn't either man's forte; it's still hands down one of the best movies of its kind.
The plot follows three criminals who, after botching a robbery, kidnap a woman, a man and his sick child hostage in the man's car, where they instruct him to drive them to safety.
However, it's not going to be a smooth ride as tensions heat up between the guilty and innocent inside the car.The way that the characters are set up is masterful, and it's thanks to this that the film works so well.
The vast majority of this movie is set inside a car, and Bava makes best use of his claustrophobic location and uses it well in order to rack up the tension.
While Mario Bava is responsible for some of Italy's best horror films, it has to be said that a lot of them aren't all that 'nasty' - but here there is an exception.
Even though the film doesn't have a lot of variation between its scenes, Bava manages to keep it interesting through the relentless pace and the intelligent dialogue between the lead characters.
Bava' s masterpiece, Rabid dogs (english title) is a concentrate of tension and violence: the starting is nervous, the remain is claustrophobic.
Rabid Dogs (1974) **** (out of 4) A father (Riccardo Cucciolla) is rushing his young son to the hospital because he is near death but before getting there three criminals and their female hostage kidnap them and force them to drive them away from the police.
If anyone sees this ending coming then they're a lot better than I am.Kidnapped (2002/1974) ** (out of 4) This is the re-edited, American version of Mario Bava's 1974 masterpiece Rabid Dogs, which has been tinkered with to the point where it's really not the same film.
Producer Alfredo Leone, who had previously worked with Mario Bava, bought the American rights to Rabid Dogs but he wasn't too happy with the edit that had been done in the 1990's so he hired Mario's son, Lamberto, to shoot new scenes, re-edited other scenes and then added an entire new score.
Because Rabid Dogs has the pacing of a lot of Mario's films while Kidnapped doesn't.
Although his best-known work lies within the horror and giallo genre (leading to the nickname 'maestro of the macabre'), one of Mario Bava's finest works, Rabid Dogs, rests firmly in the poliziotteschi, or Eurocrime, sub-genre.
Shelved for decades after the death of the film's main investor, it resurfaced in 1998 and was eventually re- edited and re-scored by Bava's son Lamberto (director of the sub- standard Demons (1985) and Demons 2 (1986)), and re-titled as the vastly inferior version Kidnapped.
Bava's original vision remains the best, and it's a shame he didn't get to dabble more in the genre before his retirement, as Rabid Dogs is a thrilling exercise in tension.Starting with a robbery of an armoured truck that leads to the fatal stabbing of one innocent, three criminals escape by car after one of their own is shot dead by police.
Riccardo also has his ailing infant son with him and the gang caught him on his way to take the child to the hospital.Some of Bava's familiar touches are here, such as the black gloves and the stylistic flair, but Rabid Dogs has more in common with Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) that any of his own work.
Although the climactic twist seems a little contrived, I didn't see it coming, and Rabid Dogs is certainly one of Bava's best, and most under-appreciated, works.
Following a bungled robbery, three violent criminals take a young woman, a middle-aged man, and a child hostage and force them to drive them outside Rome to help them make a clean getaway.According to Bava's son Lamberto, Mario apparently considered the film his most important work, presumably because it showed he could "compete" with the other police thrillers out there.
Thirteen years later, after directing more classics («The Three Faces of Fear», «The Whip and the Body», «Diabolik») and cult movies («Hercules at the Center of the Earth», «The Girl Who Knew Too Much», «Terror in Space») and contributing to the emergence of the "giallo" genre («6 Women for the Murderer», «The Red Sign of Madness», «5 Dolls for an August Moon») that influenced the careers of his son Lamberto, Dario Argento and Quentin Tarantino, Bava went into decline and in 1973 set out to win again his place with this motion picture in which he would demonstrate that he was able to adjust to the times and make an effective police film, following the scheme of a road movie, according to the story "Man and Boy" by Michael J.
As it has been written, it is a true journey to hell: a tense, cruel, violent, disturbing, repellent, virulent story of a brutal robbery in which the savage assailants take for hostages a man with a car, his sick son who needs urgent medical attention and a woman who went shopping.
The number of dead and the humiliation of the hostages increase as the films advances guided by the firm hand of Bava, who introduces humor in the midst of the terror (in the character played by Maria Fabbri, for example), until he leads us to a surprise ending.
As directed by Mario Bava, the film is a visually stunning and uncomfortably claustrophobic tale of three criminals who commit an early-morning robbery and take three hostages (a female pedestrian, and the father of a sick child) and embark on a road trip wrought with sleaze and violence.
While most renowned for his period horror films, Bava brings his own sense of visual flair to the proceedings (note how he films the deserted "farm" like a Gothic castle), contrasting panoramic shots of open, seemingly empty highways and countrysides with invasive, cramped close-ups of the criminals and hostages (in a way, we begin to also feel like captives in a hot car).
Bava is surprisingly fearless in his portrayal of amorality, but the script actually develops both victim and victimized beyond the usual genre predictability--by the time we reach the film's closing twist, "Rabid Dogs" has made a stinging indictment against the greed and violence of the modern world, wrapped up in an unapologetically nihilistic package.
Mario Bava's Cani Arrabbiati/Rabid Dogs(1974), follows on the heals of A Bay of Blood(1971), Baron Blood(1972), and Lisa and The Devil(1972) which at the time of their release was not well received.
What makes Rabid Dogs(1974) fascinating is the presence of claustrophobia felt not only by the characters, but also by the viewer (this is due to film taking place in a car).This late Bava film proved that he was a talented film-maker who could excel in any genre.
Many scenes in this feature film are so well done that I would have to consider Mario Bava a great Italian artist of the late 20th Century.
For many years Rabid Dogs was Mario Bava's lost movie.
Like those other celebrated films I mentioned, Rabid Dogs is a very well made movie, with a tight script, good performances, a nice score and, despite the fact the story almost exclusively takes place in a car, solid cinematography.
The focus of the film is entirely on these characters.Mario Bava is rightly respected as one of the most significant Italian genre directors.
Having seen Kidnapped before Rabid Dogs and only once, I can't say definitively how the re-edits compare, but there did appear to be a few unnecessary changes and over-all the movie certainly appeared to move along at a little more sluggish pace.
Overall, I would definitely have to recommend the Rabid Dogs version, but if you get the chance check out Kidnapped too as a point of comparison.This is one of Mario Bava's best and least typical films.
Four criminals rob the weekend payroll of a pharmaceutical company.After one is killed by the police,the others ditch the getaway car.They steal another belonging to everyman Riccardo.They take him,his young sick baby and a woman off the street named Maria hostage and head for the open road."Rabid Dogs" is easily the darkest and most cynical film of a talented horror director Mario Bava.It concentrates on the character dynamics and the growing suspense on what will happen to unfortunate hostages.The violence and abuse is mean-spirited and the ugliness oozes from the screen.The scene,where two thugs force Maria to urinate is unforgettable in its grim nastiness.There are a lot of twists and turns in a surprisingly straightforward story.Overall,I'd highly recommend "Rabid Dogs" to fans of Mario Bava and exploitation movies.9 out of 10..
Mario Bava, my personal favorite director of all time and generally speaking one of the best in the field of horror and cult cinema ever, surprises his foes and even more so his friends with this hugely atypical and shockingly nihilistic accomplishment in directing.
Who knows, maybe Bava really needed a break from the horror genre after this painful experience, and what better way is there to get rid of all your stress than by making a hard-boiled, outrageously violent, cruel and relentless thriller/action film?
Whatever his intentions were (if any, because maybe I'm just speculating about nothing), Mario Bava's "Rabid Dogs" is one of the best films of its kind, and that is saying a lot because the early 70's Italian crime film industry was mostly ruled by other prominent directors, like Umberto Lenzi ("Almost Human", "Rome Armed to the Teeth") and Fernando Di Leo ("Manhunt", "Milano Calibre .9").
But "Rabid Dogs" benefices from one major advantage the others didn't have, namely  Mario Bava in the director's seat!
Very few directors can deliver a movie that takes place inside a car for 90% and doesn't get boring and even less filmmakers can take on a script packed with vulgarity & violence without ever losing sight of stylish photography and tension building.
"Rabid Dogs" is a heist/crime masterpiece with a nearly unequaled dark & disturbing atmosphere, extreme characters and a handful of stone-cold shock sequences.
He wrote and starred in numerous of the smuttiest horror movies ever made, including "Antropophagus", "Absurd" and "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead".I don't daresay how important "Rabid Dogs" was or how much it influenced other filmmakers, because the film only got re-discovered and completed not that long ago.
Bava is regarded as one of the masters of Italian cinema, particularly when it comes to horror films.
"Rabid Dogs" is without a doubt, the best Bava film I've seen.
One goof was the thief's comment about getting "the chair." You can't get the chair in Italy, only in more uncivilized countries.Like "Reservoir Dogs," this film is all about what happens after the robbery; and, like "The Sugarland Express," almost all of the action takes place inside of a car - well, three actually.
Also director Mario Bava is usually a master at creating atmospheric movies and having some incredible camera shots.
Italian director Mario Bava conducts a serious study of three psychopathic criminals beyond cure in 'Mad Dogs'..
Italian director Mario Bava's cult classic 'Cani Arrabbiati' is a study of criminal minds in closed spaces.
The Mario Bava film "Rabid Dogs" apparently was shelved because the project ran out of money.
RABID DOGS (Mario Bava, 1974) ***1/2.
I can only imagine how wary Bava (a master of it though he was) may have become of the horror genre he had been stuck in since 1957's I VAMPIRI and how much he was looking forward for a change of pacebut fate would deal him an even bigger blow than his recent disappointment with his beloved LISA AND THE DEVIL (1973; that was only officially released in a reworked travesty entitled THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM in 1975!) when one of the producers of RABID DOGS died suddenly and the raw footage was impounded by creditorsuntil leading lady Lea Lander secured rights to the film well over 20 years after its shooting and long after its creator had left this mortal coil!
Even so, the version of the film that is presented on the Anchor Bay DVD represents the pinnacle of the "Eurocrime" subgenre of Italian film-making that lasted until 1980 (the year of Mario Bava's demise) and was a direct result of the 1968 political uprisings that occurred all over Europe.The premise, as denoted by the retitling to KIDNAPPED, deals with just such an incident following a bloody payroll robbery in broad daylightbut, thanks to one of the greatest twist endings in film history, we realize that there are multiple crimes of this sort going on throughout the film.
The trio of robbers are portrayed by Maurice Poli (as the "Doctor", the most level-headed of the bunch but not averse to sudden burst of violence), Aldo Caponi (as the impulsively knife-wielding "Blade") and Luigi Montefiori (as the lecherous "Thirtytwo"), while their victims are played by Riccardo Cucciolla (as the meek but determined "father" forced to act as their driver), Lea Lander (as a passer-by taken hostage by the bandits to facilitate their getaway), Marisa Fabbri (as a belated and motor-mouthed hitchhiker) and an unidentified child actor (as Cucciolla's sickly "offspring").Interestingly, Lander and Poli were both Bava alumni – from BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) and FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON (1970) respectively; Caponi was more famous as "Don Backy", a popular singer-songwriter best-known for his award-winning song, "L'Immensita'" but he had also featured in the film which had given birth to the subgenre itself, Carlo Lizzani's THE VIOLENT FOUR (1968).
The confined set (90% of Rabid Dogs takes place inside a car) adds immensely to the psychological tension and physical threat these three desperate men represent.
RABID DOGS is an Italian thriller of the 1970s, directed by master of horror Mario Bava, and perhaps better known for the unfortunate production wranglings surrounding it than for being a top thriller in its own right.
The movie's producer died, money dried up, and RABID DOGS never saw the light of day until after the director died in 1990.
And it had to have been even more so as it was filmed, as there's real background zooming past behind the actors, so the camera was inside the car.Also, this is a movie where you notice the acting so much more than in other Bava work.
I know that I'm a big Eastman fan, but he's great in this film, a gigantic man child devoted to the id, barely restrained by the adult in the car, Doc.Following this film, Bava would only work on one more film, 1977's Shock.