Twitch Of The Death Nerve (a.k.a. Bay Of Blood)

Starring:Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Claudio Camaso, Anna Maria Rosati, Chris Avram, Leopoldo Trieste, Laura Betti, Brigitte Skay, Isa Miranda, Paola Montenero, Guido Boccaccini, Roberto Bonanni, Giovanni Nuvoletti, Nicoletta Elmi, Renato CestiÃ¨
Director: Mario Bava
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

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This late entry in Italian horror auteur Mario Bava's catalog is in keeping with much of his other work: a rather murky plot, inventive camera work and editing, gauzy lighting using red and blue gels, and an atmospheric, dreamlike feel throughout. Where it parts ways with many of his films is in the high body count--so high that many feel Bay of Blood was a likely influence on American slasher films such as Friday the l3th. The killing centers on a list of potential heirs to a piece of lakefront property ripe for development (a subplot involves camping teenagers who are also being slaughtered--sound familiar?). The slayings come fast and furious, with gunshots, chokings, stabbings, decapitations, and a two-for-the-price-of-one impalement, to name a few. Bava creates an off-kilter mood of melancholia for the film that makes it somewhat less fun than the mindless slasher flicks of the 1980s, but also renders it a more thought-provoking, cynical sort of movie. --Jerry Renshaw

Description

Countess Federica, the elderly owner of a coveted piece of bayside property, is brutally slain by her husband--who is himself killed by a mysterious third person at the murder scene! Who is the killer? Could it be the real estate developer or the entomologist neighbor who wants to preserve the natural insect life thriving around the bay? Perhaps the Countess's illegitimate son, in a bid to claim a name for himself, is responsible? Whoever it is, brace yourself, because no one's a suspect for very long in Mario Bava's black comedy of human greed--which boasts 13 characters and 13 of the most shocking murders ever filmed! A.k.a. "Bay of Blood" and "Carnage."

Customer Reviews:

Murky plot, silly dialog, vague motives, creepy fun and the birth of .......2007-05-12

[...]While parts of this are beyond belief the camera work is fluid and the murders are very interesting.
A piece of prime property will be inherited by someone in this large circle of people and someone wants that circle just a little tighter and starts to bump the others off. There is also something about Campers on the land. It's all delightfully surreal with murders that top each successive murder.
Watching this one you will be struck at how much "Friday The 13th" owes to this movie. Some scenes were lifted wholesale from this into the story of Jason and his blood fetish. Not for all taste to be sure, but for it's nightmare like mood I found that I really liked this one

Bygone Beauty.......2006-11-01

Bava plays a Hitchcock like trick at the beginning of BAY OF BLOOD, using Isa Miranda precisely as Hitchcock used Janet Leigh in the first reels of PSYCHO. Surely once you had secured the services of one of the greatest international stars of all time, you weren't going to kill her off--and so quickly! But that is precisely Bava's strategy, and that's precisely what he does. The gesture of this shock effect is largely lost to contemporary audiences who don't remember Isa Miranda properly, but she was still a potent force in 1971 when BAY OF BLOOD (also known as TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE) was produced. When you kill off your biggest star within the first fifteen minutes of the movie, in an especially brutal way, you are signalling your audience that all bets are off, no one is safe, and check your preconceptions about cinema and narrative structure at the door.

A shame in a way, because the movie sure could use a lot more of Miranda, though talented actors pop up every ten minutes or so like ducks in a shooting gallery. Isa Miranda was the great international sensation of Mussolini's Italy; even MGM got wind of her and imported her a la Garbo for a few unsuccessful American films right before the outbreak of World War II put a kibosh to her career in the States. Back in Italy she continued in her reign as a sort of Dolores Del Rio slash Naximva tragedy Queen, with huge dollops of sex thrown in for mass appeal. Thus in LA RONDE (1950) Max Ophuls saves her perhaps the most delectable sequence of all, larding her into a sex sandwich between boyish Gerard Philipe (the Ryan Philippe of his day!) and stalwart Jean-Louis Barrault from CHILDREN OF PARADISE. David Lean made her the earthy manageress of the Pensione spinstery Katharine Hepburn stays at in Venice in SUMMER MADNESS (aka SUMMERTIME, 1955), using her magnificent, somewhat ravaged sensuality as a contrapuntal force, much as plain Deborah Kerr is confronted by wild Ava Gardner in John Huston's later film of NIGHT OF THE IGUANA. In BAY OF BLOOD, which begins with Miranda's countess rolling her wheelchair moodily past window after curtained window in her chateau over the bay, a mood of desolate and painful memory is instantly set up. It's as if she's thinking of all the "white telephone" movies she's ever played in, and rueing the day when her great beauty came to an end. Bava's photography is always topnotch, but in the opening sequence of BAY OF BLOOD he puts it to memorial use; the color shimmers, the light radiates off of Miranda's hair, eyes, profile, and the wheels creak in protest as she forces them across the long gallery for one last look at her bay.

Overrated slasher flick that spawned the slasher craze..........2006-01-03

[good things]
Some of the best kills in slasher movie history, some great blood and a nice cold setting. The acting was pretty good for being an Italian movie, and the characters, at least were very well developed and easy to get along with.

[the bad]
The actual plot was good, but it really didn't interest me. It (to me) seemed like there was too much going on, and it was hard to watch the movie, enjoy the kills and think about the story. The ending was really lame, It was great how it ended, but I did not like the 2 kids... I just thought it was silly.

[final thoughts]
I remember watching this movie as a kid, and hating it. Rewatching it years later was a treat, and my opinions were almost opposite of the ones I had back then. The atmosphere in the movie is great, it reminds me of the atmosphere in the first Friday The 13th (Sean S.Cunningham got the inspiration of Friday The 13th from this film), which seems right. It is no secret that Friday The 13th was inspired from this movie, but inspiration and perhaps the setting was the only similarities that I saw. There were 3 kills in this movie that mirrored (almost exactly) kills in the Friday The 13th sequels, which was fun to watch. The kills in the movie are very well done, bloody and really nasty at times.
I thought (aside from the intricate plot) was very good, and a very solid slasher flick. A must see for the genre.

The slasher originator.......2005-09-24

This movie is groundbreaking in the slasher world. There was others, but there is scenes completely ripped out of this movie in some of the more well-known slashers, like Friday the 13th. If you conisider yourself a fan of horror this is a must see, at least for it's orginal quality. I agree it's not Bava's best, but it's worth a watch at least for it's influental status.

Gee, they're good at playing dead..........2005-08-28

I liked ths gory movie. The sound was hard to hear and that made it a little confusing as to who was who and who was double crossing whom. But with that aside,this thriller was photographed and directed well. The colors were excellent and added to the omnious atmosphere. It is very clear where Friday The 13th got it's origins!

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