A Chain Reaction...Of Uncontrollable Mayhem!

Video Nasty #23

Blood Bath

1971

THE SECOND MOVIE RATED "V" FOR VIOLENCE.



13 CHARACTERS, 13 MURDERS.

THEY CAME TO PLAY, THEY STAYED TO DIE.

Original Italian title: either Reazione A Catena (Chain Reaction) or Ecologia Del Delitto (Ecology Of A Crime)

Other alternate titles: See below.

NTSC Running Time: 84:03

Cinematography and Directed by Mario Bava

Written by Mario Bava, Fillipo Ottoni and Giuseppe Zaccariello; from a story by Franco Barberi and Dardano Sacchetti

Produced by Giuseppe Zaccariello

Starring: Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, and Laura Betti

Body Count: 13

Availability: Region 1 DVD from Image as Twitch Of The Death Nerve; from Anchor Bay as part of The Mario Bava Collection Volume 2 as Bay Of Blood

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Cuz it's really fucking violent.

What was cut: When originally submitted for classification on April 6, 1972 as A Bay Of Blood (the title under which it appears on all BBFC sanctioned releases), this film was rejected.  After being released as Blood Bath by Hokushin Video and making the Nasties list, A Bay Of Blood was awarded an 18 certificate on March 18, 1994. Four of the murder scenes were trimmed to varying degrees, totaling PAL 43 seconds.

Current UK status: On August 31, 2010, A Bay Of Blood once again received an 18 with an additional 4 seconds of footage, lowering the cuts to PAL 39 seconds.

UK Availability: It looks like you can import American releases, but the most recent 18 cert version is a Region 2 DVD from Arrow Video.

Blood Bath was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.

A Note About Titles: Sources differ on the actual title of this film.  It went under several monikers while still being produced, the best known of these being Ecologia Del Delitto, Reazione A Catena, and Antefatto.  While its' title when it became a Video Nasty was Blood Bath, and the title A Bay Of Blood is both appropriate and accepted as an "official" title, I'm amazed the whole retitling debacle wasn't solved once and for all when some genius came up with Twitch Of The Death Nerve.  I'm going with that one.  I like it.

Take off that silly hat and stand tall.  Mario Bava just walked in.  What'd he do?  He was critical to the development of the American slasher film in 1971, with a film that has so many titles no one knows what the real one is anymore...or if it ever really had one.

Countess Donati (Isa Miranda) rolls through her mansion in the dead of night...until she is waylaid and hung by a mustachioed man who is faking her suicide.  A quick ending for a giallo, until the killer is himself stabbed to death by someone unseen.  Thus begins the bloodthirsty wormturning mini-saga of (soap) operatic proportions.

With this opening salvo, Bava has such fun with the giallo conventions, making us think that it won't be a giallo at all by revealing the killer's face in the first scene, then using our confusion against us to strike when most effective for the audience.

So why did this film, otherwise a footnote compared to other of Bava's films, have such an impact on the American slasher film?  Conceived by Bava and actress Laura Betti as an excuse to work together again after the previous year's Il Rosso Segno Della Follia (The Red Sign Of Madness, released as Blood Brides in the UK and Hatchet For The Honeymoon in the US), the story is nothing more than a framing device for gore murder sequences, with a shock ending that seems almost unreal.  This film is the direct antecedent of Friday The 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street.  It's mean, violent, and unrepentant.  It's a damn good portrayal of some of the baser aspects of human nature.

The setting (woodsy...or so you think, Bava was so good that he made the sparsely wooded location seem a wild forest through miniatures and masterful camera operation) and the gimmick (almost every character to step on screen being murdered with liberal gore) became a cliche of horror films, especially American horror films, with the 1980 release of Sean Cunningham's Friday The 13th.  The next year, Friday The 13th Part 2 lifted two scenes wholesale from Twitch Of The Death Nerve: a hatchet to the face and a couple making love impaled on the same spear, done almost shot-for-shot as Bava had brought to the screen ten years before.  The arrival of some dumb teenagers who only care about drugs and sex in the second reel of Twitch also provided inspiration, inspiration that B-filmmakers are still running with today.  Had it been done before?  Sure, of course, but this is Mario Bava we're talking about, and even on a mediocre day (which this most certainly was), Bava knew how to bring it on home.  There's no point to this film save one: gory murders.  That's the only reason we're here.  One of the taglines above says it and means it: 13 Characters, 13 Murders...the surprise being who's behind that last one.  The 14th?  You gotta see it to find out.

Track this one down.  Turn down the lights, roll a couple fatties or crack a nice chilled red, and watch the treachery and claret flow.  And if you've got rich relatives with a fat tract of land, let someone else have it.  You might not get rich, but you'll hold on to your life.  Just another piece of useful advice that I know I'll be following.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.