This Day in Horror History: Mario Bava’s BAY OF BLOOD (TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE) Opened in 1971
Mike Sprague
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On this day in horror history, Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood (aka Twitch of the Death Nerve) was released in 1971. Directed by Bava from a screenplay he co-wrote with Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni, and Sergio Canevari, the Italian giallo film was hugely influential on the slasher subgenre that would follow a decade later.
The story tells of a string of mysterious murders that occur following the murder of Countess Federica Donati, an heiress possessing a beautiful piece of beachfront property. In addition to members of her family and the surrounding community, a group of hippies arrives and find themselves dying one by one.
The film began when producer Dino De Laurentiis persuaded screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti (The Cat o’ Nine Tails) to collaborate with Bava after a falling out with Dario Argento. Sacchetti and Bava came up with thirteen murder sequences, with no idea how they would fit together. Sacchetti then went off and wrote the first draft of the script with Franco Barbieri. However, Barbieri was quickly fired, and Sacchetti quit as an act of solidarity forcing De Laurentiis to abandon the film.
Bava hired Giuseppe Zaccariello to produce who insisted Filippo Ottoni rewrite the script. The film began production at Zaccariello’s Sabaudia beach house in 1971. The budget was extremely low, so Bava had to shoot it quick and cheap, acting as his own cinematographer, and using a kid’s wagon for the tracking shots. Also, Bava had to use various camera tricks to convince the audience an entire forest existed when only a few scattered trees were at the location.
Featuring gruesome special make-up effects created by Carlo Rambaldi and an emphasis on graphically bloody murders, the film is Bava’s most violent. In 2005, Total Film named the movie one of the 50 greatest horror films of all time.
The film stars Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Claudio Volonté, Laura Betti, Leopoldo Trieste, Isa Miranda, Chris Avram, Anna Maria Rosati, Brigitte Skay, Guido Boccaccini, Roberto Bonanni, Giovanni Nuvoletti, Renato Cestiè, and Nicoletta Elmi.
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