Halloween Horrorfest 2018: A BAY OF BLOOD (a.k.a. TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, CARNAGE 1971)

This was the film you chose (well, the ten on you who managed to vote in the poll) for me to cover during Patrick Walsh’s Scream Queenz Halloween Marathon (and I strongly recommend you listen to it when it starts up on October 10th; not only is ScreamQueenz a great podcast, but the marathon is to benefit New Alternatives NYC), so I’m going to be brief.

I wondered while watching this, one of Mario Bava’s most notorious films, if this was his reaction to how the style of his earlier films, especially Blood and Black Lace, were being co-opted by the many Giallo films that were starting to flood Italy in the late 60‘s.  There’s a decided de-emphasis on the vibrant colors of previous Bava efforts, allowing the natural beauty of the setting to carry through.  This makes the murders stand out more even though they are very....consciously matter-of-fact.  And I think that’s the point.  In this film, Bava is deglamorizing the kills, which were becoming signature art pieces in those giallos he helped spawn.  And by removing any character that may be sympathetic, he’s forcing us to accept the murders as awful violence and not something to be enthralled by.  That the film becomes inherently very nihilistic is a sort of grim cherry on the top. 

In a funny way, it’s also Bava’s riff on Murder on the Orient Express. I’m going to leave that thought there, in hope that you will listen to Scream Queenz and hear me elaborate further.

This film is usually pointed at as one of the films that birthed the Slasher Film, and I could see echos of what would become that subgenre’s tropes.  Hell, the way Bava lingers on the scene of the crimes after blood has been shed appears to be directly referenced by the end of John Carpenter’s Halloween.  I could see lots of aspiring directors seeing this--probably under its alternative titles, Twitch of The Death Nerve or Carnage--and being influenced later on to make slashers.  This means, if I’m right, Bava’s earlier work inspired the Giallos, which inspired Bava to comment on the Giallos with this film, which inspired the Slashers.  It’s a pity he died in 1980, because I would have loved to see Bava make a film as a reaction to the Slashers.

Obviously, this is an important film in the history of horror cinema, so there’s no way I’m going to not recommend it.

How YOU Can Curate The 2nd Half Of The Horrorfest!

There's still time to help curate this year's Halloween Horrorfest

If you donate $31 to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network before October 15th and send me the receipt proving you did, you can name one movie I have to watch during the Horrorthon.  Keep in mind there are some things I won’t do (so no Eli Fucking Roth movies, for example), and it has to be a movie I can find.  If you’re an independent filmmaker and are willing to make the donation, by all means send me the film.  I will do as many as I can before October 31st, and those I can I will view in the days after Halloween during ‘Beyond Halloween Horrorfest.'