Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

The beautiful colors, camera angles, and bloody effects are what kept me watching this movie. The actors in this have to be some of the most un-charismatic ever! it was fun to see them dispatched before they could say another word and put me to sleep! This is the english version and unfortunately the dubbing is not funny, something that would have helped the entertainment value. Like most european horror this is shocking because of the violence and not scary, with very little suspense(see "let's scare jesica to death" if you want all that). DVD picture is very good, bright and colorful. Audio is in english only and very low. special features trailers of other Bava titles.

This movie is very violent - one of the first mad slasher, body count films. We are shown several violent murders in gruesome detail, causing some to consider this film a useless excuse for on-screen violence. Others, myself included, see quite a bit more in the film. I will try to minimize spoilers, but it is difficult to describe a film where eleven murders occur in less than one day without giving something away.

The film centers around the efforts of several greedy, unscrupulous people to gain control of a secluded bay owned by an elderly (and recently-deceased) contessa. There are a few weekend cottages around the bay, probably from an earlier failed attempt by the contessa's husband to develop the area, but otherwise the bay seems to be returning to nature.

A local architect and his scheming secretary want to develop the property, the contessa's Lady Macbeth-like stepdaughter and husband hope to inherit it, and the contessa's illegitimate son lives in a shack on the bay. There is also a local couple, an entomologist and his fortune teller wife, who oppose development. The conflicting interests of these individuals result in a series of violent murders.

Things are set in motion by the arrival of four teenagers out for a drive on a sunny autumn afternoon. The kids break into the architect's cottage and proceed to make themselves at home. Soon, all four have been brutally, and graphically, murdered by an unseen person.

When the architect arrives to find four dead bodies in his cottage, rather than being horrified, he takes advantage of the situation by encouraging the contessa's son to sign over any property rights to him in exchange for money and a passport. A fellow weekender who has seen the bodies must then be silenced, as must the insect collector who happens along at the wrong time. Meanwhile, the stepdaughter is working out just who still remains between her and the inheritance - while prodding her weak-willed husband to do something about it!

And so it continues, with each murder seemingly necessitating the next, all quite logically, and with less concern than the entomologist has killing insects. In fact, one of the many titles for this film was "Chain Reaction". By the end of the film the viewer has become so desensitized to murder that the final killings come almost as comic relief. Almost, because this is no black comedy, unlike Bava's "Five Dolls for an August Moon" where the killings take place off-camera and we only see bodies accumulating.

The film was beautifully photographed and expertly staged by Italian director and cinematographer Mario Bava. The beauty of the film and its location photography underscore the irony of people committing such violent acts in order to possess the beauty of nature - "Ecology of Murder" was a working title for the film.

Some reviews mention poor sound quality on the earlier release of this film by Image Entertainment; my comments concern the newer boxed set of Bava films from Anchor Bay, where both sound and the enhanced picture are fine. Others have complained that the story was difficult to follow, this may have been because the film had been cut in earlier releases. The new release seems complete and the plot is easy to follow.

This is one of those films you either like or don't like at all - I gave it five stars, you might give it only one! A must-see for Bava fans, but look for the Anchor Bay release.