Bay Of Blood (aka Twitch Of The Death Nerve)

JULY 24, 2007

GENRE: GIALLO, ITALIAN
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

What do you call it when you’re watching a movie that’s not exciting you that much and you start to wish you were watching another movie from the same director only to find out later that they were both the same movie? There’s gotta be a Sniglet for that.

Such was the case with Mario Bava's Bay of Blood. Once it became clear it wasn’t as great as I heard it was, I began to wish I had rented Twitch of the Death Nerve instead, which I thought was a different movie. Turns out they are the same. In fact, Tim Lucas (who provides those awkward commentaries on the other Bava films I have watched, like Black Sunday) has declared that this film has more titles than any other in history. I don’t doubt it.

I think part of why I was left underwhelmed by the film was due to the god awful presentation it was given on Simitar’s DVD. Not only is it non-anamorphic, it’s not even centered on the screen correctly, so zooming in to make up for the lack of anamorphisity results in some of the top being cropped off and a thin black line still visible on the bottom (sometimes. The film also shifts around on the reel switches). Plus the audio is possibly the worst ever committed to DVD. Even the Mill Creek releases sound better. I had to turn my receiver up to -4 to hear the film. I usually have it around -20, and that’s with the AC going (which was not the case today). And I still had trouble making out some of the dialogue.

And look at this fucking main menu! It looks like it was designed by Miauk. At first I thought the disc had gweeped and was showing me multiple menus at once. Seriously, this disc isn’t worth the urine I sprayed all over it once I finished watching the film. The film may be far from perfect, but it at least deserves a respectable transfer.

The other thing that kept me from loving the movie (I’m guessing it will grow on me, since there was nothing technically BAD about it) was that there was something like 23 killers. For a movie that inspired so many slasher movies (particularly Friday the 13th), I was expecting one or maybe two killers, tops. But I think every character in the film (except for the four random teens who show up and get killed in scenes that were later stolen outright in F13 sequels) kills another one at some point. I kept thinking about that one ending of Clue where Tim Curry reveals himself to be Mr. Body and that everyone else killed the wrong guy.

Gotta love the ending though. The final people (except for a guy named Ventura who just disappears mid-scene) are celebrating their victory, only to be suddenly shot to death by their children, who think it’s all a game. Hahahaha excellent.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it yet I strongly urge you to wait until a proper DVD release is available. There is no reason anyone should support Simitar by purchasing the piece of shit they released.

What say you?

7 comments:

  1. I like this one a lot, but it did take a while to grow on me. There's an Image DVD out for it (may be oop now) that looks much better. The sound still sucks, though.

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  2. OK so how did you not know it was twitch?Are they edited so differently that one is Halloween and the other is Halloween 2....if they were say edited from a full length youtube h1+h2 cut and someone made 2 all new films or something.Which you could make since you're an editor(not that you should)
    I haven't seen it.Sounds fun though.In England its cut to fuck,so I would have to import it from Holland or your fine world power.

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  3. No no I just always heard about Bava's great giallo film Twitch of the Death Nerve. Honestly other than Diabolik I had never seen ANY Mario Bava movies prior to HMAD. And since netflix (or bb, i forget which now) has both titles i queued both not aware it was the same movie. I should do more research...

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  4. While I too was underwhelmed when I finally saw this movie a few years back, I still maintain that Twitch of the Death Nerve is one of the best titles for a horror movie ever.

    One of those rare (singular?) cases where reading the title of the movie is actually more fun than watching the movie itself.

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  5. I had the same problem, at one point I had queued both Bay of Blood and Twitch of the Death Nerve on Netflix before realizing they were the same. I enjoyed it, but it's not one of his best or worst. Knives of the Avenger was pretty hard to watch.

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  6. waving to the next town... i see her clown eating its pie

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  7. It was very frustrating to put up with the abysmal sound. I kept turning it Waaay up on the quiet parts and Waaay down on the loud parts. Luckily, most of the dialog wasn't exactly essential. Still I was impressed with the sheer violence of the deaths. The sex-kabob was so brutal! It feels like this one showed up before it's time. I think this one could be massively improved with a strong restoration job. After seeing this and Black sabbath, I'm counting myself a Bava fan. I'll be watching Black Sunday next.

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