I don't know, maybe it's just me. But it seems as though a lot of viewers may have confused their sentiment for Mario Bava with effect. I adore Bava, he was the visual master of classic Italian horror who's movies all seem to have a surreal quality to them suggesting he was somewhat more than just another man with a gift for vision. Nobody can touch his efforts in Italian genre cinema 1960 - 1980. (Though I personally prefer the workmanlike films of Antonio Margheriti and Riccardo Freda.) There is no denying that Mario Bava knew how to construct a shot, from the camera angle to the lighting to the color schemes to having the characters do bizarre, unexpected things that are riveting to witness, and then turn 90 minutes of such shots into what usually end up being amazing little movies. Just watch the guy pry the spiked mask off his face in MASK OF THE DEMON and tell me that isn't the coolest thing ever. Even if you don't care for the film it's an arresting, diverting image that sticks with you.
SCHOCK is a comparative mess. It's a great looking mess, but I am just going to refuse to go along with the party here. I hated every simpering, mealy-moused, over-rated minute of it. Expecting a twisted, nauseating, Freudian EXORCIST/OMEN ripoff about a creepy kid possessed by the spirit of his murdered father in a haunted house, instead I found myself waiting with growing impatience through a nonstop parade of every low-budget Italian horror shortcut ever conjured up, including a fake near disaster on an airplane staged just like they did it on "Star Trek": shaking the camera and having people gyrate in their chairs like Sulu recoiling to a photon torpedo blast.
Another reviewer here gets it right when he says not to bother with the plot and just concentrate on the images. Usually with a Mario Bava film that's not a problem. The issue here is that there actually was a story being told, it catches up with the imagery in the final few minutes and the payoff didn't equal the investment of attention that led up to the film's gloriously gruesome concluding moments. There were two great gore sequences, a fantastic little sleight of hand freak-out moment where the annoying little kid transforms into something else without the use of off-camera editing, but the other 93 minutes of the film were dead in the water, and the kid was incredibly annoying (or maybe just poorly cast: I never believed for one minute he was really the child of the protagonist). The film does boast another great John Steiner faux method performance, but then again he's great in everything. Even CALIGULA.
I think there are two things going on with the film. First and most important, the enthusiasm for it having finally been restored to it's uncensored widescreen glory: After years of muddled, cut, overly dark fullscreen transfers, we can finally see what the maestro was getting at. The second point is more problematic and this might annoy others, but I think a lot fans are overcome by the very human sentiment of SCHOCK literally being Mario Bava's final movie (though much of it us alleged to have been directed by his son, Lamberto Bava, credited here as assistant director), and their sincere wish that it was a better movie than it finally turned out to be. All of his films are special and I'm pretty sure that after another viewing or two I'll warm up to it. But it lacks the unrelenting power of BLOOD & BLACK LACE, the cheeky perversity of TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, CALTIKI's playfully morbid reckless invention, the poetic resonance of KILL BABY KILL, the guile of BLACK SABBATH, and the overwhelming pioneering artiness of MASK OF THE DEMON, which are ultimately the films that Bava will be remembered for.
4/10, and all apologies to anybody who is annoyed by my comments. Art is signified by its ability to generate different reactions in people, and believe it or not I find it refreshing to say that I've finally met a Mario Bava movie that I disliked intensely. He was a human being after all.
SCHOCK is a comparative mess. It's a great looking mess, but I am just going to refuse to go along with the party here. I hated every simpering, mealy-moused, over-rated minute of it. Expecting a twisted, nauseating, Freudian EXORCIST/OMEN ripoff about a creepy kid possessed by the spirit of his murdered father in a haunted house, instead I found myself waiting with growing impatience through a nonstop parade of every low-budget Italian horror shortcut ever conjured up, including a fake near disaster on an airplane staged just like they did it on "Star Trek": shaking the camera and having people gyrate in their chairs like Sulu recoiling to a photon torpedo blast.
Another reviewer here gets it right when he says not to bother with the plot and just concentrate on the images. Usually with a Mario Bava film that's not a problem. The issue here is that there actually was a story being told, it catches up with the imagery in the final few minutes and the payoff didn't equal the investment of attention that led up to the film's gloriously gruesome concluding moments. There were two great gore sequences, a fantastic little sleight of hand freak-out moment where the annoying little kid transforms into something else without the use of off-camera editing, but the other 93 minutes of the film were dead in the water, and the kid was incredibly annoying (or maybe just poorly cast: I never believed for one minute he was really the child of the protagonist). The film does boast another great John Steiner faux method performance, but then again he's great in everything. Even CALIGULA.
I think there are two things going on with the film. First and most important, the enthusiasm for it having finally been restored to it's uncensored widescreen glory: After years of muddled, cut, overly dark fullscreen transfers, we can finally see what the maestro was getting at. The second point is more problematic and this might annoy others, but I think a lot fans are overcome by the very human sentiment of SCHOCK literally being Mario Bava's final movie (though much of it us alleged to have been directed by his son, Lamberto Bava, credited here as assistant director), and their sincere wish that it was a better movie than it finally turned out to be. All of his films are special and I'm pretty sure that after another viewing or two I'll warm up to it. But it lacks the unrelenting power of BLOOD & BLACK LACE, the cheeky perversity of TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, CALTIKI's playfully morbid reckless invention, the poetic resonance of KILL BABY KILL, the guile of BLACK SABBATH, and the overwhelming pioneering artiness of MASK OF THE DEMON, which are ultimately the films that Bava will be remembered for.
4/10, and all apologies to anybody who is annoyed by my comments. Art is signified by its ability to generate different reactions in people, and believe it or not I find it refreshing to say that I've finally met a Mario Bava movie that I disliked intensely. He was a human being after all.