Shock

Rating:
Summary: Bava's Last Film - Good DVD
Review: "SHOCK" was Italian director Mario Bava's last film. Retitled as "Beyond the Door II" for it's original US release, Anchor Bay's new DVD features a widescreen print of the film under it's original title. (Actually, the sharp noise the film makes when the title hits the screen made me jump in "shock"!) It's a fun little possession movie and features several very creepy moments...the standout being the shot where the possessed little boy runs up to his Mom (Daria Nicolodi) and suddenly turns into the ghost of her dead husband...all done without effects or cgi. All in all, the film doesn't really break any new ground, but it's a worthy last film from the original italian horror maestro. The print shows some grain and some visual noise (mostly in the dark scenes)...it's not bad, but it is not up to par with earlier AB titles. Extras include a short but interesting interview with Lamberto Bava, the international trailer, and a couple of US tv spots (one as a double-bill with "The Dark"!), plus the usual talent bios. A pretty basic package, but definitely a Must for Bava fans.

Rating:
Summary: Bava's Last Film - Good DVD
Review: "SHOCK" was Italian director Mario Bava's last film. Retitled as "Beyond the Door II" for it's original US release, Anchor Bay's new DVD features a widescreen print of the film under it's original title. (Actually, the sharp noise the film makes when the title hits the screen made me jump in "shock"!) It's a fun little possession movie and features several very creepy moments...the standout being the shot where the possessed little boy runs up to his Mom (Daria Nicolodi) and suddenly turns into the ghost of her dead husband...all done without effects or cgi. All in all, the film doesn't really break any new ground, but it's a worthy last film from the original italian horror maestro. The print shows some grain and some visual noise (mostly in the dark scenes)...it's not bad, but it is not up to par with earlier AB titles. Extras include a short but interesting interview with Lamberto Bava, the international trailer, and a couple of US tv spots (one as a double-bill with "The Dark"!), plus the usual talent bios. A pretty basic package, but definitely a Must for Bava fans.

Rating:
Summary: Argento fans should avoid this unless completists
Review: Compared to Argento, I must say that Mario Bava is for me entirely overrated. He might be a pioneer, but as a stylist he is sadly lacking. His seventies work is more often than not tiresome and tawdry, even if you like horror films.

Argento fans seeking out 'Shock' on the strength of Daria Nicolodi's starring role, music by two members of Goblin (under the nom-de-plume 'A.Libra)and Srgento's supposed giallio-based debt to Bava should buy 'Shock' with caution. Although it is an authentic slice of Eurohorror and better than the contemporary garbage horror Hollywood churns out, it is still a fairly dreary, dull, repetitive flick with few high points and many annoyances.

Finally, the sound and picture quality are fairly poor even when compared to some of Jess Franco's rubbish (and that's saying something) - my DVD of the silly 'She Killed In Ecstasy', filmed years before this looks and sounds far far better. Shame Daria never made films without Argento that are better than this...

Rating:
Summary: An impressive swan song for Bava.
Review: First of all, both Lamberto and his father Mario worked on this film. Second, there is no proof how much of the film was directed by one or the other. I'm inclined to think it was more Mario's doing and less his son's, because nothing Lamberto Bava did afterwards is as good as this, and that includes Macabre and A Blade in the Dark, not to mention the junk he lowered himself to once he started directing the Demons films.

This is definitely smoother, more atmospheric and more slickly disturbing than the disjointed and undeveloped Twitch of the Death Nerve. Not that the latter was a bad film, it had its moments, but Bava ultimately did not pull that one off. Good performances all around combined with a disturbing incestual theme and a stylistic tour-de-force result in an impressive swan song for Mario Bava. Sure, it's not a masterpiece, it's no Lisa and the Devil, but a worthy addition to any Italian horror fan's DVD library. And check out that score by Goblin spin-off Libra!

Rating:
Summary: An impressive swan song for Bava.
Review: First of all, both Lamberto and his father Mario worked on this film. Second, there is no proof how much of the film was directed by one or the other. I'm inclined to think it was more Mario's doing and less his son's, because nothing Lamberto Bava did afterwards is as good as this, and that includes Macabre and A Blade in the Dark, not to mention the junk he lowered himself to once he started directing the Demons films.

This is definitely smoother, more atmospheric and more slickly disturbing than the disjointed and undeveloped Twitch of the Death Nerve. Not that the latter was a bad film, it had its moments, but Bava ultimately did not pull that one off. Good performances all around combined with a disturbing incestual theme and a stylistic tour-de-force result in an impressive swan song for Mario Bava. Sure, it's not a masterpiece, it's no Lisa and the Devil, but a worthy addition to any Italian horror fan's DVD library. And check out that score by Goblin spin-off Libra!

Rating:
Summary: Real good Shock for your video.
Review: Forget Sixth Sense and others horrors with ghosts and take Shock.In this classic giallo from legendary Mario Bava will touch you fear pretty step by step,just to the macabre finale.The story is well written by four peoples,including Bava's son Lamberto and Dardanno Sachetti,important screenwriter for Italian horror film.The camera work is excellent,acting of Daria Nicolodi too.And the wonderfull collector's edition of Anchor bay entertaiment?Beautiful cover,widescreen and remastered picture,italian trailer and U.S.Tv spot and interview with assistant director Lamberto Bava!!!With perfect work of Amazon.com what else we can want?

Rating:
Summary: THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
Review: Last film of the italian king of B-movies - Mario Bava - , SHOCK is now presented by Anchor Bay in an above-average DVD version. Trailers, italian, english and french dubbed versions and incomplete filmographies are offered as bonus features as well as a short interview with Lamberto Bava, the son of the late Maestro.

I didn't see SHOCK when it was theatrically released nor in the VHS-NTSC standards so I cannot make comparisons regarding the quality of images. In my opinion, the copy is superb without a single white or black spot and I had a tremendous pleasure to watch for the first time this movie which belongs to the psycho-horror thriller genre.

Due to production restrictions, at least I presume so, most of the action takes place in a cozy italian mansion near the sea. A couple played by John Steiner and Daria Nicolodi - Dario Argento's compaign - has just moved in with Daria Nicolodi's child. The father of the child has died seven years ago and, since then, Daria has spent a lot of time recovering from a severe depression.

As in BAY OF BLOOD, the child has an important role in the movie. One of the characteristics of Mario Bava's cinema is to always leave to the audience the possibility to find a rational explanation for the most bizarre events. In SHOCK, one could perfectly imagine that the story is told from the sole point of view of Daria Nicolodi who is lead to psychosis by her guiltiness.

Anyway, SHOCK is an example of a smart B-movie with good scary effects done without the help of computers. Mario Bava was a real movie lover perpetuating the example of Georges Méliès, the french movie director who invented some of the first special effects of Movie History. In 1905.

A shockingly good DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Mario? Lamberto!
Review: Shock (Mario Bava, 1977)

While Mario Bava put his name to Shock (known to American audiences as behind the Door II)-- the last film Bava was involved with before his death in 1980-- that probably wasn't a good move. Bava, whose career reached such heights as I, Vampiri (1956) and Bay of Blood (1971), never sank so low as this. Not even Danger: Diabolik! (1968) is this bad.

Much of the blame rests on Mario Bava's son Lamberto, who in an interview included with the DVD says (admits to?) having directed over half the film himself. Anyone who's seen any of Lamberto's solo outings (Demons 2, Demons 3, Black Sabbath,
Midnight Killer, etc. ad nauseam*) already knew that about five minutes into this dog. It's all the more disturbing given a high-powered, albeit small, cast and a script that might have actually worked in the hands of a director who understands how to build suspense. Mario, for example.

The story (which isn't a sequel to the original Beyond the Door, incidentally; the only thing the two have in common is David Colin, who plays a different role in each movie) centers around a family who move into a new house. Well, not really a new house. The mother, Dora (Daria Nicolodi, a Dario Argento staple), lived here before with her first husband, who committed suicide years before. Her new husband (John Steiner, who also worked with Argento in the 1982 film Tenebre)is an angel compared to the first guy, or so everyone seems to think. Dora's child from marriage #1, Marco (David Colin, who never acted in another film after this), is also along for the ride. By the family's first night in the house, Marco is starting to fall under the influence of something rather nasty.

Yes, you've seen a bunch of possessed-kid flicks before, but there's enough here to have made this one compelling (Bava has a take on the Oedipus complex that's just plain nasty-- some of the few scenes that actually make this worth watching) had it been done correctly. However, any subtlety reflected in the original script is woefully absent here; foreshadowing is writ large enough for even the densest viewer to be able to spot any good jumps from a mile off, and the ending can be seen coming long before you actually get there. Not a good thing in a supposed mystery.

Painfully, both Steiner and Nicolodi turn in good performances, and the soundtrack, originally credited to Libra (who have since been unmasked as Italian pop stalwarts Goblin), is as much a joy as is all of Goblin's other early work. However, Shock provides hard and painful evidence at how much less than the sum of its parts a whole can be. * 1/2

(* Yes, Lamberto is credited with the original Demons. One wonders whether Dario Argento was just the writer on that one.)

Rating:
Summary: Shock
Review: This movie is done in very poor taste. I laughed throughout the movie. The only thing that was a shock, was the price that my friend paid for it. There was only one scene worth the price, and that was where the little boy runs towards his mom, and then jumps up as her dead husband. This is the only Shock in the movie. If you want a good suspense, I reccommend an Alfred Hitchcock film. This movie is horrible.

Rating:
Summary: Shock
Review: This movie is done in very poor taste. I laughed throughout the movie. The only thing that was a shock, was the price that my friend paid for it. There was only one scene worth the price, and that was where the little boy runs towards his mom, and then jumps up as her dead husband. This is the only Shock in the movie. If you want a good suspense, I reccommend an Alfred Hitchcock film. This movie is horrible.