Shock (1979)

Best movie ever!

Admirable film.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I believe this was the last film from Director Mario Brava, with his son, Lamberto, directing parts of it. While the obvious lack of budget shows this still remains a fine movie from the old master.The plot involves Daria Nicolodi and her 2nd husband moving back into the house she shared with her 1st beau, who we are told died by his own hand and was a depressive drug addict. She has spent some months in a sanitarium recovering from her ordeal but now all the trouble seems well behind her.Of course it's only just beginning. And along for the ride is Creepy Kid number 8765 in horror movies of this period. Only this kid may be, on occasion, psychically inhabited by the ghost of his father - Nicolodi's 1st hubby!Daria N is superb in this movie, taking the viewer away from the fairly stretched out plot and putting it all out there. A very different performance to the one she gave in Deep Red but just as effective. And of course Bava fills the film with superbly-realised fever dreams and some genuinely jumpy moments. The denouement, when it comes, is superbly executed. This is a film that mainly relies on atmosphere and creepiness rather than gore, except for one scene at the end involving a pick axe.If only they'd left out the laughing piano!

It has been said the Mario Bava is a better director than Dario Argento, but he does have the great scripts that Argento has. This final film of Bava shows his directorial talent and the script is really good also.It is a perfect Halloween film full of suspenseful music and creepy sounds, a great set, and just three main characters.Here, Bava has Argento's former partner, Daria Nicolodi, in the main role. She has appeared in many of Argento's films: Mother of Tears, Opera, Phenomena, Inferno, Suspiria and Deep Red. She even wrote Suspiria for Argento.Nicolodi is magnificent as a woman going mad.

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.

Dora(Daria Nicolodi)returns with her new husband, pilot Bruno(John Steiner) and son Marco(David Colin Jr)to the home she once shared with her former husband. It's brought up as the movie continues that her first husband, a pianist whose best days were behind him as he progressed into drug addiction bringing Dora down with him, had committed suicide. Bruno tries to keep her calm because we immediately notice she's quite emotionally fragile. The idea of returning to the home of a devastating past is hard to accept at first without some reservations. With Dora's husband often away flying commercial aircraft, she begins to notice strange behavior from son Marco who even informs his mom that he is to kill her! That admitting such an atrocious deed coming from a boy is alarming to say the least. Soon Dora is plagued by disorienting nightmares and is often spooked by inanimate objects which often fall around her. With her son's bizarre behavior and some past recollections regarding what REALLY happened to her dead husband Carlo, Dora's sanity will be tested. The rocky marriage to Carlo sent to an emotionally distraught Dora to a sanitarium and being haunted by his spirit will only further complicate matters. Why is Carlo tormenting her to begin with? And, why is he using his son as a "go-between" to frighten his former wife? And, why is blood oozing from a brick wall down in the basement? And, more importantly, how is Bruno connected to the whole ordeal? In one scene, we hear the angered spirit, speaking through Marco, refer to Dora and Bruno as pigs.Bava's final film has some really cool set-pieces such as the corpse hand often fondling Dora's throat as she sleeps or caressing her ankle after causing her to fall. We see doors swing open out of the blue, a chandelier fall nearly on top of her head, furniture spring towards her, and even a razor blade(which has significance in the grand scheme of things)suspended in air coming towards her, at one point, slicing a gap in her gown. David Colin Jr is quite creepy as the possessed Marco and Daria is pretty much in a state of near hysteria throughout. One thrilling sequence shows Marco coming towards her changing into Carlo upon arrival. May not be Mario at his best, but very entertaining with a great score. Probably the nightmare sequences have the style we often are accustomed to when watching a Mario Bava film as he implements visual techniques that make Dora's visions so bizarre, surreal, & disturbing. The film's revelation regarding Carlo's fate is really neatly presented.