Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre (2000)

Truly Dreadful Film

Simply Perfect

Don't listen to the negative reviews

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I own 2 versions of this 1-hour doc on the titular film-maker whose centenary was celebrated in the past day(s): in fact, it is included as an extra on both Anchor Bay UK's edition of Bava's HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (1970) and the Italian disc of his official directorial debut BLACK Sunday (1960), from RHV (albeit presented here with forced native subtitles).During my ongoing Bava marathon, I have already watched MARIO BAVA: OPERAZIONE PAURA (2004), which I had reviewed (and rated **1/2) back when I first checked it out on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his demise. At the time, I had criticized the later documentary for being somewhat redundant in the wake of the one under review (though I can see now that a few choice participants are exclusive to it, notably director Roger Corman) and for missing out on discussing a number of key works within Bava's filmography. In retrospect, there are glaring omissions here as well – apart from THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963; which I pointed out in the other review), there is barely a mention of either BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) or KILL, BABY…KILL! (1966) – but, all in all, it makes a better case for his artistry (taking care even to include a psychologist{!} among the line-up of interviewees, which comprise many of the usual suspects of relatives, collaborators, peers and lifelong admirers) since it generally comes across as having less of a fan-boy approach to it (what can you expect when the opening speaker on OPERAZIONE PAURA proves to be none other than know-it-all motor-mouth Quentin Tarantino?!).Incidentally, with respect to the selection of titles covered, it appears that the film-makers had access only to clips from movies owned by the major studios (like Paramount's DANGER: DIABOLIK {1968}) and the DVD company Image Entertainment – which not only distributed the doc itself in R1 land but was behind the release of the entire "The Mario Bava Collection", numbering the director's efforts then owned by Alfredo Leone (his last producer) and who, naturally enough, features heavily here. Perhaps in compensation, then, there is rather too much footage this time around from films that were apparently influenced by Bava's efforts! Needless to say, though, neither documentary comes close to reading an authoritative biography on the subject – be it Tim Lucas' massive tome (also an on-screen 'talking head' in both films) or Troy Howarth's more manageable treatise – or, for that matter, experiencing the beautiful craftsmanship of Bava's legacy on one's own rather than having it described to him

Another Film Four documentary from the guys who brought us a similar one all about Dario Argento. This one which goes into some depth as it studies Bava's life, his motives, methods and unique style. There are plenty of clips shown from all of the staples like BLACK Sunday, BLACK SABBATH and BAY OF BLOOD, although some of Bava's more obscure horror films and his work in the peplum and spaghetti western genres is sadly glossed over.This film's strength is in its anecdotes from a wide variety of people connected with Bava - Lamberto Bava, Daria Nicolodi and Samuel Arkoff are all there, with only one notable exception - Barbara Steele, who refused to appear. Then there are the directors like Tim Burton and Joe Dante who owe a debt of inspiration to the master, and genre critics and writers like Kim Newman and Allan Bryce who offer up their own opinions of the director. Engaging stuff, and pretty informative for those who know little about Bava, although widely-read fans of the genre may find a lot of this familiar stuff.

Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre (2000) *** (out of 4) All-star tribute to Italian director Mario Bava features interviews with his son Lamberto, his grandkids Roy and Georgia as well as John Carpenter, Joe Dante, Tim Burton, Kim Newman, Allan Bryce, Sam Arkoff, Alfredo Leone, John Saxon, Sean S. Cunningham, Daria Nicolodi and Bava expert Tim Lucas. This hour long documentary features these people talking about their respect for Bava and his films. Not only do we take a look at his films but we get a pretty good opening where we learn about Bava's early life and how he ended up working as a cameraman before being hired as a director. The films discussed include BLACK Sunday, BLACK SABBATH, BARON BLOOD, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, THE EVIL EYE, LISA AND THE DEVIL (and its alternate version), TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE and PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES among others. Overall this is a pretty good look at the director, which shows why his talents were so strong and why he never really got any credit until after his death. There's discussion of how Friday THE 13TH PART 2 ripped off TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE and we even get Cunningham finally, somewhat, admitting that the series "borrowed" from the director. The one thing that I didn't care too much about was how much attention PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES got. They talk about this film as if it was some sort of masterpiece, which I don't agree with and I think saying that ALIEN ripped it off was going a tad bit too far. I'd say that IT! THE TERROR FROM OUTER SPACE is the film that really influenced ALIEN so I think the documentary spends too much time with it. With that said, the great cast makes this a must see and it certainly gives one a great idea on the career of Bava's directing career.

This is a pretty solid introduction to the work and personality of Mario Bava, the Italian director who transformed the horror genre through his formative Gothic films and giallos. Although it might be hard in some ways to mount an argument that giving us the slasher genre is something that we should be thankful to Mr. Bava for, this film labors mightily at that task. Unfortunately it's a very sterile affair, very much your standard DVD extra that was designed as a tool for selling the Alfredo Leone series on Image. It ignores most of his other titles, and features the predictable array of available "major" directors like Joe Dante who attest to Bava's influence on their art. They got Tim Burton to appear as well, apparently by promising to include footage from his then-most recent film "Sleepy Hollow." The most irksome aspect of this whole proceeding is the film's subtle support for the Image line regarding the Bava releases. At one point you have an author in the film talking about how people are now supposedly discovering the true artistry of Bava's films, thanks to proper widescreen releases. Worst of all, the author says "most of these films have only been available before in dubbed versions." Well yeah, that's because they are Italian films and Italians films are always dubbed. The Italian language version is just as much a dubbed version as the English one. A responsible documentary would not try to misinform the viewer in this way.There is absolutely no reason why anybody should seek out the poorly done Italian language (dubbed, as well) version of "Black Sabbath", for example, which doesn't even feature Boris Karloff's magnificent voice. The only reason this documentary pretends that it's the superior version to watch and that it shows Bava's artistry as never before is because Leone and the people behind this DVD release didn't have the legal rights to the AIP version which actually used Karloff's voice. Besides that, the film lavishes praise on some of Bava's worst pictures like "Baron Blood", presumably because they are being sold along with the rest of the pictures. It largely passes over his work in the peplum field and the western, as well as in comedy (again, these works belong to some other copyright holder). So it is not a comprehensive view of Bava's career, but rather at best an examination of his career in horror and at worst a mere advertisement for the Image DVD series. The one thing I really did appreciate as a fan was all the footage of interviews with Bava family members like his son Lamberto. It was nice to hear about Bava's sense of humor, although I would have liked to know a bit more about his personal life.