A Bay of Blood
Short description
A wealthy elderly woman who owns a secluded bay is murdered by her husband, who hopes to take control of her estate. His death follows soon after, and the killings multiply as relatives, neighbours and other interested parties try to remove anyone standing between them and the inheritance. The violence spreads across the bay, drawing in a group of young people who camp in a seemingly abandoned building on the grounds and a woman searching for her father, who has stopped answering.
Mario Bava directed and co-wrote the film with Filippo Ottoni and Giuseppe Zaccariello, with Giuseppe Zaccariello and Alfredo Bini producing. It followed a run of gothic horror films, science fiction and comic-book adaptations in Bava's filmography, arriving after The Odyssey and before Baron Blood. The cast is led by Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Claudio Camaso, Anna Maria Rosati, Chris Avram and Leopoldo Trieste.
On IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.5 from around 14,000 votes, and on TMDB a rating of 6.6 from 443 votes. A critics' rating of 6.8 from 15 reviews places it slightly above both audience scores. The film runs 85 minutes.
What's left behind the scenes
- There were no forests at the filming locations, so director and screenwriter Mario Bava came up with the idea of moving tree branches in front of the camera. According to Laura Betti (who played Anna), it all looked so silly that the actors and crew couldn't help but laugh.
- Dario Argento liked the film so much that he asked a friend (who worked at a cinema) to steal him a copy when it was released. According to Argento, there was about a week and a half left of the film's run in the cinema, but the copy was stolen, and instead they had to show Leonard Castel and Donald Volkman’s thriller “Honeymoon Killers” (1970). The copy is still kept by Argento.
- The film's budget was so small that director Mario Bava had to work as a cinematographer as well. He often used a toy car to move the camera.
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