(1971)
4
Patrick Legare
Abandoning the chilling, atmospheric style of his earlier pictures, director Mario Bava tried making Twitch of the Death Nerve in a way that was both darkly humorous and more graphic. Though it was not greeted with much enthusiasm upon its release, the film became the inspiration for the slasher/body-count horror films that overpopulated American movie screens throughout the 1980s, particularly the early Friday the 13th pictures. While Twitch does feature some of Bava's signature camera work, it appears to be a regression in terms of quality. Out of focus shots that momentarily come into focus seem more amateurish than experimental. However, the picture went on to cult status at drive-ins not due to its film craftsmanship, but because of its graphic murders. Thirteen characters are brutally dispatched one after the other -- and not all by the same killer. Each slaying is marked by its creativity and brutality. A great opening scene builds suspensefully and culminates with a wheelchair-bound countess being brutally hanged. The killer reveals himself, but is just as quickly dispatched by an unseen third person. Later, one youth receives a machete-like blade through the face, while two of his friends are speared in the act of coitus -- one of the several macabre Twitch scenes that were repeated verbatim in Friday the 13th, Pt. 2. The plot, about a group of greedy characters who resort to murder to gain a piece of valuable lakefront property, is flimsy and uninvolving. One sequence involving the arrival and subsequent murders of four young people serves as filler and has nothing to do with the story. But after all the seedy, violent behavior committed by the nasty characters, the film's climax is a true side-splitter that finishes things perfectly. Bava directed better films throughout his career, but few were as influential in terms of style and bloody special effects.
Bay of Blood on AllMovie
Bay of Blood (1971)
