"Shock"*** 1\2 (out of ****)
Italian horror filmmaker Mario Bava gives us one final jolt with "Shock" (1977).
It is a debatable point but fellow Italian filmmaker Dario Argento may be the name most synonymous with the sub-genre of horror films known as giallo however you will find many that credit Bava as the master of giallo and is recognized as having directed the first giallo film, "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" (1963).
The term "giallo" (meaning yellow in Italian) initially referred to novels which combined elements of thrillers, horror, crime and the supernatural. They were called "giallo" because that was the color of the book covers.
To American movie fans "giallo" almost exclusively means "Italian horror". The closest American equivalent would be the slasher movie.
When released in America, "Shock" was released under the title "Beyond the Door II" implying it was a sequel to another Italian horror movie, "Beyond the Door" (1974), which was one of several demonic possession movies made after the success of "The Exorcist" (1973). However Bava's movie is a stand alone and was not intend as a sequel. "Shock" deals with different characters, is not about a demon taking possession of a body but does deal with the supernatural and does suggest one character has been taken over by a spirit.
The movie begins with Dora (Daria Nicolodi, once romantically linked to Dario Argento) her son Marco (David Colin Jr.) and her second husband Bruno (John Steiner) moving into Dora's old home, where she lived with her first husband. Dora, it is said, has been living in an institution the past few years, recuperating after the death of her first husband, a drug addict, believed to have killed himself although the body has never been found.
Moving back into the house seems to have a strange effect on Marco, who always seems to be in conversation with an invisible friend. Marco's behavior soon becomes violent towards his mother, at one point telling her he must kill her. The young boy also shows signs of sexual resentment towards his mother. In one scene he awakes from his sleep, sits up in his bed and in a strange voice starts calling out "pigs" while we cut to Bruno and Dora making love. In another scene Dora finds her underwear in Marco's dresser, ripped to shreds.
The movie does more than suggest Marco has been taking over by the spirit of Dora's first husband, who seems to want revenge against Bruno and Dora. This is established in a scene where Marco seems to be performing black magic on Bruno, an airline pilot. Marco has cut Bruno out of a picture with his mother and tapes the picture to a swing. When Marco pushes the swing, causing it to sway back and forth, Bruno, flying a plane at the time, experiences a great deal of turbulence in the air nearly causing the plane to crash.
"Shock" is often considered a "lesser" Bava movie not up to the visual aesthetics of his earlier movies. On that count one must agree however I find "Shock" to be a very involving movie that really kicks into high gear by the third act with strange going ons in the house with Dora hearing noises, having disturbing flashbacks of the night her husband died and slowly suspecting there is something wrong with her son.
If you are familiar with Bava and his movies that may make "Shock" sound like a typical horror movie rather than a "Mario Bava movie", which is why fans never fully embraced it. "Shock" doesn't drench itself in atmosphere the way "Kill, Baby, Kill" (1966) did for example. As its title suggest "Shock" is out to shock us and throw scares our way using now cliche horror techniques. Some of those cliches still work on audiences and me in particular, when done correctly. Bava is too good a filmmaker not to know how to use this cliches correctly and so everything works.
The two things I usually don't like about Italian horror movies is the acting, which I often find amateur at best, and the music, which has a very distinct 70s rock sound to it that now seems terribly out of place and doesn't compliment the scenes the music is behind, creating the proper mood. "Shock" suffers from both of these problems. Daria Nicolodi I've usually felt has a tendency to over act and here she does nothing to change my opinion of her, especially in the scenes where she is suppose to express hysteria and fear. Also, John Steiner feels a little bland. You don't feel he has created a real character with a full range of emotions.
Despite all that "Shock" is a movie that deserves a second chance. It plays around with some of the themes often found in Bava's movies but has more of a psychological twist to it, sometimes making the viewer question what is real and what isn't. And it has an ending that may make some think of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat". It is not a great introduction into the work of Bava but is one you should build yourself up to seeing.
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