MARIO BAVA'S

SHOCK

A.K.A. "Beyond the Door II." Laser Cinematografica, 1977. DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2000. Directed by Mario Bava. Assistant to the director, Lamberto Bava. Music by I. Libra. Starring Daria Nicolodi, John Steiner, David Colin Jr., Ivan Rassimov and Nicola Salerno as "Carlo."

 
     By Stephen Pytak 
     Filled with creative jump scares, Mario Bava's final horror film
delivers the goods again and again.
     Actress Daria Nicolodi plays a woman pushed over the edge by
nightmares, ghostly visions, an evil decomposing hand wielding a 
box cutter, and sinister pranks devised by her seven-year-old son.
     While the storyline isn't always the best, Bava's cameras create
an eerie atmosphere where seemingly anything can happen at any
time. Around the corner, there's always a little tease or a payoff
to keep the heart pumping. 
     One of the best is an in-camera trick. "Dora (Nicolodi)" rushes
up to hug her son. The boy leaves the frame, slipping out through 
the bottom, and Dora's hideous, decomposing husband rises up to 
take hold of her. 
     I guess "Shock" was an appropriate title.
     I saw this film on the big screen around 1999, when Exhumed
Films screened it with Lucio Fulci's "House by the Cemetery." It got
a GREAT audience response. At the time, I wasn't too familiar with
the films of Mario Bava. Since then, I've checked out a number of
the legendary Italian filmmaker's classics, inclulding "Blood and 
Black Lace (1964)" and "Kill Baby Kill (1966)." The other night,
I decided to revisit "Shock" on DVD. Glad I did.
     The story follows Dora who, according to her shrink
(Rassimov), was recently released from a sanitarium following her
husband's suicide. 
    She moves back into her former haunts, along with her second
husband, "Bruno (Steiner)" and son "Marco (Colin)." We also get 
the impression someone else is there with them, what appears to be
Marco's imaginary friend. 
     Marco asks his "mama" about his father, who we're told was a 
drug addict who killed himself. Fixated on this father he never knew --
we're told the father bought the farm seven years back -- the boy goes
through a crisis. He suffers some kind of Oedipus complex, decides to 
hate Bruno, under his breath calls Bruno and his mother "pigs" for 
making out, then tells his mother to her face he's going to kill her. 
That's when the fun really begins.
     The kid plays games, peeking while she's in the shower, putting 
a razor blade between piano keys, cutting up a pair of his mother's 
lacy undies, breaking a framed picture of Dora and Bruno, then 
eventually taking the picture out of the frame and going to work on 
it with a pair of scissors.
     Meanwhile, Dora -- who we're told had been using drugs, had
experienced shock treatment and so forth -- starts having visions.   
Some of these scenes which will remind horror fans of Sam Raimi's
"Evil Dead (1983)" and "Evil Dead II (1987)." 
     During a tense one, Dora watches her son on swing. He's
giving her the evil eye. She looks concerned and frightened. This is
intercut with a pendulum, and reminded me the scene in "Evil
Dead" where Ash's nerves are jangled by a clock pendulum rod and
lead weight.
    Then, Nicolodi has a vision of a laughing piano. The key cover
bounces up and down in glee, like the lamp, books and demonic
moose head in the cabin in "Evil Dead II." Makes you wonder if 
Raimi found inspiration in this film.
    Soon after that, the crazy supernatural stuff starts creeping up
on her. An "evil hand (sorry, couldn't resist)" plagues her dreams.
In the best of these scenes, the ghostly thing traps her against a
brick wall in the basement and, using a box cutter, starts cutting
her night gown to ribbons.
     The ending has some neat twists. In some ways, it reminded me
of the climax of Bava's "Bay of Blood (1971)," in which children
were the las ones standing. 
     The only thing about "Shock" that bugged me was the backstory.
Supposedly the boy's real father died seven years back, around the 
time Marco was supposedly born. Since Marco never knew his real 
father, why ask if he's ever coming home? Why be so fixated? 
     The only thing I could figure is the father's ghost, which turns out
to be Marco's "friend," is planting ideas in the kid's head.
     Nicolodi is excellent. She really sells the terror. And, boy, can
she scream her head off. 
     The kid comes off a bit strange and sometimes unintentionally 
funny. But I recall the crowd at Exhumed really loved those moments.
     The music by I. Libra, a mix of tense piano and percussion, is
also very good. 
     As far as I know, there's no connection between Bava's "Shock" and
"Beyond the Door (1974)," directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, besides the 
fact David Colin Jr. is in both movies and they both deal with the 
supernatural.
Copyright 2008 By Stephen Pytak