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36 of 43 found the following review helpful:
 Bava, Bava, Bava Feb 06, 2007
By E. A Solinas
"ea_solinas"
Mario Bava was one of the most underrated filmmakers of the 20th century -- not to mention the most versatile, turning out giallo thrillers, gothic horror, Viking action, Hercules, a Western, and even a Swinging Sixties crime caper. Five of these brilliant movies are brought together in the "Mario Bava Collection Volume 1," including one of his most famous horror movies ever.
The poorly-named "Kill Baby Kill" opens when a young woman leaps onto an iron fence. Dr. Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) is called in to do an autopsy, with the help of beautiful Monica (Erica Blanc). He finds a coin in the girl's heart, and none of the townspeople will tell him -- because if they do, they will suffer a similar fate.
He's even more annoyed when local sorceress Ruth (Fabienne Dali) begins using her powers to protect a young girl from a childlike specter -- little dead aristocrat Melissa Graps. But as the bodies pile up, and Monica is plagued by bizarre nightmares, Eswai must accept Ruth's help to save Monica from the ghost, and an evil baroness.
"Black Sunday (The Mask of Satan)" is a bizarre tale of vampirism -- evil princess Asa (Barbare Steele) and her servant were executed centuries ago, for serving the devil and all-around nastiness. As usual, she places an evil curse on the Vadja family, and vows to return one day to get revenge on them, just before being impaled by the "devil's mask," a spiked mask that kills the wearer.
But in the modern day, two doctors on their way to a convention accidentally reopen her grave, and awaken her with a drop of blood. Turns out that Asa isn't QUITE dead -- and now gaining new power, as she discovers that her distant descendent Katia Vadja is a dead ringer for her. Now she's trying to possess Katia's body -- can one of the doctors save her?
"Black Sabbath" is actually three stories -- "The Telephone," a Hitchcockian giallo thriller about a woman haunted by phone calls from an ex-lover. "The Wurdalak" is a twist on typical vampire stories, with Boris Karloff turned into a wurdalak, a vampire who only drinks the blood of loved ones. And in "A Drop of Water," a nurse steals a ring from the corpse of a medium, and is unsurprisingly haunted by her.
"Knives of the Avenger" is one of Bava's lesser movies, but shows he could handle unusual genre films. A mystery man (Cameron Mitchell) who calls himself Helmut saves young widow Karin (Elissa Pichelli) and her son from some thugs, sent by a local regent who wants to marry the woman (whether she likes it or not), because she is the widow of the late king.
Helmut stays in the house to protect Karin from the regent, and becomes a sort of mentor to the boy. But Karin doesn't realize that Helmut (not his real name) has a nasty past that he's keeping hidden -- he may be the man who raped her many years ago. When Karin's husband returns, the mystery man saddles up to save the mother and child.
No, "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" was not a sequel to Hitchcock's movies, but a stylish Hitchcockian giallo. Nora Davis (Leticia Roman) arrives in Rome to care for an ill friend, only to have her expire that evening of a heart attack. As she tries to get help, she is mugged, and blearily sees a man pulling a knife out of a woman's corpse -- but of course, nobody believes her.
Nora moves in near her friend's house, and does some detecting on her own -- it seems that this murder follows the pattern of a serial killer who has haunted the area for years. They thought they caught the man who did it, but they captured the wrong man -- and now the killer is coming after Nora next.
Mario Bava didn't need massive budgets or special effects to create his brilliant movies -- just some solid actors and a haunting backdrop. Crumbling castles, the streets of Rome, sword-and-sandal countryside and misty mountains are all used in these movies, with performances that range from brilliant (Steele) to merely solid (Mitchell).
In fact, Bava was such a brilliant director that he was able to elevate anything with his cinematic touches -- colourful lighting, eerie camerawork, exquisite use of light and shadow, gory executions, and even a touch of comedy here and there. Even when the scripts are subpar ("Knives of the Avenger"), he manages to include some nice touches.
"Mario Bava Collection Volume 1" is a collection of five excellent movies, ranging from amazing to solidly enjoyable. And it's a good demonstration of Bava's talents, and the kinds of movies he could undertake. Definitely worth getting, especially for horror buffs.
35 of 42 found the following review helpful:
 Bittersweet Box Set Apr 09, 2007
By R. Rosener
"Photomatic"
It's great to have all of these Mario Bava titles in one set. The transfers are really beautiful, and a revelation to those of us with memories of grainy 16mm TV prints. "Black Sunday's" monochrome atmosphere looks particularly lush in this set. "Kill Baby Kill" is a major upgrade to the crummy, desaturated DVD I have from Image.
But they really SHOULD have included BOTH US and Italian versions of the star attraction, "Black Sabbbath". Or at least cut in Karloff's actual voice to the Italian version! Why not re-edit the way it should be? I still rushed out to buy this set, but cannot give it five stars due to the pre-release publicity which stated BOTH Black Sabbath versions would be in the box set. Anchor Bay owes all of us an apology or a free DVD of the English version.
44 of 54 found the following review helpful:
AAAAAAAAAGH! THE HORROR! NO US VERSIONS!!! Apr 02, 2007
By 2littlemoney
"somuch2buy"
Well...........in case you didn't hear, don't have frequent Net access, or whatever. This new Bava set, cool as it is, is now no longer going to have the AIP/US cut of BLACK SABBATH. All the Net reviews of pre-release copies I have seen as of this date (4/2/07) confirm the prints on both the BLACK SABBATH & BLACK SUNDAY are cleaner prints, but essentially the same as the Image releases. I don't want to knock Anchor's restoration, but it's the same ol' same ol'....what was gonna make this set pop was the release of both versions of the films. I know there is an audio distinction to BLACK SUNDAY, but it escapes me at this second. So buyers who were looking for the OTHER variants to these specific titles like I was (I already own the original Image releases and am a semi-CASUAL Bava fan I suppose...these two films being my favorites of his), make sure you do your homework to see if the upgrade is worth it to you. Luckily, the price is somewhat cheap enough depending on where you get it (cheapest here, so far). But I was expecting to run out and get this the day of release, then saw the reviews and that basically put the fire out of my little shopping purchase. This can wait.
And before anyone screams at me for not having this in hand and 'reviewing': Hey. a lot of people were expecting BOTH versions to these films to be included, and now they're not, so this might be helpful and save some disappointment. I sure was going to be ticked off.
And the film companies wonder why the bootleg market flourishes....lol
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
Almost perfect but for one fatal flaw Aug 11, 2007
By Phil Snyder
"Loser"
I would have bought this set, being a fan of Bava and particularly of these films, but without Karloff's voice in Black Sabbath I personally consider it not worth having. I already have the version with the Italian actor's voice and it DOESN'T WORK. Sorry, Bava and Euro/Iti film fans, but the edited American Version is superior to the original for this reason alone (the other drawbacks are relatively negligable). Why else use Karloff if you don't get the full actor? The Italians never shot synch sound, anyway, so even the original Italian version is dubbed! Dubbing is NOT the issue - in fact, it's a non issue. In fact, due to the Italians use of non-synch, I think most Iti films shot this way often work better dubbed into the native language of the viewer, except where a fairly recognizable actor/voice is concerned, so learn that damn lesson and do things my way now!
12 of 15 found the following review helpful:
great collection Apr 10, 2007
By Marc reinhardt
"redunzil"
Sorry, but giving this set a bad rating just because the AIP-versions aren't included is stupid in my opinion.
This box includes 5 fantastic movies by Bava (yes, even "Knives Of The Avenger" is a great one) in overall amazing quality with very good bonus features. I believe there is a good reason that AB didn't include the different cuts of "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" and "3 Faces Of Fear": legal issues. If these are solved, hopefully we see these versions someday on DVD (though the only one that really interests me is "The Evil Eye". "Black Sabbath" would just be nice because of Karloff's own dubbing,
but everything else is clearly inferior to the italian version.)
Until then - enjoy what's IN this box, it is an amazing value for the cheap price. Of course many people who want to buy this, already may have different DVDs of some of the movies in there - so everyone must decide for themselves if it is worth getting.
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