Mario Bava

  • Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga [Baron Blood] (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2022) There’s not a while lot to say about the unremarkable Baron Blood. It has its points of interest: If you’re looking for Joseph Cotten’s late-career 1970s horror film (as most classic Hollywood stars seem to have one), then this it. If you can’t get enough of Elke Sommer for whatever reason (I find her rather dull), then this is your chance to see her screaming for minutes on end. If you’re tracking Italian horror director Mario Bava’s career, then this is unarguably one of his movies. But as far as what these people do when they work together, well, Baron Blood feels about as median-quality as possible. The story has one American young man accidentally resurrecting his murderous vampiric ancestor, and a castle acting as a very gothic setting for the ensuing mayhem. It’s directed by Bava with professional aplomb, but the result is more efficient than effective. In the end, it’s more fun to see Cotten cackling and Sommer running through the castle’s corridors than anything else. A film with very specific appeal, then – even I, as a fan of haunted castle stories, can’t quite bring myself to recommend it.

  • La morte viene dallo spazio [The Day the Sky Exploded] (1958)

    La morte viene dallo spazio [The Day the Sky Exploded] (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, December 2020) In my travels as an apprentice Science Fiction film historian, there are wonders that cannot be enjoyed. Such is the case with The Day the Sky Exploded, which has the dual distinction of being the first Italian Science Fiction film, and the first film directed by later legend of Italian cinema Mario Bava. I did like the techno-thrillerish premise of targeting asteroids heading for Earth, but the execution here is bargain-basement clearance value – ramshackle sets, unconvincing actors, plenty of stock footage and an atrocious script, even in translation. So let’s file The Day the Sky Exploded under “historically important, otherwise unbearable” and move on.