Trailer
Plot summary
The bayside estate of Countess Federica Donati draws several claimants. Her husband Filippo strangles her at the mansion and stages the death as a suicide, and an unseen attacker then kills him and removes the body, leaving police with a suicide note and no husband. Franco Ventura, an architect, travels to the property to get Filippo's signature on papers that would hand him the bay, unaware that Filippo is dead. Filippo's daughter Renata arrives with her husband Alberto and their two children to learn what became of her father. Paolo Fossati, an entomologist, lives on the grounds with Anna, his fortune teller wife, and Simone, a fisherman who works the bay.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Bay of Blood (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- With no real forest at the location, Bava found a florist selling 'little stupid branches with little bits of foliage' and made them 'dance' in front of the camera to stand in for the woods; the actors had to act strictly in front of them, since moving an inch either way made the 'woods' disappear.
- For its US release, Hallmark advertised Bava's film as 'The Second Film Rated 'V' for Violence!'; the Motion Picture Association of America sued over the campaign, and the film was withdrawn and re-released as Twitch of the Death Nerve with an R rating in advertisements.
- Sacchetti wrote the first draft with Franco Barbieri, but spectacular arguments with Bava and the production team led to Barbieri being fired and Sacchetti quitting in solidarity with him; producer De Laurentiis then abandoned the project as well.
- Sacchetti and Bava's early version of the story had two parents commit murder after murder to secure a better future for their children, becoming so caught up that they abandon the children for several days; when they return home, the starving and terrified children kill them.
SPOILER
Carlo Rambaldi was hired for the make-up effects: to create the deaths of Anna, Louise and Sylvie, wax effigies of the actresses' throats and backs were rigged to expel brightly colored blood when cut, and the billhook stabbing of Roberto Bonanni used a prop blade swiftly pulled out of frame.- Because the budget was extremely low and the film had to be shot very quickly and cheaply, Bava acted as his own cinematographer and used a simple child's wagon for the film's many tracking shots.
- Commentators have noted that two murder sequences in the 1981 film Friday the 13th Part 2 are strikingly similar to Bava's: one character is slammed in the face with a hawkbill machete instead of a billhook, and two teenage lovers are interrupted when a spear impales both of them.
- At the 1971 Avoriaz Film Festival, where the film had its world premiere, Christopher Lee attended a screening out of interest in the director of The Whip and the Body, which Lee had starred in eight years before, and was reportedly completely revolted; the jurors nevertheless gave the film the Best Make-Up and Special Effects Award.
