Twitch of the Death Nerve

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Twitch of the Death Nerve
DVD Cover for American release of Twitch of the Death Nerve
Directed by	Mario Bava
Produced by	Giuseppe Zaccariello
Written by	Mario Bava Giuseppe Zaccariello Filippo Ottoni Sergio Canevari Dardano Sacchetti (story) Franco Barberi(story)
Starring	Claudine Auger Luigi Pistilli Laura Betti
Music by	Stelvio Cipriani
Cinematography	Mario Bava
Editing by	Carlo Reali
Distributed by	Nuova Linea Cinematografica (Italy); Hallmark Releasing Corporation (U.S.)
Release date(s)	1971
Running time	84 min
Country	Italy
Language	Italian (U.S. release dubbed into English)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Twitch of the Death Nerve (Italian title: Ecologia del delitto) is a 1971 Italian horror thriller film directed by Mario Bava. Bava cowrote the screenplay with Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni and Sergio Canevari, with story credit given to Dardano Sacchetti and Franco Barberi. The film stars Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, and Laura Betti. Carlo Rambaldi created the gruesome special makeup effects.

The story details the simultaneous murderous activities of several different characters as they each attempt to remove any human obstacles that stand in the way of an inheritance. Easily Bava’s most intensely violent film, its emphasis on graphically bloody murder set pieces was hugely influential on the slasher and splatter films that would follow a decade later.^[1][2]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Production 3 Response 4 Influence 5 Multiple titles 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Plot

The wheelchair bound Countess Federica (Isa Miranda) sits alone in her bayside mansion one night when she is suddenly attacked and strangled to death by her husband, Filippo Donati (Giovanni Nuvoletti). As he pauses to gloat over her body, an assailant hidden in the shadows stabs him repeatedly until he is dead. His corpse is then dragged to the bay. The police find a note written by the Countess, and they assume the cause of death is suicide. Donati's murder goes undiscovered.

Frank Ventura (Chris Avram) is a real estate agent who plots with his lover, Laura (Anna Maria Rosati), to take possession of the bay. They believe the bay can be turned into a hugely profitable venture, so they arranged with Donati to murder his wife after she had refused to sell her house and property to them. To finalize their scheme, Ventura needs Donati's signature on a set of legal documents. Unfortunately, they have no idea that Donati has been killed.

Paolo Fassati (Leopoldo Trieste), an entomologist who lives on the Donatis' grounds, is attempting to capture an insect when he collides with Simon (Claudio Volonté), the Countess' illegitimate son who also lives on the property. Simon is poor and is able to survive by feeding on the squid he catches from the bay. Fassati tells Simon that he suspects the countess has been murdered. Simon, however, firmly insists her death was a suicide.

Four teenagers, two girls and two boys, decide to party at the bay, and they break into Ventura's cottage. Bobby (Robert Bonnani) is too shy to make any advances on his date, Brunhilda (Brigitte Skay). She ends up skinny-dipping in the bay while Bobby stays behind in the house. Donati's rotting corpse rises from the water and collides with the nude girl. She rushes out of the water, slips her dress back on, and runs screaming towards the house. Before she can make it to safety, an unseen assailant hacks into her throat with a machete. She falls to the ground and dies. The killer then goes to the house and surprises Bobby, slamming the machete deep into his face. Bobby and Brunhilda's two companions, Duke (Guido Boccaccini) and Denise (Paola Rubens), find a bed upstairs and are in the throes of sexual passion when the murderer finds them; a long spear is thrust through them, bloodily killing both at the same time.

Simon is the killer. He had killed Donati, and is now conspiring with Ventura. Ventura offers him a large amount of cash to leave the country and live comfortably, so Simon agrees to sign all the legal documents, turning the land over to Ventura. However, it turns out that the Countess had a daughter, Renata (Claudine Auger), who is resolute about the property becoming hers. A search for the Countess' will proves unsuccessful, and Ventura, who believes Renata may be the rightful beneficiary, suggests to Simon that he finish her off.

Renata and her husband, Albert (Luigi Pistilli), arrive and go directly to Fassati's house. They talk with him and his wife, Anna (Laura Betti), a fortune teller. Anna tells them that the Countess’ death was due to Donati, and says that Simon will probably end up with the property. Renata, who until that moment had no idea she had a half-brother, immediately makes plans with her husband to murder Simon, who at the same time is planning her demise.

Renata and Albert find Donati's gruesomely mangled corpse on Simon's boat, then go to Ventura's house. Nobody is present at the moment, so Albert leaves temporarily, leaving Renata alone. Ventura suddenly attacks Renata and tries to kill her, but Renata manages to kill him instead. Fassati has witnessed everything, and when he starts to telephone the police, Albert strangles him to death. In order to ensure that there are no additional witnesses, Renata murders Anna by decapitating her.

Laura arrives, hoping to meet up with Ventura. When Simon discovers that it was she and Ventura who had plotted with Donati to kill his mother, who Simon loved dearly, he slowly strangles Laura to death. Seconds later, Simon is murdered by Albert.

Albert and Renata know that everybody who could possibly get in their way is now dead. Since there are no other living heirs, the property is guaranteed to be theirs, and they go home to wait for the announcement of their inheritance. Their own children are at the front door waiting for them with a shotgun, and they shoot their parents to death. The young boy and girl gleefully jump over the corpses and rush outside to play.

[edit] Production

The genesis of Twitch of the Death Nerve was a simple story idea concocted by Bava and actress Laura Betti as a way to allow them to work together again, as the two had gotten along so well on Bava’s Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1969). The project's original title was Odore di Carne ("The Stench of Flesh"), and the murder-filled story had enough promise to convince producer Giuseppe Zaccariello to provide financial backing. Numerous other writers, including Zaccariello himself, had their hands involved in devising the final screenplay.^[3]

The film began production in early 1971, originally under the shooting title Cosi imparano a farsi cattivi ("Thus Do We Live To Be Evil")^[3], which was soon changed to Reazione a catena ("Chain Reaction").^[4] Bava showed great enthusiasm for the film but, unfortunately, the movie’s budget was extremely low, and it had to be shot very quickly and cheaply before the production money could evaporate. Acting as his own cinematographer, Bava, due to the severe budgetary restrictions, had to utilize a simple child's wagon for the film's many tracking shots.^[3]

The location shooting was mostly completed at a Sabaudia beach house (owned by Zaccariello) and its outlying property. Bava had to resort to various camera trickery to convince the audience that an entire forest existed surrounding the Donati estate when in fact only a few scattered trees were at the location. Betti recalled, "All of this had to occur in a forest. But where was it? Bava said, 'Don't worry, I will do the forest.' And he found a florist who was selling these little, stupid branches with little bits of foliage on them, and he began to make them dance in front of the camera! We had to act the scenes strictly in front of those branches -- if we moved even an inch either way, the 'woods' would disappear!"^[3]

To ensure the utmost realism in depicting the thirteen different murders, Carlo Rambaldi was hired to provide the gruesomely effective special makeup effects. The 1971 Avoriaz Film Festival jurors awarded the film the Best Makeup and Special Effects Award.^[3] Rambaldi's effects work also earned the film a "Special Mention" Award at the prestigious Sitges Festival in 1971.^[5]

[edit] Response

As the latest offering from a noted genre specialist, Twitch of the Death Nerve was greeted with disappointment and disgust by several critics, especially by those who were fans of the director’s earlier, more restrained films. At the 1971 Avoriaz Film Festival, where the movie had its world premiere, Christopher Lee attended a screening of the film, having expressed an interest in seeing the latest effort from the director of The Whip and the Body, which Lee had starred in eight years before. Lee was reportedly completely revolted by the movie.^[3]

When the film was picked up for U.S. distribution by exploitation specialists Hallmark Releasing Corporation, they titled the film Carnage and copied their own successful advertising campaign for Mark of the Devil by proclaiming that Bava’s film was “The Second Film Rated ‘V’ for Violence!” (Devil having been the first.) The movie was apparently unsuccessful, and it was withdrawn and re-released in 1972 under its most commonly known title, Twitch of the Death Nerve. It reportedly played for years under this title in drive-ins and grindhouses throughout the country.^[3]

It remains Bava’s most controversial film, and maintains a mixed critical reaction. Jeffrey Frentzen, reviewing the film for Cinefantastique, called Twitch "the director's most complete failure to date. If you were appalled by the gore and slaughter in Blood and Black Lace, this latest film contains twice the murders, each one accomplished with an obnoxious detail...Red herrings are ever-present, and serve as the only interest keeping the plot in motion, but nothing really redeems the dumb storyline."^[6] Gary Johnson, on his Images website, said that “Twitch of the Death Nerve is made for people who derive pleasure from seeing other people killed…The resulting movie is guaranteed to make audiences squirm, but the violence is near pornographic. In the same way that pornographic movies reduce human interactions to the workings of genitals, Twitch of the Death Nerve reduces cinematic thrills to little more than knives slicing through flesh.”^[7] Phil Hardy’s The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror, while noting that Bava was able to “achieve some striking images”, opined “Zooms, no doubt programmed by the imperative to work quickly, spoil some scenes that cried out for Bava’s particularly fluid use of camera movement which were so much in evidence in Operazione Paura (1966). ”^[8] Joe Dante, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about the film, writing in The Film Bulletin (later reprinted in Video Watchdog) that it “…features enough violence and grue to satisfy the most rabid mayhem fans and benefits from the inimitably stylish direction of horror specialist Mario Bava (Black Sunday). Assembled with a striking visual assurance that never ceases to amuse, this is typical Bava material – simply one ghastly murder after another, 13 in all, surrounded by what must be one of the most preposterous and confusing plots ever put on film.”^[9] In Fangoria, Tim Lucas wrote thirteen years after the film’s theatrical release that “Twitch unreels like a macabre, ironic joke, a movie built like an inescapable trap for its own anti-hero…Seen today, the violence in this movie remains as potent and explicit as anything glimpsed in contemporary “splatter” features…”^[10] The film has a favorability rating of 83% on the Rotten Tomatoes movie review website, out of six reviewers surveyed.^[11]

[edit] Influence

Several critics have noted that the film is probably the most influential of Bava’s career, as it had a huge and profound impact on the slasher film genre.^[12] Writing in 2000, Tim Lucas wrote that Bava’s film is “the acknowledged smoking gun behind the ‘body count’ movie phenomenon of the 1980s, which continues to dominate the horror genre two decades later with such films as Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and their respective sequels.” ^[3] According to Gary Johnson, “Twitch of the Death Nerve is one of the most imitated movies of the past 30 years. It helped kick start the slasher genre….[Bava’s] influence still resonates today (although somewhat dully) in movies such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream, and Urban Legend.”^[13]

While most slasher movies owe a considerable debt to Twitch’s somewhat nonsensical narrative and its emphasis on bodily mutilation, at least one film was directly imitative: Friday the 13th Part 2 notoriously copied two of Bava’s murder sequences almost shot for shot. One character in that 1981 film is sliced full in the face with a machete, and two teenage lovers are interrupted when a spear ends up shoved through their bodies.^[14] Along with The Burning, Just Before Dawn (1981), and several other similarly plotted slashers, Friday specifically “followed Bava’s inspired cue, having young people stalked by violent death amid beautiful wooded settings.”^[3]

[edit] Multiple titles

According to Tim Lucas, Bava’s film is "probably known by more titles than any other movie ever released."^[3] Its most common title is Twitch of the Death Nerve, but it has been shown theatrically and appeared on home video under a bewildering variety of titles. In Italy, the pre-production draft screenplay was called Odore di Carne, but the shooting title was originally Cosi imparano a farsi cattivi, which was soon changed to Reazione a catena. After production was completed, it was announced as Antefatto ("Before the Fact"), but when finally released to theatres, the title had changed once again to Ecologia del delitto ("The Ecology of Murder" or "The Ecology of a Crime").^[4]

In the United States, it was originally released as Carnage, then retitled Twitch of the Death Nerve. It is also known as Bay of Blood (or A Bay of Blood), Last House on the Left – Part II (or Last House – Part II), and New House on the Left.^[15] In the UK, it was released as Bloodbath. The Internet Movie Database also lists Bloodbath Bay of Blood and Bloodbath Bay of Death as alternate titles.^[16]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Twitch of the Death Nerve at the Internet Movie Database
• All Movie Guide: Twitch of the Death Nerve entry

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