| Shock | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Mario Bava |
| Produced by | Turi Vasile |
| Written by | Lamberto Bava Dardano Sacchetti |
| Starring | Daria Nicolodi John Steiner David Colin Jr. Ivan Rassimov |
| Cinematography | Mario Bava |
| Release date(s) | 12 August 1977 |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Country | Italy |
Shock (also known as Schock, and Beyond the Door II) is an Italian horror film directed by Italian horror director Mario Bava. This was Bava's last film before he died of a heart attack in 1980. The film starred Daria Nicolodi, John Steiner, and David Colin, Jr.
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Dora Baldini, her son Marco, and her new husband Bruno Baldini move into Dora's former home, from her first marriage, after Dora is released from a mental institution following the mysterious death of Dora's abusive first husband. With her husband away as a commercial airline pilot, Dora is left along with her son Marco, and her shattered memory of the events of her husband's death, caused by extensive electroshock treatment she received while institutionalized. Her insanity grows when she believes that her son has become possessed by the ghost of his deceased father, leading to Dora learning the truth about her first husband's death: she murdered him after he forcibly injected her with heroin and LSD. When she contacted Bruno for help, he arranged for her dead husband's body to be dumped out in the ocean while arranging for Dora to be placed in an insane asylum, as the drugs injected into her caused her to have a nervous breakdown. Killing her new husband, Dora is compelled by her husband's ghost (and her guilt) to commit suicide. The ending shows Marco, the sole survivor, having tea with his parents' ghosts (who are invisible).
For its US release, Film Ventures International decided to rename the film Beyond the Door II, under the guise of it being a "sequel" to Ovidio G. Assonitis's 1974 film Chi sei?, renamed Beyond the Door for US release. The reason for the change was the fact that the two films starred child actor David Colin Jr., as a boy possessed.
In spite of this false rebranding of the film through its renaming, Film Ventures International was quite faithful with its English dubbing of Shock. Lamberto Bava's script was adapted quite faithfully and unlike Lisa and the Devil, did not include any reshoots or omission of footage, making it one of the few films by Mario Bavo to appear in the US intact.
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