Shock (1977) (Arrow Video) (BLU-RAY REVIEW)

Shock (1977) (Arrow Video) (BLU-RAY REVIEW)
Director: Mario Bava, Lamberto Bava
Starring: Daria Nicolodi, John Steiner, David Colin, Jr.
RATED: UR/REGION A/1:85/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1
AVAILABLE FROM Arrow Video

In a career spanning four decades and encompassing virtually every genre under the sun, Mario Bava inspired multiple generations of filmmakers, from Dario Argento to Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton. Best remembered for his gothic horror movies, for his final feature, Shock, he eschewed the grand guignol excesses of Black Sabbath or Blood and Black Lace for a more intimate portrait of mental breakdown in which true horror comes from within. Dora (Daria Nicolodi, Deep Red) moves back into her old family home with her husband, Bruno (John Steiner, Tenebrae), and Marco (David Colin Jr., Beyond the Door), her young son from her previous marriage. But domestic bliss proves elusive as numerous strange and disturbing occurrences transpire, while Dora is haunted by a series of nightmares and hallucinations, many of them involving her dead former husband. Is the house itself possessed? Or does Dora’s increasingly fragile grip on reality originate from somewhere far closer to home? Released in the United States as a sequel to Ovidio G. Assonitis’s Beyond the Door, Shock more than lives up to its name, proving that, even at this late stage in his career, Bava hadn’t lost his touch for terror. Now restored in high definition for the first time, the Maestro of the Macabre’s chilling swansong disturbs like never before in this feature-laden release from Arrow Video.

This is one that I’ve long been waiting for to come to Blu-ray and while I had figured this would come by the way of Blue Underground, Arrow Video was actually the company to snatch up the rights and give us some Mario Bava that we had been missing in HD. Movie-wise, when a family moves into a home with a shocking secret, their lives become a nightmare of homicidal hallucinations as their young son begins to communicate with the spirits of the dead. Remodeled in madness and painted with blood, they soon discover that domestic bliss can be murder… when home is where the horror is. Shock (released in America as Beyond the Door 2) is a movie that seems to try to depend on more style and mood than anything else. What that means is we have a movie that is a bit of a slow mover as it attempts to build up to a wild finale. And, the finale is rather wild and more or less the best part of the film. The rest of the movie just seems to move top slow for my taste and while I do appreciate a film that builds up to a boiling point, I think this one kind of loses you along the way.

The movie does give us a cool jump and a nice gore effect or two. That can be enough for some people, I just wanted a little more excitement along the way. Maybe I just expected more coming from a legend like Mario Bava? Either way, it isn’t a terrible movie, but I wouldn’t call it great either. All in all we get a good, but somewhat dull story that has a great end game that sadly doesn’t have the rest to match. I still love finally seeing it in HD and this Blu-ray looks great not only in the HD sense but in the presentation, as the cover and all about this release pops, even if the movie sort of lacks. I’d still put the ending up there with some of the more stanger movies in horror movie history.

Extras

• BRAND NEW 2K RESTORATION from the original 35mm camera negative by Arrow Films
• Original Italian and English front and end titles and insert shots
• Restored original lossless mono Italian and English soundtracks
• Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
• New audio commentary by Tim Lucas, author of Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark
• A Ghost in the House, a new video interview with co-director and co-writer Lamberto Bava
• Via Dell’Orologio 33, a new video interview with co-writer Dardano Sacchetti
• The Devil Pulls the Strings, a new video essay by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
• Shock! Horror! – The Stylistic Diversity of Mario Bava, a new video appreciation by author and critic Stephen Thrower
• The Most Atrocious Tortur(e), a new interview with critic Alberto Farina
• Italian theatrical trailer
• 4 US “Beyond the Door II” TV spots
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Christopher Shy
• First pressing only: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Troy Howarth, author of The Haunted World of Mario Bava

Quality of Transfer: 90%