Whereas Black Sunday may be one of the most influential films for the discerning Gothic horror artiste, Bava's 1971 'tour de snuff', Twitch of the Death Nerve, is unarguably the most influential toward the genre's eventual turn to bloodlust. Whether you like it or not, the definition of a horror film hasn't been the same since Twitch, and chances of its influence ever completely receding are next to nil. The first film to exploit its body-count as the main reason for viewing, Twitch of the Death Nerve even hits the ground running (or wheeling rather), with the first two of its thirteen ghastly murders occurring in the first scene alone. Besides the high mortality rate of the characters, and Bava's diabolical tunnel vision of the carnage, another not so easily noticeable (yet perhaps most lasting) influence of Twitch is the complete reliance on set pieces to reach its sadistic goal. Every murder is methodically, systematically designed for optimum shock, and the film's cameraman (Bava himself), art director, actors, writers, editors, FX men, etc., all play their crucial and individual parts to perfection each time, thereby making each piece stand alone like masochistic movements in a sadistic symphony.
Said actors run the gamut from fallen icons of World Cinema (like Isa Miranda), and ex-Bond Girls (Thunderball's Claudine Auger), to Laura Betti, and a Brechtian spaghetti western star (Luigi Pistilli). The writers include none other than Dardano Sacchetti, who had just recently penned Argento's Cat O' Nine Tails, and would go on to give Lucio Fulci one of the finest scripts of his career - The Beyond. Carlo Rambaldi, who would go on to win two Oscars for Alien and E.T., created the then-state-of-the-art special effects. I suppose I should mention the story line, which is often attacked for being inconsequential, illogical, irrational, impossible to sort out, or simply the odious ex machina to simply get from one murder to another. I find it all pretty simple to explain myself - I don't see what's so difficult to understand. Bava's penchant for cynicism and his fascination with humanity's dark side has never been more apparent than in Twitch of the Death Nerve, whose plot concerns greed, real estate, the raping of the environment, and revenge.
All the action transpires around a beautiful, undeveloped bay and its surrounding picturesque landscape/acreage, whose owner (Isa Miranda) has been murdered. Those who wish to convert the entire area into a fashionable resort now threaten the forests and natural life. But just who is the real heir to this potential fortune now? And who won't stop at nothing to own it all, or to preserve the land's natural state. Throw in some sex-crazed teenagers who stumble and wander where they shouldn't belong, and you've got the makings for wholesale slaughter. Beheadings, faces cleaved in two, necks gouged apart, bodies run through with spears & tridents, flying pots of boiling water, hangings, strangulations, bodies being blown to shotgun bits - Twitch of the Death Nerve's got it all! Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas said it best, "the horror genre had seen nothing quite like it before - and it's seen very little unlike it ever since." Touché. As with his work on I Vampiri and Black Sunday, Bava likely had no idea that what he was making would change the course of horror film history. Twitch of the Death Nerve was a film for which Bava was especially proud - the body count, the blatantly offensive amorality, the over-indulgent carnality, and the ludicrous lump of unlikable characters.
All these things were purposeful commentary on Bava's part - to take a stab at the industry, the genre; to see what he could do with a little bit of money; to push the envelope; to push the buttons and watch people's reactions. Such are valid and fun reasons for doing what he did. Little did Bava know that Twitch's genius would be singularly responsible for a whole bevy of '80s crap, including Friday the 13th, Part II's blatant theft of two of Twitch's death scenes. Argento's Bird and Bava's Twitch were the nails in the coffin for the first half of Italian Horror's heyday. The dark, alluring fantasies were now gone. No longer would the plots be semi-innocent, or quasi-Victorian. No more wandering through fogged graveyards and abandoned castles. Though Bava continued to make some work of merit in the '70s (Baron Blood, Lisa and the Devil), never again would he find himself at the forefront of the genre he almost single-handedly created. The future belonged to perversion, degeneracy, gore, hysteria, cannibalism, Teutonic witches, zombies and Goblins. Lots and lots of Goblins.
Said actors run the gamut from fallen icons of World Cinema (like Isa Miranda), and ex-Bond Girls (Thunderball's Claudine Auger), to Laura Betti, and a Brechtian spaghetti western star (Luigi Pistilli). The writers include none other than Dardano Sacchetti, who had just recently penned Argento's Cat O' Nine Tails, and would go on to give Lucio Fulci one of the finest scripts of his career - The Beyond. Carlo Rambaldi, who would go on to win two Oscars for Alien and E.T., created the then-state-of-the-art special effects. I suppose I should mention the story line, which is often attacked for being inconsequential, illogical, irrational, impossible to sort out, or simply the odious ex machina to simply get from one murder to another. I find it all pretty simple to explain myself - I don't see what's so difficult to understand. Bava's penchant for cynicism and his fascination with humanity's dark side has never been more apparent than in Twitch of the Death Nerve, whose plot concerns greed, real estate, the raping of the environment, and revenge.
All the action transpires around a beautiful, undeveloped bay and its surrounding picturesque landscape/acreage, whose owner (Isa Miranda) has been murdered. Those who wish to convert the entire area into a fashionable resort now threaten the forests and natural life. But just who is the real heir to this potential fortune now? And who won't stop at nothing to own it all, or to preserve the land's natural state. Throw in some sex-crazed teenagers who stumble and wander where they shouldn't belong, and you've got the makings for wholesale slaughter. Beheadings, faces cleaved in two, necks gouged apart, bodies run through with spears & tridents, flying pots of boiling water, hangings, strangulations, bodies being blown to shotgun bits - Twitch of the Death Nerve's got it all! Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas said it best, "the horror genre had seen nothing quite like it before - and it's seen very little unlike it ever since." Touché. As with his work on I Vampiri and Black Sunday, Bava likely had no idea that what he was making would change the course of horror film history. Twitch of the Death Nerve was a film for which Bava was especially proud - the body count, the blatantly offensive amorality, the over-indulgent carnality, and the ludicrous lump of unlikable characters.
All these things were purposeful commentary on Bava's part - to take a stab at the industry, the genre; to see what he could do with a little bit of money; to push the envelope; to push the buttons and watch people's reactions. Such are valid and fun reasons for doing what he did. Little did Bava know that Twitch's genius would be singularly responsible for a whole bevy of '80s crap, including Friday the 13th, Part II's blatant theft of two of Twitch's death scenes. Argento's Bird and Bava's Twitch were the nails in the coffin for the first half of Italian Horror's heyday. The dark, alluring fantasies were now gone. No longer would the plots be semi-innocent, or quasi-Victorian. No more wandering through fogged graveyards and abandoned castles. Though Bava continued to make some work of merit in the '70s (Baron Blood, Lisa and the Devil), never again would he find himself at the forefront of the genre he almost single-handedly created. The future belonged to perversion, degeneracy, gore, hysteria, cannibalism, Teutonic witches, zombies and Goblins. Lots and lots of Goblins.