Shock

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DarkImbecile
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Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
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Shock

#1 Post by DarkImbecile » Sat Oct 30, 2021 1:14 pm

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"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.

SPECIAL FEATURES
  • High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
  • 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

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Shock

#2 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:57 am

I'm really glad to see Shock finally get its due as for the longest time it has felt like the neglected Mario Bava film on Blu-ray. This is probably Daria Nicolodi's biggest and best role as the central character being psychosexually tormented by traumatic memories (or more?) of her previous husband's coerciveness and unusual proclivities that linger on long after he has passed away and which should be nothing more than an unpleasant memory. Though of course he's still present in some fashion in the legacy represented in the form of their son, and it is rather amusing to see the write up by Arrow above rather coyly dancing around the most disturbing aspect of this film, which is the souring and becoming increasingly more and more uncomfortably sexualised relationship between mother and child.

It has been a while since I last saw the film so I cannot entirely remember how this all works out, but I do seem to remember that the film weaves a number of potential reasons for the events to be happening together, from poltergeist haunting, to the spirit of the father possessing his still living flesh and blood in the form of the son, to the idea that this is all playing out in Dora's mind as she conjures up her tormentor and intermingles and projects that in horrific fashion in her attitudes towards her new husband and the son. Or does it have nothing to do with the previous husband at all and either the new husband or the son is actually just out to have sex with and then murder her?

It deserved far better than to be hidden away for the longest time behind the Beyond The Door II moniker (it kind of anticipates the much more recent trend of 'motherly gaze' growing suspicion horror films like We Need To Talk About Kevin, The Babadook and Relic). It's less an Exorcist-style possession film (despite the ideas of a young child getting possessed by evil that get raised) but more another one of Bava's amazing giallo-styled (or almost Edgar Allen Poe-styled) thrillers with a supernatural tinge to it.

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Shock

#3 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:41 pm


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