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
Distributed by	Nuova Linea Cinematografica (Italy); Hallmark Releasing Corporation (U.S.)
Released	1971
Running time	84 min
Language	Italian (U.S. release dubbed into English)

Twitch of the Death Nerve (Italian title: Ecologia del delitto) is a 1971 horror thriller 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. 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. Mario Bava (July 31, 1914-April 27, 1980) was an Italian director and cinematographer who is remembered as one of the greatest names of the golden age of Italian horror movies. ... Claudine Auger (born April 26, 1942 in Paris) was a former Miss France and actress during the 1960s and onwards. ... Laura Betti (May 1, 1927 - July 31, 2004) was an Italian actress. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ... DVD cover showing horror characters as depicted by Universal Studios. ... Thriller films are movies that primarily use action and suspense to engage the audience. ... Mario Bava (July 31, 1914-April 27, 1980) was an Italian director and cinematographer who is remembered as one of the greatest names of the golden age of Italian horror movies. ... Claudine Auger (born April 26, 1942 in Paris) was a former Miss France and actress during the 1960s and onwards. ... Laura Betti (May 1, 1927 - July 31, 2004) was an Italian actress. ... The slasher film (also known simply as slashers) is a sub-genre of the horror film genre. ... A splatter film or gore film is a type of horror film that deliberately concentrates on portrayals of gore and violence. ...

Plot

The wheelchair bound Countess Federica (Isa Miranda) sits alone in her bayside mansion one lonely night, staring forlornly out a window, when a noose is suddenly wrapped around her neck and her wheelchair pushed away. She gurgles and struggles, then collapses dead. Her husband, Filippo Donati (Giovanni Nuvoletti), is the killer, and 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 was 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 had talked Donati into murdering his wife after she had refused to sell her house and property to them. To finalize their scheme, Ventura needs Donati’s signature on some 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 dirt poor and is able to survive by feeding on the squid he catches from the bay. Fassati tells Simon that he suspects the countess was murdered. Simon, however, firmly insists her death was a suicide.

The final moments of Laura (Anna Maria Rosati)

Four teenagers, two girls and two boys, decide to party at the bay, and they break into Ventura’s cottage there. 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), have found a bed upstairs and are in the throes of sexual passion when the murderer finds them; a long spear is thrust all the way through them, bloodily killing both at the same time.

Simon is the killer. He had killed Donati, and is now in cahoots with Ventura. Ventura offers him a large enough 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. But 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 has been 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 there 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 heirs alive, 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 blast their parents to death. The young boy and girl gleefully jump over the corpses and rush outside to play.

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. 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. Bava showed great enthusiasm for the film but, unfortunately, the film’s budget was extremely low, and it had to be shot very quickly and cheaply before the production money could evaporate. Bava acted as his own cinematographer. The film’s location shooting was mostly completed at one seaside 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. To ensure the utmost realism in depicting the thirteen different murders, Carlo Rambaldi was hired to provide the gruesomely effective special makeup effects. Carlo Rambaldi is an Italian-born special effects artist who is most famous for designing title character of the 1982 super-smash hit E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. ...

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, expressing 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. Christopher Lee portrays Count Dooku in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE (born May 27, 1922 in Belgravia, London) is a legendary and prolific English actor known for his versatility and film longevity. ... The Whip and The Body (La Frusta e il Corpo) is a 1965 Italian film by Mario Bava starring Christopher Lee and Daliah Lavi. ...

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. Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält, German horror film released 1970. ... Drive-ins are an important pop culture memory for many. ...

It remains Bava’s most controversial film, and maintains a mixed critical reaction. 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.” [1] Phil Hardy’s The Overlook 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). ” 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.” 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…” Joe Dante (born November 28, 1946 in Morristown , New Jersey) is an American film director and producer, who is noted for his vision in twisted humor. ... The cover of Video Watchdogs first issue Video Watchdog is a film magazine started in 1990 by publisher/editor Tim Lucas and his wife Donna. ... Categories: Disambiguation | Stub ... Tim Lucas is a film critic, novelist, and publisher/editor of the video review magazine Video Watchdog. ...

One thing that most critics and fans agree on, however, is 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. While all of these 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. A genre is a division of a particular form of art according to criteria particular to that form. ... In non-technical terms, no matter what the context (whether scientific, philosophical, legal, etc) a narrative is a story, an interpretation of some aspect of the world that is historically and culturally grounded and shaped by human personality (per Walter Fisher). ... Friday the 13th Part 2 is a horror film directed by Steve Miner, the first sequel to the Friday the 13th (1980) movie. ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Multiple titles

Bava’s film is now known most commonly as Twitch of the Death Nerve, but it has been shown theatrically and appeared on video under a bewildering variety of titles. In Italy, its original title was Ecologia del delitto, but it was also known there as Antefatto and Reazione a catena. In English, its even worse. 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), New House on the Left, and Bloodbath (UK).

References

1. Lucas, Tim. Twitch of the Death Nerve DVD, Image Entertainment, 2000, liner notes. ASIN: B000055ZCA Tim Lucas is a film critic, novelist, and publisher/editor of the video review magazine Video Watchdog. ... It has been suggested that Dual layer recording be merged into this article or section. ... Liner notes are the booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or any sound recording container. ...

External links

Twitch of the Death Nerve at The Internet Movie Database The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) [1] is an online database of information about actors, movies, television shows, television stars and video games. ...