Positively Shocking

Normally, a movie that makes me covet the death of its child character in the first reel is a painful slog. Thankfully, someone like Mario Bava has earned himself enough cred to allow me to power through with decent success.

Quick Plot: Dora is recovering from a nervous breakdown in the countryside estate she once shared with her late husband. Now remarried to a pilot named Bruno, Dora finds herself and her young, obnoxious son Marco changing in their new/old home.

Statues come to life, razors fly, and little Marco begins developing some peculiar habits. Is he possessed by the spirit of his late father, or did Dora's doctors move a little too fast with her release?

Shock is the great Mario Bava's last film, made in 1977 with some assistance from his son, Lamberto. While it's far from the top tier of the Italian genre master's output, it has a fair share of strengths that make it interesting enough.

Frequent giallo muse Daria Nicolodi gets one of her meatiest parts, and she makes the most of it. The score blends every popular element of its time into a gloriously bizarre mix of frantic jazz, electronic beats, and classical piano used to randomly spooky effect. Even the isolated country setting works to Shock's favor.

The downside comes with the pacing, which makes the impossible 110 minute run time feeling even longer. The climax seems to ramble on for decades, a sort of clumsy Repulsion-esque mania that just doesn't end. In fairness, when it does, it does so with a generous, eerie bang.

High Points

It's always hard to truly judge a dubbed performance, but Daria Nicolodi manages to do some genuinely deep work with the troubled Dora

Low Points

Dubbed giallo is fairly infamous for its weird/obnoxious children, but Marco is particularly grating, possibly because he reminds me far too much of my current most hated television character, Noah Brat Benson

Lessons Learned

Name your son Marco and life is a constant game of wanting to shout "Polo!"

There's nothing worse for an Italian marriage than sending the husband off without  his coffee

Living with an abusive drug addict, spending half a year in a sanitarium, and getting '70s style electro-shock treatment just might affect your parenting skills slightly

Rent/Bury/Buy

I stumbled upon Shock via a random TCM Underground airing, which worked for a lazy kind of Sunday viewing. It's enjoyable as a relic of Bava's last years and as a showcase for Nicolodi, but probably isn't worth a large investment in your own energy.

Are We There Yet? The Super Sweaty Italian Edition

Sometimes you just need a little sleaze for your morning commute.

Sometimes Netflix Instant is better than coffee.

Even sleazy coffee.

(Obviously, Google Image Search is incredibly literal when it comes to sleazy coffee)

Quick Plot: A band of nogoodniks rob a factory of its workers' wages (which is seriously NOT COOL) but run into some police trouble on their way out of the parking garage. To ease their escape, they kidnap an attractive young woman named Maria and quickly ditch their escape vehicle for one with a full gas tank and, a little less conveniently, a driver hellbent on getting his sick but tranquilized son to the hospital. 

Can we say road trip?

Before you can argue the rules of I Spy, let's pause to introduce our villains:

The leader, most levelheaded, and somewhat sweaty Doc

Blade, the stabby and fairly sweaty one 

And 32, a man who oozes so much perspiration that he might very well be a supervillain named Dehydration

Although '32' is fun in itself, once you do the metric conversion.

Also, he's played by George Eastman, aka Gigi Montefiori, aka George Histman, Luigi Montefiori, aka (in this movie) Gabriele Duma, aka the Sultan of Sweat and Inappropriate Glee

Unless in Italy circa 1974, it was normal for a grown man to enjoy making a terrified woman pee under a long skirt in the middle of nowhere.

We've all been there, right?

Primarily filmed in 1974, Rabid Dogs hit some financial skids and remained unfinished and unreleased until 1997, with Alfredo Leone and Lamberto Bava adding some scenes for completion Either I'm not that observant or I was just REALLY into the movie, because never once did I find myself noticing anything odd. 

Well, odder than George Eastman's maniacally dubbed cackling.

This is, lest you be worried, a sleazy, sweaty, trashy, and darn fun little slice of '70s Italy. It will not change your life for any reason, but it will give you 90 solid minutes of colorful villains doing terrible things with extreme volume. A satisfying twist brings it all together and at the end of the day, you can live forever knowing you'll never experience a road trip quite as painful as one that puts you smack center of highly perspiring Italian men in a station wagon without air conditioning.

Lessons Learned

Snoring implies that you are sleeping

One of the hidden benefits of a leather car interior is that it's ideal for sharpening your blade

The first thing you do with a lot of money is screw some broad with big boobs

Just a suggestion: before committing a violent burglary, make sure you've checked that your getaway car has a full gas tank

Rent/Bury/Bury

Anyone with an love of Italian style sleaze will find little to not like in Rabid Dogs. It's a seedy, sweaty little film packed with memorable villains, ridiculous dialogue, and surprisingly satisfying twists. Stream it today with a few extra absorbent paper towels by your side.