It's Always an Anticipation when coming to a Mario Bava Movie. Considered one of the Best Italian Horror Directors, Bava Never Failed to be an Auteur, always bringing an Artistic Flair with His "on the move" Camera Work, Color Schemes, and a Fertile Imaging of the Genre (Horror/Giallo).This, His Final Film, was done during Failing Health, like Hitchcock, the Talent Remained and His Vision is Incorporated here even though much of the Movie was Relegated to His Son, Lamberto.It's a Creepfest of Considerable SHOCKS and the Strong B-Acting working with one of the Masters manages to Help in the Delivery. Coming at the End of the Horror/Giallo Cycle, while Certainly Not One of the Genre's Best or Worse, it is still Worth a Watch and is only Slightly Disappointing, Mostly Due to the Aging Director and the then Tiredness of the Story. Also, His usual Standout Color Trademark is Surprisingly Absent.The Dynamic Duo of Modern Italian Horror, Bava and Dario Argento, both made some Mediocre Movies (the Human Condition), and this is one of Bava's. But both of the Director's Lesser Works are Still Above Average and Always a Treat for Fans.This Haunted House-Supernatural-Possession Film is a Respectable Inclusion with a Child Character Near the Center and that can be Problematic, but it is OK here. Note...Some prints are titled "Beyond the Door II" and was a Distributor Decision, is exploitive and has nothing to do with the Original.

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 in blood, they soon discover that domestic bliss can be murder... when home is where the horror is.Daria Nicolodi stars in a role where she doesn't just get killed off violently, and with her are John Steiner, David Colin Jr. and Ivan Rassimov. This is director Mario Bava's final film.I really enjoyed the boy grunting out "Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!" and his weird fetish for shredded underwear. And there is a really cool shot in bed with hair flying every which way.Howard Maxford calls it "unwatchable", "childish" and "unfortunate", completely in contrast to Luca Palmerini, who thinks it is a "splendid artistic testament" that anticipates "A Nightmare on Elm Street", full of "high tension". I, personally, enjoyed it.The script was written by Lamberto Bava along with Sacchetti, Lamberto's first script. Lamberto has said the film is more his than his father's, and stylistically that is quite true. Critics comparing this to Mario Bava's other work may be surprised, but I found it was in many ways in the same vein as "Macabre".

Sometimes all you need in horror is a sense of mood in a place. Other times, a warped state of mind can help a great deal by a filmmaker's point of view to get a viewer tapped in. In Shock, we do know for certain that a mother, Dora, her cute little son Marco, and her second husband Bruno, are at a new house they just bought. But what we don't know for certain, perhaps not fully even until the very end, what is really taking the shape of the horror, and that's the key to Mario Bava's success here (actually his last film, quite a feat for any time in his career). We're lead to believe that this is most likely a ghost story - at least at first. It seems straightforward enough: the boy keeps getting weird, sneaking on his mother (even stealing her underwear) and acts generally creepy, and soon get some supernatural mojo with a doll made up of his mom and a swing that can control his stepfather's flight plan as he pilots a plane.There is that aspect, and Bava does get some good mileage out of the mannerisms and kind eyes of the child actor Colin Jr (his voice on the other hand leaves much more to be desired). But then sometime else happens after a little while: we get to follow Dora more closely, specifically when she has nightmares or can't really tell between what is real and what is dark fantasy. She has a dream where she's trapped in her bedroom, and a box-cutter moves by itself, hovering and threatening her at every turn. She also sees a giant brick wall and screams in agony, for reasons that won't become clear until much later. Again, could still all be the ghost going on - who we also learn soon after could allegedly be her first husband, who died from suicide as a junkie.But the fact that Dora was a former mental patient, and spent some time in an asylum and got some shock treatments, calls into question her reliability as a character. Her husband doesn't believe her, but who would in this situation (and, naturally, in this kind of semi-ghost sub-horror genre)? What we see is a split between what is expected, and Bava has a gay-old-time showing us imagery that is just downright disturbing. Some of it early on borders on being just wrong (the boy making sight of her mother as she sleeps, perhaps possessed or directed by his dead father... or is he?), and then other times things just get strange, deliberately. It is Italian Horror, after all, but done without the tasteless style of a Fulci. This is more... I don't know if classy is the word, but Bava knows his camera and knows how to create eerie suspense out of nothing, so it's kind of a bridge between being grindhouse and being true Gothic terror.And sure, some parts the dialog is weak and the actress Nicoldi shrieks so high that you can hear Fay Wray telling her to knock it off. But Bava gets us interested in the plight of this character, what will happen to her as, naturally, she stays in the house because her husband doesn't want to leave (at least not just yet), and what sinister act the husband-cum-son will do next as well. There's are scenes where horror creeps up on a viewer; watch as Dora keeps hearing her boy call out for her from... somewhere, and can't find him, but sees something wicked in the piano room (at one point, I should add, it laughs), and the ambiguity of this scene, among others, drives the tension and madness. While not flawless, it's the work of a master. 9.5/10

So, I finally got myself watching Mario Bava's final film "Shock". As soon as the credits started rolling I realized this was going to be way different from Bava's other works, and not in a good way. Ironically though, the film itself is not bad, but if it had been made by any other director in any other country, I doubt the film would've turned out any different. It's basically another one of those haunted house films such as "Poltergeist" and "The Amityville Horror", even if slightly superior. It's not as if these two are bad, but the whole thing is way too 'routine' by Bava standards. Even if the great camera-work is still there and it does manage to produce some genuine chills, but it pales in comparison "Kill Baby, Kill", "Black Sunday", "Blood and Black Lace", among others, who did it so much better. Scriptwise, it does a good job at being a 'regular ghost story' with an Oedipal twist, but overall, it is anything but original and, as a matter of fact, Bava already used a strikingly similar premise in the obviously superior "The Whip and the Body", and the endings of both films are almost exactly the same. On the bright side, the film does manage to create some subtle, yet extremely effective scares. The final 20 minutes or so are quite suspenseful and frightening, and Daria Nicolodi does her best at conveying fear and despair her role requires. David Collin Jr as the child who may-or-may-not-be-possessed is indeed very creepy, and an excellent counterpart to Melissa Grapps from "Kill Baby Kill". Also, it was quite refreshing to see Ivan Rassimov playing a good guy this time. Last but not least, the Goblin-esquire score by Italian band Libra helps giving the film a sense of total dread and terror. In the end, it's certainly not bad, but rather mediocre for a director like Mario Bava. Yet a mediocre Bava is still a hundred times better than the god-awful so-called 'horrors' that are coming out of Hollywood nowadays. 6/10.