Shock

Shock (1977)

When a woman named Dora returns to the home that she shared with her ex-husband, who committed suicide, things take a definite turn for the worse. With her are her new husband Bruno, and Dora’s son with the dead man Marco. Marco starts to exhibit strange behavior after the family moves into the house and Dora starts to have strange dreams of her dead husband. Bruno dismisses this as nothing more than jitters from moving into the house and the memories that it brings back. But it does eventually become obvious to everyone but Bruno that something is terribly wrong and it involves the ghost of the dead husband. He has an axe to grind and has targeted his former family, but why?

I’m a big Mario Bava fan, so when I found out he had directed a haunted house movie I was all over it. Unfortunately I have to say this is one of my least favorite Bava movies that I’ve seen to this point. The plot is very predictable and the movie lets you in on a huge plot point way too early on. Anyone who has ever read Edgar Allen Poe will have the movie figured out in the first 10 minutes. I also was very surprised that the movie just failed to be scary or build any tension at all. Trust me I’m the biggest sucker ever for this sort of movie and will fall for most any well-executed jump scare. But there is nothing here. I didn’t even find the movie creepy for the most part. Though there is some mother son relationship stuff that is hinted at that was creepy in a non-ghost sort of way. I found the cast to be a mixed bag. Daria Nicolodi is decent as Dora and is the sort of actress that can carry a movie herself. I found her performance to be entirely believable and the best from the cast. John Steiner is her new husband Bruno and he just doesn’t cut it. The performance is wooden and completely devoid of any emotion or connection. Plus the two leads have no chemistry at all. Now here is where I’m going to come off as mean but the child actor that portrays Marco is just terrible. I’ve seen better acting from my niece when she is throwing a tantrum because she can’t get a toy that she wants! This kid is so bad that he is annoying and destroyed any chance that the movie has of building any sort of atmosphere. He also utters one of the most unintentionally funny lines I’ve ever heard in a film, “Momma I have to kill you.” His poor delivery of this one line is a perfect example of everything is wrong.

Now I will say this is clearly a Mario Bava directed movie. There are a few great camera angles and shots that use doorways and windows to frame the actors in creative ways. Also the lighting, which is very important in a ghost story like this, is quite good and would have gone a long way towards making a creepy movie. The music also stands out and is a perfect choice for the film. It just sucks that all of this very competent work went towards such a mediocre story.

I can’t completely bring myself to hate this movie because of how well the technical parts were and the quality performance of the lead actress. But it isn’t a great movie and is worth at most a rental.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer