In issue #731 of SEE, an astute cultural maven (not this author) wholeheartedly recommended Tim Lucas’ biography of the Italian genre film director Mario Bava (All the Colors of the Dark) and Anchor Bay’s DVD box sets of his films as the perfect gifts for the upcoming Yule season. [It was me! It was me! —Ed.] With Tim Burton’s deliciously bloody Sweeney Todd sure to garner critical praise, it seems as good a time as any to reacquaint Edmontonians with the man revered by horror fans around the world as the Maestro of Mayhem: Mario Bava.
Bava was born in 1914, son to famous Italian cameraman and special effects designer Eugenio Bava. The younger Bava diligently worked his way up through the Italian film industry as a camera operator/cinematographer for such well-known directors as Roberto Rossellini, Marcel L’Hebier, and G.W. Pabst. In 1956, Bava, uncredited, took over direction of the first modern Italian horror film, I Vampiri, and the rest, as they say, is cinematic history. Bava worked in numerous genres (horror, science fiction, western, peplum, giallo, spy, comedy, thriller) from 1960 to 1977 until succumbing to a heart attack on April 27, 1980, just days before Alfred Hitchcock’s untimely passing.
Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre is a British documentary from 2000 that provides a thorough overview of the maestro’s career, peppered with clips and interviews from rabid fans such as Tim Burton, Joe Dante, John Carpenter, Sean Cunningham, and Carlo Rimbaldi, all of whom testify to Bava’s influence in evolving the horror genre from the literal to the subconscious.
A master of mattes and glass paintings (a skill he learned from his father), Bava emphasized mood over action—he was fond of proclaiming, “Images are the story!” His films are renowned for their morbid sexuality, their pathological violence, and Bava’s unsurpassed knack for presenting normal situations and subverting them into the most disturbing thing imaginable.
Maestro of the Macabre vividly demonstrates Bava’s enormous influence on subsequent filmmakers, and how many of his films have been “borrowed from” with little or no credit. Ridley Scott’s Alien? Bava did it first with 1965’s Planet of the Vampires. The Friday the 13th series? Bava invented the slasher genre with 1971’s Twitch of the Death Nerve. Dario Argento’s Deep Red? Bava pioneered the giallo genre with Blood and Black Lace in 1964. Even The Beastie Boys got in on the act—their video for “Body Movin’” was a barely disguised homage Bava’s out-of-this-world psychedelic spy thriller Danger: Diabolik.
So as you sit down this holiday season to admire the geysers of blood Johnny Depp unleashes in Sweeney Todd, keep in mind that, chances are, what you’re seeing was already accomplished (and far more successfully) by an unknown Italian filmmaker who has yet to receive his proper due as the Maestro of Horror.

Watch Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre online at www.youtube.com