RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Edgar Soberon Torchia I often say that «La maschera del demonio» (Black Sunday) is my favorite film. If I make an inventory of what I remember that I have seen in 66 years, it would probably be ousted by something else, but it was definitely the movie that made the first big impact on my mind. So excuse me, but I will first make a brief summary about its director. Mario Bava was extremely skilled at narrative, visual and budget economy. A master of cinematography, he saved more than one film by directing additional scenes of unfinished projects under the orders of Riccardo Freda, Raoul Walsh, Sergio Leone, Jacques Tourneur and others, for which --as a "prize"-- he was given the opportunity to direct the first film of his own. The result was the classic Italian horror film «La maschera del demonio» in 1960. Thirteen years later, after directing more classics («The Three Faces of Fear», «The Whip and the Body», «Diabolik») and cult movies («Hercules at the Center of the Earth», «The Girl Who Knew Too Much», «Terror in Space») and contributing to the emergence of the "giallo" genre («6 Women for the Murderer», «The Red Sign of Madness», «5 Dolls for an August Moon») that influenced the careers of his son Lamberto, Dario Argento and Quentin Tarantino, Bava went into decline and in 1973 set out to win again his place with this motion picture in which he would demonstrate that he was able to adjust to the times and make an effective police film, following the scheme of a road movie, according to the story "Man and Boy" by Michael J. Carroll. Unfortunately Bava faced great obstacles. The budget was so low that he also had to assume the cinematography, its producer went bankrupt and the courts seized the footage. When Bava died in 1980, the film was still incomplete and was not released until March 1996, at the Brussels Festival of Fantasy Films, thanks to the effort made by actress Lea Lander, Lamberto Bava and producer Alfredo Leone. I did not expect much, but believe me, what a good movie this is! As it has been written, it is a true journey to hell: a tense, cruel, violent, disturbing, repellent, virulent story of a brutal robbery in which the savage assailants take for hostages a man with a car, his sick son who needs urgent medical attention and a woman who went shopping. The number of dead and the humiliation of the hostages increase as the films advances guided by the firm hand of Bava, who introduces humor in the midst of the terror (in the character played by Maria Fabbri, for example), until he leads us to a surprise ending. Riccardo Cucciolla (Sacco in "Sacco e Vanzetti") is very good as the father, calm, explosive at times, unpredictable. There are at least six versions of the film, but certainly the best is the one close to the original screenplay, also known as «Semaforo rosso». Mind you, do not let anyone ruin the end. This is without question one of Mario Bava best films.

Peter Lorme Rabid Dogs, or Cani arrabbiati, (1974) is a cheesy but enthralling thriller. While it may not stand the test of time due to how unintentionally funny it can be, this film has some of the best pacing I have ever seen. There is not a single boring moment in the entirety of its runtime. Everything is consistently being pushed in one singular motion, with no signs of ever stopping. As goofy as this may sound, Italian is somehow the perfect language for this film to be set in. There's just something so entertaining about Italian men frustratingly yelling at each other. The acting is also quite believable, and after a while, it didn't even feel like they were even acting in the first place. Like I previously mentioned, the biggest flaw in this entire movie is how dated it feels. The tension is still high, but it is extremely over-the-top. Nevertheless, 'Rabid Dogs' is still an exhilarating watch.

tomgillespie2002 Although his best-known work lies within the horror and giallo genre (leading to the nickname 'maestro of the macabre'), one of Mario Bava's finest works, Rabid Dogs, rests firmly in the poliziotteschi, or Eurocrime, sub-genre. Shelved for decades after the death of the film's main investor, it resurfaced in 1998 and was eventually re- edited and re-scored by Bava's son Lamberto (director of the sub- standard Demons (1985) and Demons 2 (1986)), and re-titled as the vastly inferior version Kidnapped. Bava's original vision remains the best, and it's a shame he didn't get to dabble more in the genre before his retirement, as Rabid Dogs is a thrilling exercise in tension.Starting with a robbery of an armoured truck that leads to the fatal stabbing of one innocent, three criminals escape by car after one of their own is shot dead by police. They arrive at an underground car park, where they stab a woman to death and take her friend Maria (Lea Lander) as hostage. On foot, they hijack a car stopped at a red light driven by the middle-aged Riccardo (Riccardo Cucciolla), and urge him to get them out of the city as fast and possible. The problem is that the police have set up road blocks and have every available officer searching for the gang. Riccardo also has his ailing infant son with him and the gang caught him on his way to take the child to the hospital.Some of Bava's familiar touches are here, such as the black gloves and the stylistic flair, but Rabid Dogs has more in common with Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) that any of his own work. Throughout it's 90-plus minute running time, the film is relentlessly tense, exploding occasionally with acts of graphic violence and sexual threats. The most level-headed of the gang, Dottore (Maurice Poli), tries to keep his men in line, but Bisturi (Don Backy) and Thirty- Two (the enormous cult favourite George Eastman) have rape and violence on their mind, making Maria's life in the back seat a living hell. Backy and Eastman are both excellent in their roles. Although the climactic twist seems a little contrived, I didn't see it coming, and Rabid Dogs is certainly one of Bava's best, and most under-appreciated, works. Just don't see Kidnapped first.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

MARIO GAUCI A decade after Mario Bava's legendarily unfinished and unreleased 1974 crime film RABID DOGS had been issued on DVD by German company Lucertola Media in 1997, it was "completed" (by producer Alfredo Leone and assistant director Lamberto Bava) and released theatrically as KIDNAPPED not to mention issued on DVD twice (by Anchor Bay, always under the KIDNAPPED moniker and both of which I own!) and once more on BluRay (by Arrow Films)! This latest revisit came via the slimcase edition that was included in Vol. 2 of Anchor Bay's "The Mario Bava Collection", which also includes a featurette (reviewed individually), an audio commentary by the ubiquitous Tim Lucas and the inclusion of KIDNAPPED itself (which I got to soon after). To complicate matters further, the pre-credits sequence – shot in 1996 by other hands and included on the OOP DVD – which had always stuck out like a sore thumb for me, is mercifully jettisoned on the Anchor Bay version of RABID DOGS! I can only imagine how wary Bava (a master of it though he was) may have become of the horror genre he had been stuck in since 1957's I VAMPIRI and how much he was looking forward for a change of pace…but fate would deal him an even bigger blow than his recent disappointment with his beloved LISA AND THE DEVIL (1973; that was only officially released in a reworked travesty entitled THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM in 1975!) when one of the producers of RABID DOGS died suddenly and the raw footage was impounded by creditors…until leading lady Lea Lander secured rights to the film well over 20 years after its shooting and long after its creator had left this mortal coil! Even so, the version of the film that is presented on the Anchor Bay DVD represents the pinnacle of the "Eurocrime" subgenre of Italian film-making that lasted until 1980 (the year of Mario Bava's demise) and was a direct result of the 1968 political uprisings that occurred all over Europe.The premise, as denoted by the retitling to KIDNAPPED, deals with just such an incident following a bloody payroll robbery in broad daylight…but, thanks to one of the greatest twist endings in film history, we realize that there are multiple crimes of this sort going on throughout the film. Basically, the film becomes a savagely ironic road movie but with palpable political and social overtones that prevailed during that turbulent period in Italian history marked by violent terrorist activities and which came to be known as "Gli Anni di Piombo" (The Lead Years). The sheer fact that the film is almost entirely set within the confines of a handful of changing cars containing (at one point or another) seven characters creates an overpowering sense of claustrophobia that not even the occasional countryside stops are able to diminish. For this reason, it was of the utmost importance that the actors chosen were up to the gruelling challenge of the sweaty roles and, thankfully, all the performers here come up trumps. The trio of robbers are portrayed by Maurice Poli (as the "Doctor", the most level-headed of the bunch but not averse to sudden burst of violence), Aldo Caponi (as the impulsively knife-wielding "Blade") and Luigi Montefiori (as the lecherous "Thirtytwo"), while their victims are played by Riccardo Cucciolla (as the meek but determined "father" forced to act as their driver), Lea Lander (as a passer-by taken hostage by the bandits to facilitate their getaway), Marisa Fabbri (as a belated and motor-mouthed hitchhiker) and an unidentified child actor (as Cucciolla's sickly "offspring").Interestingly, Lander and Poli were both Bava alumni – from BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) and FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON (1970) respectively; Caponi was more famous as "Don Backy", a popular singer-songwriter best-known for his award-winning song, "L'Immensita'" but he had also featured in the film which had given birth to the subgenre itself, Carlo Lizzani's THE VIOLENT FOUR (1968). On the other hand, screenwriter Montefiori was a prolific character actor under the alias of "George Eastman" in such notorious fare as Joe D'Amato's ANTROPOHAGUS (1981). Riccardo Cucciolla is the film's nominal star and his quietly resourceful performance is the key to making the startling sting in the tale's tail as jaw-droppingly effective as it is. Fabbri is somewhat overbearing as the hyperactive tag-along but another notable appearance is put in by Gustavo Di Nardo as a suspicious gas station attendant. The IMDb also credits renowned actor Ettore Manni (as a Bank president!) and Mario Bava himself in the cast, but the former's is a split-second appearance (in a crowded long-shot, to boot!) and the latter literally whizzes across the screen. Still, the film's major asset award has to go to Stelvio Cipriani's memorably pumping score which curiously incorporates snippets of Iron Butterfly's iconic 1968 epic tune, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" that were actually cues lifted from his soundtrack to Bava's own A BAY OF BLOOD (1971)!Although Bava's latterday movies displayed a souring in his world-view bordering on nihilism, RABID DOGS is a relentlessly bleak and vicious film unlike anything else in the director's canon. Still, the foul-mouthed exchanges between Caponi and Montefiori serve as a much-needed breather amid all the sadistic violence and torturous battle of wits. Among the highlights are Caponi and Montefiori's humiliation of Lander in an open field; the murder of Montefiori by first Poli and then Caponi; the latter's cold-blooded slaying of Fabbri and the climactic trigger-happy resolution which sees Cucciolla as the only surviving member of the characters whose fateful plight we had been breathlessly following for the last 96 minutes. One cannot say in hindsight just what track Bava's career might have taken had this been released back in 1974; what RABID DOGS makes irrefutably clear, however, is that this multi-talented and self-deprecating "Master of Horror" was no one-trick pony