Bay of Blood (1971)

When a wealthy Countess refuses to sell her bay and its surrounding land to a real estate developer to be turned into a resort destination, a chain of events is set in motion that involves conspiracy, a conniving daughter, an illegitimate son, an entomologist (for some reason), backstabbing (both figurative and literal), and murder. Well, murders. Lots of murders. Thirteen murders, to be exact.

This is more like it from director Mario Bava. The first murder is committed by a killer with black gloves on - a nod to traditional giallo films - but immediately after that, the movie changes into something else entirely. Bay of Blood, along with Psycho and Peeping Tom before it and Black Christmas, Halloween, and Friday the 13th after it, set the stage for the slasher movie boom of the 80s that redefined horror movies forever.

It's clear that Friday the 13th especially felt the influence of Bay of Blood, from its waterfront setting to its emphasis on creative, gory death scenes. In fact, Friday the 13th part 2 lifts three deaths directly from this movie, copying them almost shot-for-shot. If you're a fan of the slasher tradition of seeing a variety of implements used in dispatching a whole bunch of people, you need to see this - the movie where that trope was born.

What separates Bay of Blood from the formula slashers that came later is the nature of the killer. The convoluted but intriguing plot serves up a unique, and darkly humorous set of circumstances for all of these despicable characters to be offed. The revelations about who is doing the killing, and why, are highly entertaining.

As with most slashers to come, the plot isn't the point of the movie. The point is to add as many bodies to the pile as possible in ways that are so over-the-top gruesome as to be funny. This type of movie isn't for everybody, of course, but for lots of us horror fans, it's right up our alley. If you like a big body count, crazy turns of the plot, bloody violence (in a fun way), and a wild twist ending, you'll want to see Bay of Blood, one of the movies that made the slasher subgenre possible.