Hercules in the Haunted World

Mario Bava was born in Sanremo, Liguria, Italy. The son of Eugenio Bava, a sculptor who became a pioneer of special effects photography and subsequently one of the great cameramen of Italian silent pictures, Mario Bava’s first ambition was to become a painter. Unable to turn out paintings at a profitable rate, he went into his father’s business, working as an assistant to other Italian cinematographers like Massimo Terzano, while also offering assistance to his father who headed the special effects department at Benito Mussolini’s film factory, the Instituto LUCE.

Bava became a cinematographer in his own right in 1939, shooting two short films with Roberto Rossellini. He made his feature debut in the early 1940s. Bava’s camerawork was an instrumental factor in developing the screen personas of such stars of the period as Gina Lollobrigida, Steve Reeves and Aldo Fabrizi.

Bava co-directed his first genre film in 1958: Le morte viene dallo spazio (The Day the Sky Exploded), the first Italian science fiction film. Because he had no earlier credited experience as a director, it was credited solely to Paolo Heusch. In 1960 he directed Black Sunday, which made a star out of Barbara Steele. His use of light and dark in black and white films is widely acclaimed along with his use of color in films such as I tre volti della paura (Black Sabbath) (1963) and La Frusta e il corpo (The Whip and the Body) (1963).

His work has proved very influential: Bava directed what is called the first Italian giallo film, La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much) (1963), and his 1965 sci-fi horror Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires) was a probable influence on Alien (1979). Although comic books had served as the basis for countless serials and children’s films in Hollywood, Bava’s Diabolik (1968) brought an adult perspective to the genre. 1971’s Reazione a catena (Bay of Blood) is considered to be one of the earliest slasher films, and was imitated in the first two American-made Friday the 13th movies. Many elements of his 1966 film Operazione paura (Kill, Baby… Kill!), regarded by Martin Scorsese as Bava’s masterpiece, also appear in the Asian strain of terror film known as J-Horror.

Mario Bava was very disappointed with the distribution of some of his later films (which caused him to retire in 1978 at age 63). Lisa and the Devil (1972) was never picked up by a distrbutor, and had to be later re-edited (with new 1975 footage) into an Exorcist-clone retitled House of Exorcism in order to get released. Bava’s Rabid Dogs (1974) was never released theatrically during his lifetime; the film only appeared on DVD in the late 1990’s, re-edited a bit with some new footage, as Kidnapped. Bava retired in 1978, and died in 1980 at age 65. —Wikipedia