Saturday, October 29, 2016

2016 October Horror Challenge #83: "Shock (1977)"



It was really hard to choose a poster for this movie, because there are a lot of great ones to choose from. This is a movie I've been waiting FOREVER to see, so I'm totally stoked to finally be able to buy the DVD and check it out this year. I think I've mentioned before that if there's anything I love as much as I love slasher movies, it's italian horror flicks. I've seen a few bad ones, but the majority of the ones I've seen I've loved, and this was one of the ones I've most wanting watch for a long time.  Yay horror month, making my nightmares come true!

Mario Bava is one of my favorite directors, because he just really knows how to get under my skin. This movie seems to have more of a plot setup than I've come to expect from Bava in the past, he tends to like to just start throwing creepy things at you from the get go, like he did with "Operazione Paura," otherwise known as "Kill Baby, Kill," my other favorite movie of Bava's.

This movie is about a family that moves back into the house they used to live in before the father died and the mother remarried. The kid loves his new stepfather, but he understandably misses his dad, so there's a pall of sadness hanging over the family even before anything creepy happens. Things do get creepy pretty soon, of course, as the mother starts having terrifying dreams and hallucinations, and soon everyone in the house is affected.

Bava does well with creepy kids, and this movie was no different. The little boy totally freaked me out. Of course, with my history of night terrors and lucid dreams, I'm intrigued by any movie that deals with nightmares and hallucinations like this. I can totally get the spookiness of not knowing what is real and what isn't with regard to dreams.

Also, I admit that I'm not a parent, but I think if my kid started acting like the boy in this movie, I'd take it seriously right away, and I really dont get why they continue to stay in the house even after a bunch of scary things happen. I get that the husband this njs his wife is imaginingthings, but they seem to have enough money to let her stay in a hotel for awhile, at least. Some people's kids, I tell you. All in all, this movie has a lot of freaky moments. Though I question the intelligence of some of the characters, or at least their decision making skills, this is still a good, creepy movie to me. I'm definitely happy I checked it out.

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