This is a pretty solid introduction to the work and personality of Mario Bava, the Italian director who transformed the horror genre through his formative Gothic films and giallos. Although it might be hard in some ways to mount an argument that giving us the slasher genre is something that we should be thankful to Mr. Bava for, this film labors mightily at that task. Unfortunately it's a very sterile affair, very much your standard DVD extra that was designed as a tool for selling the Alfredo Leone series on Image. It ignores most of his other titles, and features the predictable array of available "major" directors like Joe Dante who attest to Bava's influence on their art. They got Tim Burton to appear as well, apparently by promising to include footage from his then-most recent film "Sleepy Hollow." The most irksome aspect of this whole proceeding is the film's subtle support for the Image line regarding the Bava releases. At one point you have an author in the film talking about how people are now supposedly discovering the true artistry of Bava's films, thanks to proper widescreen releases. Worst of all, the author says "most of these films have only been available before in dubbed versions." Well yeah, that's because they are Italian films and Italians films are always dubbed. The Italian language version is just as much a dubbed version as the English one. A responsible documentary would not try to misinform the viewer in this way.
There is absolutely no reason why anybody should seek out the poorly done Italian language (dubbed, as well) version of "Black Sabbath", for example, which doesn't even feature Boris Karloff's magnificent voice. The only reason this documentary pretends that it's the superior version to watch and that it shows Bava's artistry as never before is because Leone and the people behind this DVD release didn't have the legal rights to the AIP version which actually used Karloff's voice. Besides that, the film lavishes praise on some of Bava's worst pictures like "Baron Blood", presumably because they are being sold along with the rest of the pictures. It largely passes over his work in the peplum field and the western, as well as in comedy (again, these works belong to some other copyright holder). So it is not a comprehensive view of Bava's career, but rather at best an examination of his career in horror and at worst a mere advertisement for the Image DVD series. The one thing I really did appreciate as a fan was all the footage of interviews with Bava family members like his son Lamberto. It was nice to hear about Bava's sense of humor, although I would have liked to know a bit more about his personal life.
There is absolutely no reason why anybody should seek out the poorly done Italian language (dubbed, as well) version of "Black Sabbath", for example, which doesn't even feature Boris Karloff's magnificent voice. The only reason this documentary pretends that it's the superior version to watch and that it shows Bava's artistry as never before is because Leone and the people behind this DVD release didn't have the legal rights to the AIP version which actually used Karloff's voice. Besides that, the film lavishes praise on some of Bava's worst pictures like "Baron Blood", presumably because they are being sold along with the rest of the pictures. It largely passes over his work in the peplum field and the western, as well as in comedy (again, these works belong to some other copyright holder). So it is not a comprehensive view of Bava's career, but rather at best an examination of his career in horror and at worst a mere advertisement for the Image DVD series. The one thing I really did appreciate as a fan was all the footage of interviews with Bava family members like his son Lamberto. It was nice to hear about Bava's sense of humor, although I would have liked to know a bit more about his personal life.