Rabid Dogs (1974)

Pretty Good

Let's be realistic.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

For many years Rabid Dogs was Mario Bava's lost movie. Having seen it, it's criminal that it was never released directly after it was made. It's a very mean and clever crime-thriller that once again showcases Bava's versatility as a film-maker. It's very hard to say how well Rabid Dogs would have done at the box office back in the 70's. It's extremely hard-edged at times, with scenes of sexual humiliation that can be difficult to watch. But in this sense it is no different from a slew of other successful early 70's films such as Deliverance, Straw Dogs or A Clockwork Orange. So its mean-spiritedness was entirely in keeping with the times. Like those other celebrated films I mentioned, Rabid Dogs is a very well made movie, with a tight script, good performances, a nice score and, despite the fact the story almost exclusively takes place in a car, solid cinematography. It also has an extremely satisfying ending.It's about the aftermath of a heist when a gang of violent criminals kidnap a woman then a man and his son. The focus of the film is entirely on these characters.Mario Bava is rightly respected as one of the most significant Italian genre directors. He made his name primarily on the back of his horror films. These movies were imbued with a beautiful and colourful aesthetic that clearly influenced the likes of Dario Argento. Rabid Dogs is atypical of Bava's work. It does not feature the candy-coloured lighting or the fantastical nature of much of his celebrated earlier work. It is, instead, a harsh realistic movie. It's brutality is strong and it's easily Bava's most shocking film alongside his nihilistic proto-slasher Bay of Blood; another film from the latter part of his career. But where that movie is imbued with a black humour and revels in it's gloriously over-the-top carnage, Rabid Dogs has a deadly serious tone and its disturbing nature is derived mainly from sexual-humiliation and psychological terror, and not purely from graphic violence. It's the most disturbing film in Bava's highly impressive repertoire.The film shares the nihilism and cynical view of human nature that is so evident in so many of the directors other films. The atmosphere is one of dread and claustrophobia. The criminal gang is terrifyingly authentic in their nastiness - Don Backy and Luigi Montefiori make for very convincing psychopaths. The acting in general is universally good from all involved and the characters are more three dimensional than is often the case in 70's Italian thrillers. And everything is held together by a plot line that is intelligently constructed and benefits from repeat viewings.A different version of this film was re-edited, re-scored and had additional footage added. The resultant film was entitled Kidnapped. It is definitely the lesser of the two versions, although not without interest. The insertion of the couple of new scenes seemed to work for me; not necessarily an improvement but an interesting alternative. The same cannot be said of Stelvio Cipriani's new score. Where his original soundtrack was sparse and dramatic, the new one seems out of place. We have the odd spectacle of a film from 1974, being released in 1997 with a score that sounds like it is from 1982. Having seen Kidnapped before Rabid Dogs and only once, I can't say definitively how the re-edits compare, but there did appear to be a few unnecessary changes and over-all the movie certainly appeared to move along at a little more sluggish pace. Overall, I would definitely have to recommend the Rabid Dogs version, but if you get the chance check out Kidnapped too as a point of comparison.This is one of Mario Bava's best and least typical films. It shows if proof was needed, that Bava was capable of making sparse, nasty and uncompromising stuff. The year before this he made another unappreciated masterwork, Lisa and the Devil; Rabid Dogs shares that movie's troubled history but it could not be further away in tone. It proves that Bava was truly a master of dark and troubling cinema; that he was as adept with tough muscular narratives as he was with lush Gothic nightmare worlds.

Rabid Dogs (1974) **** (out of 4) A father (Riccardo Cucciolla) is rushing his young son to the hospital because he is near death but before getting there three criminals and their female hostage kidnap them and force them to drive them away from the police. The leader, Doctor (Maurice Poli), and his two assistants (Don Backy, George Eastman) are all crazed madmen who want to escape the police with their money and they don't care what happens to the sick child. It's been many years since I last saw this film and while it went down a few pages in my book I still think it's a very impressive film that would have done director Bava wonders for his career had it ever been released while he was alive. Before the post-production could be finished, one of the film's producers went bankrupt and this caused the film to be seized by the courts where it stayed until 1997, a full seventeen years after Bava had died. Once again the director does wonders with such a small budget and he really creates a nailbitting thriller that manages to have several tense scenes and some claustrophobic moments. I love the visual style of the film, which takes place, for the majority of the running time, inside a moving car. The tight space in the car and the way Bava shoots this tightness makes for a very tense ride as we wait and see what the killers are going to do next. Most of the scenes are filmed in close up and this puts us right in the middle of the action. I also loved the way Bava shows developments in the story even if it's something simple like one of the bad guys pulling a gun. Bava just lets the camera gently slide to where the action is and this slow pace really helps build the tension. The entire cast deliver strong performances by it's George Eastman who really sticks out as the perverted Thirty-Two. The movie is rather mean spirited but it never relies on gore or graphic violence. Most of the violence takes place off screen but the way the criminals have no regards for the dying son makes them perfect villains. The music score by Stelvio Cipriani really captures the mood and frantic pacing and adds a lot of tension as well. Then, of course, there's the downright shocking and out of left field ending, which perfectly closes the film. If anyone sees this ending coming then they're a lot better than I am.Kidnapped (2002/1974) ** (out of 4) This is the re-edited, American version of Mario Bava's 1974 masterpiece Rabid Dogs, which has been tinkered with to the point where it's really not the same film. Producer Alfredo Leone, who had previously worked with Mario Bava, bought the American rights to Rabid Dogs but he wasn't too happy with the edit that had been done in the 1990's so he hired Mario's son, Lamberto, to shoot new scenes, re-edited other scenes and then added an entire new score. You could argue that there will never ben an official, director's cut of this film, which is a shame but I see this version as a complete hack job from start to finish. I'm not sure what Lamberto didn't like about the original editing job but everything his father's film had going for it is pretty much lost here in the bastard like version. For starters, it seems that the producer wanted more of an action movie so we get added scenes that really don't do anything for the film. During the opening heist we see added footage of the police being called. The biggest problem with these added scenes are three moments where an extra character is brought into the film and this really ruins the ending. I won't ruin the brilliant original ending by writing about it here but once you watch the original version you'll see what I mean. Then there's the re-editing of the film. Once again I feel this really takes away the pacing of what Bava had in mind. How can I know what Mario original had it mind? Because Rabid Dogs has the pacing of a lot of Mario's films while Kidnapped doesn't. There's also a new music score added, which is a real killer as it, again, adds nothing to the film. If you're a fan of the original film and want to see how a producer can mess up a classic then I'd recommend you watching this version. If you haven't seen either version then stick with the original. It's funny but producer Leone messed around with Mario's Lisa and the Devil and turned it into the hated The House of Exorcism so it's no shock that he would do it again. It is shocking to see Lamberto putting his name on this however.

One of the macabre fascinations of the "survival horror" genre is to see how far filmmakers will push the moral and ethical sensibilities of the viewer--contrasted against movies where some otherworldly monster is the main adversary (thus clearly defining the bounds of "good" and "evil"), something like "Last House on the Left" is more prone to pushing our buttons because the perpetrators are as flesh-and-blood as any human being. "Rabid Dogs" (aka "Kidnapped") falls nicely into this tradition, and could be the finest variation on the formula next to Wes Craven's landmark. As directed by Mario Bava, the film is a visually stunning and uncomfortably claustrophobic tale of three criminals who commit an early-morning robbery and take three hostages (a female pedestrian, and the father of a sick child) and embark on a road trip wrought with sleaze and violence. While most renowned for his period horror films, Bava brings his own sense of visual flair to the proceedings (note how he films the deserted "farm" like a Gothic castle), contrasting panoramic shots of open, seemingly empty highways and countrysides with invasive, cramped close-ups of the criminals and hostages (in a way, we begin to also feel like captives in a hot car). Bava is surprisingly fearless in his portrayal of amorality, but the script actually develops both victim and victimized beyond the usual genre predictability--by the time we reach the film's closing twist, "Rabid Dogs" has made a stinging indictment against the greed and violence of the modern world, wrapped up in an unapologetically nihilistic package. It's a good, hard-hitting genre piece that may just make you think a little.

A trio of brutal criminals -- ruthless ringleader Doctor (superbly played by Maurice Poli), vicious psycho Thirty-Two (an incredibly feral and frightening performance by Luigi Montefiori), and his equally nasty buddy Blade (a memorably vile Aldo Caponi) -- barely manage to pull off a payroll heist. With one of their number shot down by the cops and every minute of the essence, the dangerous hoodlums are forced to take three hostages: middle-aged Riccardo (the excellent Riccardo Cuciolla), his sickly infant son, and lovely young lady Maria (the fetching Lea Lander). They all go on the lam in Riccardo's car. Director Mario Bava, working from a tight and bleak script by Alessandro Parenzo, relates the gripping story at a relentless barnstorming pace, does a masterful job of creating a hard, gritty, no-nonsense tone, and wrings plenty of nerve-wracking suspense from the claustrophobic confines of the constantly moving automobile. Moreover, Bava's trademark black humor is notably absent here; in its place there's a mean and unsparing nihilism that's a true savage and shocking wonder to behold. Stelvio Cipriani's thrilling, pulsating score further enhances the grungy excitement while Emilio Varriano's plain, yet polished cinematography likewise does the trick. Starting with a deliriously messy opening robbery sequence, given an extra stinging edge by several startling outbursts of raw, ugly violence, the extremely coarse dialogue, and the fierce sweltering hot summer day setting, and perfectly capped off with a great surprise bummer double twist ending, this simply stupendous crime thriller winner makes the grade with flying colors. Absolutely astounding.