can't. do. bava. thud!

Keith is gonna kill me for this. Hell, he may even kick me out of his cinema history class. But Ethan and I have come to the conclusion that we're just not into Mario Bava.

I don't say that lightly. I really want to like him. But I just don't.

This came up because the Quad Cinema in Manhattan is having a Bava retrospective this month. Twenty-one of his films. Now, we'd seen a couple of them in Keith's class, and we liked them fine -- particularly A Bay of Blood, so we were eager to see what we could. Well, we saw six of them. Five sucked. The other, A Bay of Blood -- yes, we decided to see it again in this venue, despite having seen it at Keith's -- was good.

Bava was really good at the visuals. There's a lushness, a luxurious fullness, to his films -- especially those set in mysterious castles. Castles -- haunted or otherwise -- are beautiful in his movies. But I couldn't help finding myself bored watching them. I was looking at my watch, wondering when, by God, it'll be over. That's not good.

We had a particular interest in Bava because he was among the leading directors of giallos, a genre that we -- Ethan in particular -- find interesting. We discovered that in Keith's class. But a lot of what we saw at this festival had supernatural elements, which we just weren't into. Of course, I could forgive all that if the story were compelling and the action moved. But it wasn't and it didn't.

As of last night we were still planning to see another one -- A Hatchet for the Honeymoon -- this evening. But Ethan came into my office when I was working, and said that it's really disappointing to head into Manhattan looking forward to a movie, only to find that it isn't to his liking. He used saltier language. So we discussed it for a minute or two and decided not to bother.

For what it's worth, the following are the six films we did see:

1) Kill, Baby...Kill! (1966)
In a small village in the mountains, people are dying violent deaths -- apparently at the hands of a girl who died and wants her revenge.

2) Lisa and the Devil (1973)
A tourist gets separated from her tour group, and finds herself in the past. She takes refuge in a castle with strange reclusive aristocrats, one of whom might be Satan.

3) A Bay of Blood (1971)
Countess Federica is dead, and everyone wants her property. Of course, they're all willing to kill to get it.

4) Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Astronauts, having crashed on an alien planet, are trying to figure out what happened to the crew of their sister ship. And to survive.

5) The Whip and the Body (1963)
Kurt, the elder son of Count Menliff, had been cast out for indiscretions. But now he's back, wanting to reclaim his birthright. Will he succeed? Or will thos who hate him have their revenge?

6) 5 Dolls for an August Moon (1970)
Business associates meet on a remote Mediterranean island getaway to haggle over money and the formula for an industrial resin. Oh, and it appears that one of them is killing the rest.