Surprisingly I have until now never watched this movie. I am quite the fan of Italian horror, particularly the work of Dario Argento. So when I read that this movie was a giallo by Mario Brava I was intrigued. My curiosity was further piqued that this film was made in 1971 and many consider it a very influential film within the slasher genre. To my great dissapointment I really could not warm to the movie.
Rarely have I watched a slasher movie with a plot so seemingly complicated yet so simple. The simple version of the plot: people kill other people, well that is simplifying it a bit too much. The complicated version of the plot? I feel like I need flow charts to almost adequately explain it. I will instead summarise it: people kill each other over inheritance of land, namely the bay, hence the title.
The movie begins strongly, the opening scene is extremely well shot. An elderly lady in a wheel chair is murdered by her husband, her overturned wheelchair wheels slowly spin to a halt as she breathes her last. From out of the shadows an unseen assailant stabs her husband to death. After this the movie, in my opinion simply becomes a convulted nonsense, the soap opera plot merely serving to move us from murder to murder until the rather bizarre ending.
Some of the acting is quite frankly bad, and large parts of the movie are just filler. For example, there is a scene involving two young men and women, that almosts feels like it has been shoe horned into the movie. They drive a buggy, do a dance, one of them strips off and swims, and you are left wondering: why? These scenes could be cut from the movie and it would literally make no difference to the story. One of the young women has a ridiculous death scene, she is dead but breathing, did no one notice?
I can understand why the movie was influential, it contains many elements that go into the average slasher movie. The thing is, a movie doesn't necessarily have to be good to be influential. Apart from the opening scene the rest of the movie seems rather average, almost amateur. Perhaps I am being too critical.
I would still say that any horror fan should watch it, due to its influence on the slasher genre. You can particularly see the influence it had on Friday the 13th That said, it certainly wouldn't be a movie I would watch again in a hurry.
5 out of 10