Friday, 5 June 2009

Rabid Dogs (1974)

Or possibly 'Last Car On The Left'! One of Mario bava's last film and the last one to surface as it was held in post-production hell for a variety of reasons.
Three robbers escaping after a heist take a women hostage and comandeer a vehicle taking the driver and his son hostage also. That's about it. Many Bava fans hail this as an unqualified success, but I would challenge that. While the film has redeeming factors, what we have here is a pretty nasty, mean film that seems to misfire on some of it's more important points. Bava is striving for realism here and nearly achieves it, but the frantic over-playing of two of the thieves, Blade and Thirty Two, removes much of the desired realism. The film takes place largely within the escape vehicle and the driver, female hostage and leader of the gang retain enough realistic acting that you can see what could have been, but the other two's histrionics blow this out of the water. Bava was never one for realism in his films and maybe this provided the naivety not to reign in these two. He does however manage to achieve the difficult task of filming mainly in an enclosed space very well and the film doesn't lag too much.
A mixed bag.

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