A Bay of Blood

Mario Bava's proto-slasher, and one of the most influential horror films ever made. A tangle of heirs murder each other over a valuable bayside estate, and Bava strings the film together as a series of inventive, brutal set-piece killings with almost no connective plot, which is precisely what the American slasher would later do.

Friday the 13th Part 2 lifted two of its murders shot-for-shot. The nihilistic final joke is pure Bava. Made for almost nothing, it is the missing link between the giallo and the body-count film.