Bava + Foreign Horror: An American Perspective (SPOILERS!)

I was born and raised in the USA, have been a horror nut for over twenty years now, and most of my favorite horror films are American. In my opinion, The Exorcist, Jacob's Ladder, Insidious, Pin, Session 9, Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Halloween (1978), and Pontypool are among the scariest and best ever made. Unfortunately, the trend of abominable horror remakes beginning in the late 1990s with Gus Van Sant's Psycho nearly caused me to give up on my homeland as a place to find decent horror. In fact, I'd say that only two of them - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and The Ring - were worth seeing. Thus I expanded my search.

Naturally, my taste in foreign horror is just as occasional as American horror, even among the giants. For example, I went through a brief Dario Argento phase and found that while I liked Trauma and Phenomena, I loathed what most consider his masterpiece, Suspira. In more recent memory, I've enjoyed films as varied as Three...Extremes, Irreversible, Haute Tension, Let The Right One In, and Troll Hunter, but took little pleasure in Martyrs, A Tale of Two Sisters, or The Orphanage. Going back to American remakes, there is one exception I must add. I know most will call me a tasteless blasphemer, but frankly, I preferred the American film Quarantine to the original Spanish film [REC]. Aaaahhhhhhhhh! Why? Simple. Save the difference in language, they're the same damn movie! In fact, I dare anyone to watch them back-to-back and tell me I'm wrong.

Which brings me at last to the present (finally, right?). Thanks to Netflix, I recently had the opportunity to see my first Mario Bava film, Black Sabbath. The title - stolen by the famous English rock band - as well as the severed head on the cover, got my attention. I found it a suprisingly scary, well-made picture that relied much more on atmosphere and tension than needless gore. Of course I immediately added more Bava pictures to my list and started watching. In the past two weeks, I have since seen Black Sunday, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, and Hatchet for the Honeymoon. Sigh. It is with great reluctance I must confess that none of them lived up to my hopes. Bava's films are littered with cool ideas and sensational images, but the end result tends to be less than satisfying. In the case of Hatchet, what began promisingly enough soon devolved into a bevy of serious misgivings. First was the bad camerwork (yeah, I said it). Were all those quick zoom-ins and jumpiness really necessary? Second, John's general indifference to the detective closing in became a real distraction. Third, the fact that everyone else could see his wife's ghost after he murdered her and then how that reversed at the end made no sense. Even the big reveal of John's killing his parents felt simplistic and incomplete. Why did he do it? Was he just crazy from birth? There is no explanation.

I've read several posts in which people praise Bava and call this film an underrated masterpiece, but I just don't get it. I'm an intelligent person familiar with plot devices and film techniques, but the adulation bestowed on him puzzles me. I didn't see Bava's films in their heyday, but that shouldn't matter. True classics lose little with time. Watch almost any Hitchcock film for proof. I was really looking forward to the discovery of a new great director, but I've been tragically disappointed. I may still watch Bay of Blood or Kidnapped since they both remain on my Netflix list and I still have some hope left. Maybe I've missed something. I recall not liking Pulp Fiction much the first time I saw it so maybe a second viewing is in order. I am open to discussion so long as it is respectable.