Mario Bava’s SHOCK Available on Blu-ray January 18th From Arrow Video

By Tom Stockman | December 20, 2021

“Death is like going on a trip, darling, only one doesn’t come back.”

Mario Bava’s final horror film SHOCK (1977) will be available on Blu-ray January 18th from Arrow Video

In a career spanning four decades and encompassing virtually every genre under the sun, Mario Bava inspired multiple generations of filmmakers, from Dario Argento to Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton. Best remembered for his gothic horror movies, for his final feature, Shock, he eschewed the grand guignol excesses of Black Sabbath or Blood and Black Lace for a more intimate portrait of mental breakdown in which true horror comes from within.

Dora (Daria Nicolodi, Deep Red) moves back into her old family home with her husband, Bruno (John Steiner, Tenebrae), and Marco (David Colin Jr., Beyond the Door), her young son from her previous marriage. But domestic bliss proves elusive as numerous strange and disturbing occurrences transpire, while Dora is haunted by a series of nightmares and hallucinations, many of them involving her dead former husband. Is the house itself possessed? Or does Dora’s increasingly fragile grip on reality originate from somewhere far closer to home?

Released in the United States as a sequel to Ovidio G. Assonitis’s Beyond the Door, Shock more than lives up to its name, proving that, even at this late stage in his career, Bava hadn’t lost his touch for terror. Now restored in high definition for the first time, the Maestro of the Macabre’s chilling swansong disturbs like never before in this feature-laden release from Arrow Video.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation

• Brand new 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative by Arrow Films

• Original Italian and English front and end titles and insert shots

• Restored original lossless mono Italian and English soundtracks

• Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack

• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack

• New audio commentary by Tim Lucas, author of Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark

• A Ghost in the House, a new video interview with co-director and co-writer Lamberto Bava

• Via Dell’Orologio 33, a new video interview with co-writer Dardano Sacchetti

• The Devil Pulls the Strings, a new video essay by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

• Shock! Horror! – The Stylistic Diversity of Mario Bava, a new video appreciation by author and critic Stephen Thrower

• The Most Atrocious Tortur(e), a new interview with critic Alberto Farina

• Italian theatrical trailer

• 4 US “Beyond the Door II” TV spots

• Image gallery

• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Christopher Shy