Cães Raivosos

There's a long troubled history behind this one, about how it wasn't released until 1996 due to legal problems with the financiers and such like, but the saddest thing is how the world let Mario Bava slip through its fingers as a master filmmaker. How could Alfredo Breschia make five films in 1979, yet Bava had to fire his cinematographer just so he could afford to make this film?

Let's get to the film: Four nasty armed gunmen violently rob a firm of it's wages and during the getaway their driver is killed and car immobilised. After a stand-off with the police that results in a woman being stabbed in the neck, our three remaining bad guys grab another woman for a hostage and in a hurry jump into a car containing a sick child and his father. Get used to the inside of this car because about two thirds of the film takes place in it.

We also get to know our bad guys a bit more. There's the calm, intelligent Doc (Maurice Poli), the not-calm, violent Blade, and the really not-calm psycho and potential rapist Thirty-Two (George Eastman). They want to get out of town avoiding all roadblocks, whereas the man just wants them to leave him and the kid alone. The woman, understandably, is terrified, especially of Thirty-Two and his not-too-subtle sexual innuendo.

You can't write much about a plot like this without spoiling stuff, but needless to say its a horrific road trip full of anger and tension. Don't expect Bava's colour schemes here though, because he plays things one hundred percent legit, letting the sweaty actors scream at each other to keep the mood anxious and unpredictable. The tone is relentlessly nasty throughout. Riccardo Cuicolla is as good as he was in The Case Is Closed: Forget About It, and a good choice to play the man who just wants to protect the sick child he has with him.

This is Bava mind you, so don't think thing play out the way you think they will. After this he only made the creepy Shock, and I've read that film was mostly completed by his son Lamberto. With the right money and recognition, what else could the man have achieved?

It is ironic that Mario Bava, master of Italian fantasy, should make a gritty, realistic thriller as his last film. Gone are the atmospheric lighting that made films as Lisa and the Devil and Kill, Baby, Kill! so unforgettable. The claustrophobic scenes in the getaway car are expertly handled. The increasing hysteria of the gangsters and the anxiety and despair of the kidnapped woman are, in true Italian fashion, slightly over the top. It works, though. Bava never loses his grip on the situation and one is kept on tenterhooks throughout. This, then, is classic 70's low budget filmmaking and it is a shame we had to wait for more than 20 years to finally see it. Rabid Dogs is up there with Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour and Ida Lupîno's The Hitch-Hiker as one of the best examples of this exciting subgenre.

The master of Italian Horror, Mario Bava, makes a heist film that is equal parts violent, ironic and vulgar, most of which takes place in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small car. Three robbers shot their way out of a police blockade by taking a woman hostage. They soon hijack a small automobile with a man and a sick child. Tension builds as power plays amid the crooks and escape attempts by the hostages lead to a violent conclusion which is both unexpected and ironic. Ranks with Dog Day Afternoon and Reservoir Dogs as a unique and disturbing heist film, with several scenes designed to make you squirm. A must for fans of both Bava and the genre.

Cani Arrabiati/Rabid Dogs is a terrific crime drama from the usually horror film-minded Mario Bava. This movie shows why he has been admired by directors around the world for many before and after his death. It is well done because of it's closed atmosphere that entrap the main characters of the story. Rabid Dogs gives an indication that he could succeed outside the horror genre. It's different from his other films because he goes for realism instead of fanstasy.

A couple of things it does have in common with some of his other feature films is it deals with the themes of human nature, greed, and the sheding of the skin to reveal the true self of the person. This film is more closer to Dog Day Afternoon(1974), then The Last House on the Left(1971) when it comes to story. Until recently, this film was lost to the public due to be unfinished for over twentie years. Rabid Dogs could be consider a companion piece to his film A Bay of Blood(the first slasher flick) in that they share some of the same themes and philosophies. It would be one of the last films Mario Bava would direct(the next two would be Shock(1977), and a made for TV movie) before his death at age 66 in 1980.

Far better than I remember from a viewing a few years back, this is a taught and most assured thriller from Bava. What it lacks in colour and theatricality from a lot of his work it certainly makes up for in down right dirty gritty realistic nastiness. These ruthless robbers are quite clearly capable of anything and we never for a moment doubt the sincerity of their various threats of violence and worse. For most of the film the action is confined within a car and with these mixed and varied characters, becoming more desperate all the time, the tension is considerable. George Eastman is at his most manic and some of the close-ups of him and his immediate sidekick are really scary. Riccardo, beautifully underplayed, in contrast to the rest, is hijacked in his car and together with a sick child and a woman hostage are forced to endure a remarkable journey, incredibly well paced. Full of surprises, but nasty all the time, this brutal outing from the master is well worth seeing.