Tomb

Mario Bava’s noted horror flick A Bay of Blood (1971) might have more alternate titles than just about any other movie. Makes sense to me — that title sucks. After all, the word “Bay” is pretty ambiguous. What are we referring to here, a Canadian department store of blood? A savoury leaf that goes in your soup? A dog’s howl? A large, wet coastal area filled with blood? (Oh God, that’s probably it! Yuck!)

The original Italian title was Reazione a Catena, which means “chain reaction.” Hey, that’s not bad! Maybe we should trade titles with that dopey 1996 Keanu Reeves flick! (Seriously, who’d notice?)

The film is also known as:

· Carnage (A suitably straightforward and efficient title. Mind you, there are 10 other movies called Carnage according to the Internet Movie Database.)

· Ecology of a Crime (nice!)

· Bloodbath (Ugh. Crass and unimaginative. Plus, seven other films have this title.)

· Antefatto (Translation: The antecedent. Perhaps a little highbrow for a slasher movie, but original!)

· Last House on the Left, Part II (This happens more often than you might think. Obscure films get rebranded as sequels to something completely unrelated. Irritating.)

· The Stench of Flesh (a working title that tragically got dropped before the film’s completion. We still don’t have any movies called Stench of Flesh? C’mon people, this awesome title is up for grabs!)

· Thus Do We Live to be Evil (Another working title. People should really talk like this more often. “Thus do we go to Tim Hortons, and thus do we roll up the rim to win.”)

· That Will Teach Them to be Bad (This one just makes me giggle.)

· Blutrausch des Teufels (I can’t read German, but according to Yahoo’s Babelfish translation program, this title means “Blood intoxication of the devil.” Bwahahahaha!)

· O Sexo na Sua Forma Mais Violenta (Oooh, check out naughty little Brazil, slipping the word “sexo” in there. Full translation: “Sex in its more violent form.” Thanks, Babelfish!)

For years, A Bay of Blood was known as Twitch of the Death Nerve. You’ve got to admit, that’s one of the coolest horror movie titles ever. All of the other titles must have come earlier, because I can’t imagine why anyone would try to retitle something called Twitch of the Death Nerve.

This explosion of alternate movie titles is a phenomenon that is particularly evident in Italian exploitation films of the ’70s and ’80s. Let’s look at one more oft-retitled pasta-land horror movie, the marvellous urban cannibal flick Apocalypse Domani (1980). This translates to “apocalypse tomorrow,” an attention-grabbing title obviously trying to cash in on a certain little Francis Ford Coppola war movie that you might have heard of. Some of the alternate titles are even wilder:

· Cannibal Apocalypse (One of the more popular English titles, and also very descriptive of the film’s content.)

· Savage Slaughterers (Vague, and a bit hard to pronounce. Quite visceral, though.)

· Savage Apocalypse (I think two of the preceding alternate titles got together and had a baby.)

· Invasion of the Flesh Hunters (This is the VHS title of the edited-for-violence version. Not bad.)

· Cannibal Impulse (for the French-Canadian market. Nice!)

· Perseguicao Selvagem (Portuguese for “wild persecution.” There’s a title so cool it’s virtually meaningless!)