Lamberto Bava

Template:Unreliable sources Template:Infobox person Lamberto Bava (born 3 April 1944) is an Italian film director. Born in Rome, Bava began working as an assistant director for his director father Mario Bava. Lamberto co-directed the 1979 television film La Venere d'Ille with his father and in 1980 directed his first solo feature film Macabre.

Bava continued working in the 1980s and collaborated with Dario Argento on films such as Demons. After 1990, Bava's work was predominantly involved with television, such as his Fantaghirò series.

Biography

Lamberto Bava was born in Rome, Italy on 3 April 1944.Template:Sfn Lamberto's father Mario Bava was a film director known primarily as a director of horror films.Template:Sfn Lamberto's film career began in the mid-1960s working as an assistant director on his father's film Planet of the Vampires.Template:Sfn Lamberto would later collaborate with his father on several of his projects, including Danger: Diabolik (1966), Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) and Shock (1977)Template:Sfn (On Shock, Lamberto Bava was credited as a screenwriter as well as an assistant director.)Template:Sfn Besides the work he did with his father, Lamberto also contributed to making films with Italian director Ruggero Deodato, such as Ultimo mondo cannibale (1977) and Cannibal Holocaust (1979).Template:Sfn In 1978, Lamberto and Mario directed an episode of the Italian television series I giochi del diavolo (Storie fantastiche dell'Ottocento) (Template:Translation), a television series with six stories based on 19th century fantastic literature.Template:Sfn Their episode was based on La Venere d'Ille by Prosper Mérimée and broadcast on RAI 1 on March 27, 1981.Template:Sfn

Early 1980s theatrical films

A meeting with director Pupi Avati led to Bava directing his own feature film Macabre in 1980 which was co-written with Pupi and Antonio Avati.Template:Sfn The film stars Bernice Stegers as Jane, a woman who has an affair with a man (Stanko Molnar), who dies. After his death, Jane keeps his severed head in her refrigerator and performs erotic acts with it. seeing Macabre, Mario told him "Now I can die in peace".Template:Sfn Mario actually died later in 1980.Template:Sfn

Following the release of Macabre, Lamberto Bava worked in advertising and continued to write stories for potential future film projects.Template:Sfn He was approached by director Dario Argento to assist him with his giallo film Tenebre (1982), wherein Bava is credited as an assistant director.Template:Sfn In 1983, Lamberto Bava directed his second feature film as a director, the giallo film A Blade in the Dark.Template:Sfn A Blade in the Dark was originally developed as a television film shot in four 25-minute segments on a very low budget. The film stars Andrea Occhipinti as the music composer Bruno, a man who becomes involved in a series of murders while staying at a secluded villa.

Bava's next two film projects were in different genres than his previous giallo and horror film output. Bava was given a script for Blastfighter, a film originally written as a remake of the Australian film Mad Max with the intention of giving it to director Lucio Fulci.Template:Sfn Blastfighter starred Michael Sopkiw as Tiger, a detective who had been released from prison for shooting the man who killed his wife. Tiger moves into the woods with his daughter where he is terrorized by a group of thugs. Lamberto's next film, Monster Shark, was a science fiction film about a mutated shark that goes on a killing spree with two marine biologists attempting to track down the creature to stop it.Template:Sfn

Late 1980s theatrical and television films

In 1985, Lamberto Bava reteamed with Dario Argento on the film Demons.Template:Sfn Argento co-wrote and produced Bava's film about a theater showing invitation-only screenings of a horror film. In the theater's lobby, a young woman is scratched by a display in the lobby and transforms into a hideous creature who then attacks other audience members, spreading her demonic infection.Template:Sfn The film was followed by the sequel Demons 2 in 1986 which had many of the same cast and crew members from Demons.Template:Sfn Demons 2 features a television program which causes an outbreak of zombies in an apartment complex.Template:Sfn Bava also made the television film Midnight Killer the same year.Template:Sfn The film is about a series of murders which are similar to one that was committed 15 years prior, despite the fact that the murderer supposedly died in a fire. Bava makes a cameo in the film as a photographer at the beginning of the film.Template:Sfn While working on Midnight Killer, Bava began preparing his next film, Delirium (1987).Template:Sfn Delirium stars Serena Grandi as Gioia, a model for Pussycat magazine. Gioia's co-workers end up murdered through bizarre means including pitchforks and bees and then their corpses posed in front of photos of her, which Gioia receives in the mail from the murderer.

Bava returned to television work making several episodes of a series of hour-long films produced by Dario Argento.Template:Sfn Bava's episodes included "E ...di Moda la Morte", "Heavy Metal", "Buona Fine È Migliore Principo", "Giubetto Rosso", "Il Bambino Rapito" and "Babbao Natale".Template:Sfn In July 1986, the company Reteitalia announced that they would new television films for a series titled Brivido giallo would be directed by Bava.Template:Sfn The films were shot between 1987 and 1988 where there were initially going to be a series of five films, it ended up being four.Template:Sfn The first was Graveyard Disturbance which was shown at the Sitges Film Festival in 1987 and Until Death which was released on home video in Germany over a year before its television debut in Italy in 1989.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn The other films in the series were The Ogre and Dinner with a Vampire.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The Brivido giallo series was not popular with critics or audiences which led to Bava's next television films in a series titled Alta tensione which were shot between 1988 and 1989 to be only be released in 1999 on the Mediaset network.Template:Sfn One television film made at that time for the series was only released in 2007 on the satellite channel Fantasy TV.Template:Sfn Bava also did a remake of Black Sunday for the European television series Sabbath titled La maschera del demonio which premiered in June 1990 at Rome's Fantafestival.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Bava began the 1990s with the fairy tale inspired series Fantaghirò series and its many sequels.Template:Sfn

Post-1990s works

In 1992, Bava made the film Body Puzzle, which starred Joanna Pacula, who learns that her late husband Abe had a lover named Tim Bell. When Tim learns that Abe was an organ donor, Tim begins killing people in order to rebuild him.Template:Sfn Bava also worked in television. In 1991, Bava directed Fantaghiro, a television miniseries that was influenced by films such as Legend, Willow and Ladyhawke.Template:Sfn The series was aimed more at family audiences than Bava's previous work and violence is kept to a minimum.Template:Sfn The series concluded in 1997 with eight feature-length episodes.Template:Sfn Before finishing the series, Bava worked on other television projects, including Desideria, between 1994 and 1995, and a second fantasy series titled Sorellina e il Principe del Sogno (1996).Template:Sfn In the late 1990s, Bava made another television film entitled Caraibi.Template:Sfn Bava's more recent film work includes L'Impero, The Torturer and Ghost Son.Template:Sfn

Filmography

Title	Year	Credited as				Notes	Template:Abbr
		Director	Screenwriter	Assistant director	Other
The Road to Fort Alamo	1964			Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Planet of the Vampires	1965			Template:Yes
Savage Gringo	1966			Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Kill, Baby, Kill				Template:Yes
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs				Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Danger: Diabolik	1968			Template:Yes
Hatchet for the Honeymoon	1970			Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Roy Colt & Winchester Jack				Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Baron Blood	1972			Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
The Kiss	1974			Template:Yes			Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Lisa and the Devil				Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Last Cannibal World	1977			Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Continuity	Template:Sfn
Shock			Template:Yes	Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Inferno	1980			Template:Yes
Cannibal Holocaust				Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Macabre		Template:Yes	Template:Yes				.
Tenebrae	1982			Template:Yes
Template:Sort	1983	Template:Yes			Template:Yes	Producer, editing	Template:Sfn
Blastfighter	1984	Template:Yes
Monster Shark	1984Template:Failed verification	Template:Yes					Template:Sfn
Demons	1985	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
Demons 2	1986	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
Midnight Killer	1986	Template:Yes	Template:Yes		Template:Yes	Producer, film editor	Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Delirium	1987	Template:Yes
Body Puzzle	1992	Template:Yes	Template:Yes				Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Rabid Dogs	1998			Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
The Torturer	2005	Template:Yes	Template:Yes				Template:Better source
Ghost Son	2007	Template:Yes	Template:Yes				Template:Better source
Twins	Template:N/a	Template:Yes				Shot in 2016; unreleased as of April 2025	Template:Better source

Television work

Title	Year	Credited as			Notes	Template:Abbr
		Director	Screenwriter	Other
"La Venere d'ille"	1981	Template:Yes	Template:Yes			Template:Sfn
Graveyard Disturbance	1987	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Uncredited role as the Shop Keeper.	Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Until Death	1988	Template:Yes	Template:Yes			Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Template:Sort	1989	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Uncredited role as a man in the bar	Template:Sfn
Dinner with a Vampire	1989	Template:Yes	Template:Yes			Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
La maschera del demonio	1990	Template:Yes				Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The Prince of Terror	1999	Template:Yes				Template:Sfn
Eyewitness	1999	Template:Yes				Template:Sfn
School of Fear (Il Gioko)	1999	Template:Yes				Template:Sfn
The Man Who Didn't Want to Die	2007	Template:Yes			Made in 1998, but not released until 2007	Template:Sfn

• Turno di notte (Italian TV series)
• Fantaghirò
• Fantaghirò 2
• Fantaghirò 3
• The Dragon Ring (television film)
• Fantaghirò 4 (television film)
• Princess Alisea (television film)
• Fantaghirò 5 (television film)
• The Princess and the Pauper
• Pirates: Blood Brothers
• Human Currency (television miniseries)
• Visions of Murder (television film)
• Tailor-Made Murder (television film)
• Kammerspiel (television film)

References

Bibliography

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External links

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