Quante volte... quella notte (Four Times that Night) (1972)

Eh, what a dismal way to end the box. (I'm actually thinking of watching The House of Exorcism for some reason, even though it is just another cut of Lisa and the Devil.

Bava really needed to stick to horror. I can understand wanting to spread out an dmake other movies. Normally, I encourage it. But usually when a strictly genre director moves in other directions, his efforts are pretty mediocre. In the case of Bava, his other movies are outright failures. This is another pretty mod comedy that just doens't really appeal to Bava's strengths. Again, this might be my distant relationship to early 70's Itaian sex comedies, but I just don't find their slapstick sense of humor very funny. It's almost tedious watching these films. The "wha-wha-wha" mentality gets old extremely fast. But that's what these movies are loaded with. Perverts looking at porn. That's it.

There's this really odd mentality that goes with this movie. I hate to even throw in a good movie title into this review in fears of tainting that good movie's reputation, but the idea behind this movie is the same as Rashomon's. Everyone's perspective of the truth is different and there is no right or wrong. But this movie tries to make this point while completely smearing rape victims' credibility. (You heard me. Women only cry rape to get ahead in life according to this movie) But the thesis is that all things are truth and none of them are truth. Too bad that one is flat out explained as a lie. Why go through all of that explanation where a narrator straight up explains the point of the movie becuase we're too dumb to get it on our own? I mean, there's this entire lame section where this sex romp is compared to Noah's Ark. (Saying it right now is actually funnier than the actual bit. That's how bad this movie is.) The concept isn't at all original and actually fails at copying an already established formula! How is that possible?

This movie is better than Roy Colt and Winchester Jack however. The one thing that I can give this movie over that abysmal waste of film is the fact that it is somewhat remotely structured. You know exactly the way the movie is going to progress. Really, this is an easy to film movie that just follows a linear progression. Also, the chicks in the movie are pretty hot. Now, normally this wouldn't be a plus towards the film, but A) there's very little going for this movie and B) Bava was kind of shooting for that. I just won't get used to the dark black forearm hair. It's gross. Okay, not awfully gross, but always requires a second look.

I have to stress: The second Bava box, for the most part, sucks. This was a depressing ending to an already terrible movie. I really should go back and watch the first box just to make me feel better about the director.