Shock is an Italian horror film directed by Italian horror director Mario Bava

Mario Bava

Mario Bava was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.-Biography:Mario Bava was born in San Remo, Liguria, Italy...

. This was Bava's last film before he died of a heart attack in 1980. The film starred Daria Nicolodi

Daria Nicolodi

Daria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...

, John Steiner

John Steiner

John Steiner is an English actor. Tall, thin and gaunt, Steiner attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and worked for a few years at the BBC. Steiner featured in a lead role in a television production of Design for Living by Noel Coward. Later he found further work primarily in films...

, and David Colin, Jr.

Plot

Dora Baldini, her son Marco, and her new husband Bruno Baldini move into Dora's former home, from her first marriage, after Dora is released from a mental institution following the mysterious death of Dora's abusive first husband. With her husband away as a commercial airline pilot, Dora is left along with her son Marco, and her shattered memory of the events of her husband's death, caused by extensive electroshock treatment she received while institutionalized. Her insanity grows when she believes that her son has become possessed by the ghost of his deceased father, leading to Dora learning the truth about her first husband's death: she murdered him after he forcibly injected her with heroin and LSD. When she contacted Bruno for help, he arranged for her dead husband's body to be dumped out in the ocean while arranging for Dora to be placed in an insane asylum, as the drugs injected into her caused her to have a nervous breakdown. Killing her new husband, Dora is compelled by her husband's ghost (and her guilt) to commit suicide. The ending shows Marco, the sole survivor, having tea with his parents' ghosts (who are invisible).

Cast

• Daria Nicolodi
  Daria Nicolodi
  Daria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...
  
   - Dora Baldini
• John Steiner
  John Steiner
  John Steiner is an English actor. Tall, thin and gaunt, Steiner attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and worked for a few years at the BBC. Steiner featured in a lead role in a television production of Design for Living by Noel Coward. Later he found further work primarily in films...
  
   - Bruno Baldini
• David Colin Jr. - Marco
• Ivan Rassimov
  Ivan Rassimov
  Ivan Rassimov was an Italian film actor of Serbian origin who appeared in many horror and exploitation films....
  
   - Dr. Aldo Spidini

Release

For its US release, Film Ventures International decided to rename the film Beyond the Door II, under the guise of it being a "sequel" to Ovidio G. Assonitis's 1974 film Chi sei?, renamed Beyond the Door for US release. The reason for the change was the fact that the two films starred child actor David Colin Jr., as a boy possessed.

In spite of this false rebranding of the film through its renaming, Film Ventures International was quite faithful with its English dubbing of Shock. Lamberto Bava's script was adapted quite faithfully and unlike Lisa and the Devil

Lisa and the Devil

Lisa and the Devil is a 1972 Italian horror film directed by Mario Bava. The film has developed a cult following among fans of European horror, it is particularly praised by fans of Mario Bava. Like most of Bava's films Lisa and the Devil possesses inventively stylish direction and evokes an...

, did not include any reshoots or omission of footage, making it one of the few films by Mario Bavo to appear in the US intact.