Italy

Mario Bava

23 films · 1960 to 1977

Born 31 July 1914, Sanremo · Died 25 April 1980

Mario Bava was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter. His low-budget genre films, known for their distinctive visual flair and stylish technical ingenuity, feature recurring themes and imagery concerning the conflict between illusion and reality, as well as the destructive capacity of human nature. Widely regarded as a pioneer of Italian genre cinema and one of the most influential and greatest filmmakers of all time, he is popularly referred to as the "Master of Italian Horror" and the "Master of the Macabre". After providing special effects work and other assistance on such productions as I Vampiri (1957), Hercules (1958) and Caltiki – The Immortal Monster (1959), Bava made his official feature directorial debut with the gothic horror film Black Sunday, released in 1960.

Biography adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.