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Although he knew he wanted to be a director when he was just eight years old, it wasn't until a school visit to see the Pope that Italian born Mariano Baino purchased a copy of H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Dreams In The Witch-House' and knew exactly what kind of director he wanted to be. By his mid-teens, after years spent trying to valiantly rid himself of a crippling fear of the dark (a fear he has still never conquered), Baino was firmly convinced there was to be only one career for him: horrormeister extaordinaire. And Baino is a man who follows things through. A stint at the legendary Experimental Centre of Cinematography in Rome gave him the tools and, after a brief apprenticeship in television, he got down to the serious business of making movies.
First came 'Dream Car', a short made for a private Italian TV station, which Baino shot in two days and post-produced in less than a week. It tells of the dire consequences of a man's literally consuming obsession for the ultimate four wheels status symbol. Then came 'Caruncula', a highly acclaimed, short cannibalistic fantasy which first showcased the arresting visual style which has since become the young director's trademark. The film received rave reviews on the festival circuit. Respected novelist Ramsey Campbell pronounced it 'Not only a fine tribute to the Italian masters but a small masterpiece of sustained perversity in its own right.' Uncharacteristically for a short, Caruncula sold to television all over the world and even received an American video release as part of the film Tales From The Ackermansion.
Accepting an offer from nouveau riche Russian producer Victor Zuev for initial financing, Mariano headed for the trouble torn Ukraine to begin shooting on his debut feature, Dark Waters (1993). Once there, Baino and his crew were faced with conditions and attitudes which seemed to belong to a truly different planet. From the language barrier to shooting near Chernobyl (having been forced to move from Odessa by the fact that their corrupt production manager had sold their studio space to a rival production for profit, leaving Baino and his crew with no alternative but to brave the nuclear danger), everything seemed to conspire against the film ever getting finished. Rushes were watched only once a week, sets literally dissolved due to rainfall, his film stock was sold from under him on the black market and cast and crew were nearly asphyxiated when a scene involving hundreds of candles went dangerously wrong.
Mariano persevered and shooting was eventually completed. The film went on to win, among other prizes, the Prix du Public at Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival and, at the Fantafestival in Rome, Dark Waters was awarded the prestigious 'Special Vincent Price Award' for outstanding contribution to Fantastic Cinema. Audiences in the UK and all over the world had a chance to see exactly how outstanding that contribution was, when the film was released to great critical acclaim.
Baino's style marks a return to the thematic concerns of the grand masters of horror cinema and pointedly eschews the viscera and shock for shock's sake of the slasher genre which has dominated the medium for the past two decades. Dark Waters, very much a mood piece, relies on the implicit as opposed to the obviously explicit and is all the more terrifying for it.
"Growing up in Naples, I used to be terrified by the Catholic iconography, by the array of very morbid and disturbing images which seem to fill so many churches in Mediterranean Countries. All those statues of people suffering, their agonized eyes staring down at me, Christ nailed to the cross, his mother's bleeding, pierced heart. Deeply distressing stuff." Baino says when asked to explain the strong role of religious imagery in his work. Hooked on Graham Masterton's books since his early teenage years, the young director was determined to adapt 'Ritual', with its strong religious core and the possibilities of further exploring the themes of obsession and self-sacrifice, for the screen and was thrilled when Masterton, after a screening of Dark Waters gave him his blessing. Ritual is now in pre-production.
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