5 Bambole per la Luna d'Agosto (5 Dolls For an August Moon) poster & wallpaper
Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

William Berger, Edwige Fenech, Renato Rossini, Ira von Fuerstenberg

Legendary horror director Mario Bava did not want to make this standard thriller, and it certainly bears the lackadaisical mark of a contractual-obligation film. The plot is yet another variant on the... read more read more... Ten Little Indians story, with an inventor taking a group of investors to an island, where they are murdered one by one by an unseen killer. There are picturesque beach scenes and some well-composed images of bodies hanging in a meat locker, but it has all been done before, and better. The visuals are stylish and the production design is sleek, but the familiar storyline drags and the film never reaches the delirious frenzy of such Bava classics as Antefatto despite the best efforts of a cast including Edwige Fenech, Renato Rossini, and William Berger. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Flixster Users

45% liked it

1,861 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 18 min.

Directed by: Mario Bava

Release Date: February 14, 1970

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: May 15, 2001

Stats: 74 reviews

report incorrect info

Photos

5 Dolls... vhs 5 Dolls... poster
Upload a Photo | View All 5 Bambole per la Luna d'Agosto (5 Dolls For an August Moon) Photos

Your Rating


clear rating

Flixster Reviews (74)

  • RCCLBC
    September 15, 2011
    RCCLBC
    I commited to this film as a Bava fan, but I would not subject anyone other then another Bava fan to sitting through it.

    Aside from a great location, sets, costumes and music...there is not a whole lot of positive things to say about this film.

    Not sure if it was the bad ... read morewriting, editing, acting or a combination of all three...but this was very hard to sit through.
  • adammahler1
    July 30, 2011
    adammahler1
    With an offhand plot, lines and character -- so chintzy they don't feel like a structure underneath anything -- this seems like a work made out of pure formalistic genius. And methodical genius: every long take is used for as many camera angles as possible or the character gets t... read moreo traverse the frame in like 10 ways, and NONE of these long takes are economical cliches. A cold world, empty of conscience and full of rich colors and vivid lines and curves. The characters have about as much humanity as figure shapes, and hang together civilly.
  • matertenebraum
    April 14, 2011
    matertenebraum
    Art direction and cinematography are as distinctive as any of Bava's other giallo films of the period, but the garbled script to what is essentially little more than a standard body-count movie really lets this one down. After a plodding and talky start, the film disintegrates in... read moreto a total mess. Bava pulls off the odd visual flourish, but such scenes never gel together. Still, the mesmeric use of zooms, focus pulls, and tracking shots and the stylish use of colour ensures that, from an entirely aesthetic perspective, this film never becomes boring, and as an auteur piece, is well worth a watch. Now, if only I could work out what the hell happened in it...
  • mjgildea
    December 1, 2007
    mjgildea
    About 40 minutes into 5 Dolls For an August Moon, one of the characters says something about everyone waiting for something to happen and it never does. That pretty much sums up this movie. It's got none of the gore or sleaze that later Bava movies are known for, but at the same ... read moretime it's got none of the style of his earlier works either. And that twist at the end isn't even really worth it, but the goofy score and the saucy Italian women save this one from being a total waste.
  • John2223
    May 1, 2010
    John2223
    This is the worst Bava' s movies I have seen. The movie is high in style but the poor script is the movie's downfall, and Bava's stylish direction can't save it. No interesting psychological angles, no gore, no mystery, no engaging. just formulaic dismissal of the cast.
    For com... read morepletists only otherwise keep away from it.
  • necrozen
    November 30, 2008
    necrozen
    While I love Bava as much as the next dude, this movie surprised me a bit. It DID entertain me, but not in the way I was expecting. I got more out of the groovy mod aspects of the film than the actual giallo mystery, which I never thought I'd say in a million years.

    It just felt... read more slow and diluted to me and I didn't really get hooked into any of the characters, like I normally would in this type of film.

    However, I will say that it was still more entertaining than much of what gets put out in Hollywood today.
  • thrusz
    July 26, 2008
    thrusz
    God, these movies just get worse and worse.

    I went from thinking that Bava was one of the most talented directors ever to being a hack from Italy. Here's my major problem with his later films: He made such great movies early on in his career. I thought that the man was a ge... read morenius. But by this period, we just start seeing these overly convoluted movies that really don't represent the genre he's good at creating.

    This is a giallo mod movie. I don't know if that can even exist, but it does. Now, there's always an issue with mod movies in the sense that they totally depend on the atmosphere of the mod scene to carry the movie, regardless of the content. This movie is not totally devoid of content, but there are definitely gaps in the logic that this movie tries to present itself as. Like I mentioned, Bava uses very convoluted plots and this movie is no exception to the rule. I feel like he understands everything in the story, so he avoids telling the audience anything that would give them too much insight into the mystery. Perhaps he is so desperate for making sure that the end stays secret that he just leaves huge plot points out of the movie. I mean, there are characters that you have no idea who they are and barely reference. I mean, they're on an island! There's a killer! You'd think that anyone who'd be on that island would be suspect and discussed to no end. But apparently, that means that the story is simply going to go the way Bava wanted and that's the way it is going to be. Fie! Fie on this film!

    The only real pull that this movie has is that it is pretty fun to see how people are going to get murdered. Really, that's not that much of a draw because everyone gets murdered on a variation of knife stab. Sure, there's one sniper shot and the body is dragged away. (Why? Who knows? Maybe to distract you from the fact of who the real killer is. Too bad you can't solve it because, as I mentioned time-and-time again, there's just not enough info to make heads or tails of this movie.) I do like Bava significantly better when there is a body count. What this movie really reminds me is Bay of Blood (or for you people with the older print of the movie: Twitch of the Death Nerve.) But Bay of Blood has the cryptic storytelling with an eventual payoff and huge amount of gore. This movie (in comparison) is extremely tame with the gore. Really, the goriest scene is not even a real death. More often than not, you'll find bodies, but not actually see where things went haywire.

    This really is a mess of a movie. Somewhere in here, there's a halfway decent film just begging to be recut and partially reshot. I'm not saying that this movie is anywhere near the mess that Roy Colt and Winchester Jack is, but there needs to be some massive restructuring for this movie to be considered good.
  • kingmob6
    January 5, 2008
    kingmob6
    Not Bava's best work by a long shot, this loose adaptation of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians is more of an exercise in style than anything. Pretty pictures, but the plot does meander in spite of a fairly short running time.

    Rental at best.
  • the6teens
    March 21, 2007
    the6teens
    Bava's visual brilliance and wicked sense of humor elevate this standard who-dunnit to a real delight.
  • flynnparadox
    December 1, 2006
    flynnparadox
    Interesting but not totally successful Bava picture. The Maestro creates a strange vibe by not actually showing any of the murders onscreen but the plot is quite weak. Edwige Fenech is, as always, really, really good.

View All 5 Bambole per la Luna d'Agosto (5 Dolls For an August Moon) Reviews

Critic Reviews

September 4, 2004
Film4

Click to read the article Full Review

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Cast

More Like This

Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • Tutti i Colori del Buio (All the Colors of the Dark) (They're Coming to Get You)
    Tutti i Colori del Buio (All the Colors of th... (100%)
  • A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (Una Lucertola con la pelle di donna)
    A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (Una Lucertola con... (100%)
  • Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh)
    Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh (The Stra... (100%)
  • And Then There Were None
    And Then There Were None (100%)

More Movies like 5 Bambole per la Luna d'Agosto (5 Dolls For an August Moon)

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

5 Bambole per la ... : Watch Free on TV

5 Bambole per la Luna d'Agosto (5 Dolls For an August Moon) Trivia

Movie Quizzes

No quizzes for 5 Bambole per la Luna d'Agosto (5 Dolls For an August Moon). Want to create one?

Video Clips

No video clips yet. Want to upload one?

Meet Other Fans

Add 5 Bambole per la Luna d'Agosto (5 Dolls For an August Moon) to favorites

Recent News

No recent headlines. Got one?

Recent Lists

Make a List |

View All Lists

Most Popular Skin

No skins yet. Interested in creating one?