The lost-film gods smile on fans of ’70s Italian crime-flick grit with Anchor Bay’s decades-late release of Rabid Dogs, aka Semaforo Rosso (“red light”). It’s the final effort by cult-cinema heavyweight Mario Bava, who died just short of completing this gem, a crummy video copy of which a gaggle of Fantasia festival-goers were able to catch some years ago. The film is remarkably distinct from the highly stylized spook-outs for which Bava became known—five of which, including the celebrated Black Sunday and Black Sabbath, pop up in a Bava box set concurrently released by Anchor Bay—and notorious only in part for the legal-limbo saga that kept it shelved for far too long.

A white-knuckle hostage scenario steeped in unflinching cruelty and unbearable tension, so much of which is shot inside a tiny European car packed with three robbers on the run and three hostages, Rabid Dogs ranks at the top of its genre by maintaining a fever pitch right up to the final frames, at which point it throws a punch to the gut with its powerfully understated twist ending.

That finale is sadly diluted by recently shot and entirely unnecessary extra footage, never to mention an odious new musical score and lame credits and re-edits, in Kidnapped, the new, alternate version which the producer Alfredo Leone and director’s son Lamberto Bava saw fit, for some reason, to slap together. For what it’s worth, it’s on here too, as is an informative mini-doc.

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG