Editor Reviews:

Description:
The bleak but captivating story of three men who take a woman hostage and hijack a car driven by a man taking his dying son to the hospital. Mario Bava's film was completed posthumously in 1997 by Peter Blumenstock. Told in real time.

Amazon.com:
Kidnapped (aka Rabid Dogs), unreleased for over twenty years except in limited quantities during the '90s, clearly inspired Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs among other American gangster films. Three thugs hijack a car following their robbery, as the viewer discovers that the car's original drivers, Riccardo (Riccardo Cucciolla) and Maria (Lea Leander), have also just kidnapped a baby, held hostage in the backseat. While the nervous couple fights for the child's life, the thugs feud violently about how to handle upcoming run-ins with the law. Set entirely in the car, the film exudes claustrophobic anxiety. On the tail of the renowned Italian director's major boxset re-release, The Mario Bava Collection: Volume 1, Kidnapped) offers a filmic digression into reality from the Bava's beloved forays into fantasy and horror. Though not as cinematically imaginative, the suspense-building close-ups in Kidnapped) rival chiaroscuro moments in Black Sunday for amped up tension. As an experiment, Kidnapped feels like what has come to be known as classic Bava, though his vintage horror and fantasy films are more visually engaging. —Trinie Dalton

Rating : - Well, maybe 4.5 stars ...
I liked the movie pretty much. It got a little ham-handed at moments, but in general it was about as tight as the original short story on which it was based: Man and Boy (in the April, 1971, issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine).

A couple of characters were introduced that weren't in the original, but they did the job of increasing the tension and justifying the full length movie.

I must admit to being a little bit biased. You see, I wrote the story and then during the years the film sat waiting to be finished and released, it appears my name was lost. Given that not just the story, but essentially the substance of the dialogue "created" by the screenwriters (who did get credit) was my own, I feel a certain degree of neglect. Nonetheless, I do appreciate the rendering of the movie. Now, when will there be an American version?