Touches You

Expected more

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Blistering performances.

Director Lamberto Bava is the son of the arguably greatest Horror director who ever lived, the almighty Mario Bava. And while the younger Bava has made some more than decent films himself (such as the hugely entertaining "Dèmoni" of 1985), they do not play in the same category as his father's masterpieces. "La Casa Con La Scala Nel Buio" aka "A Blade in the Dark" of 1983 is Lamberto Bava's contribution to the wonderful Giallo-genre (which was created by his father in the 60s), and while the film is an enjoyable, stylish and supremely gory Giallo, it isn't a very good one. "A Blade in the Dark" begins fantastically with a gruesome scene that turns out to be a sequence of a movie in the movie. Composer Bruno (Andrea Occhiprinti, who also appeared in Fulci's "New York Ripper"), who has moved into an elegant big house in order to work on the score to the film, suddenly finds himself stalked by a psychopathic killer, who is butchering women in the house...Some people seem to regard this film as a rip-off of Dario Argento's brilliant ultra-brutal 1982 Giallo "Tenebre" (for which Lamberto Bava had served as assistant director), but, personally, I do not see too many parallels, other than the protagonist having a creative job and beautiful women being brutally murdered. The murders are not very numerous for a Giallo, but those that occur are very bloody; one of them is committed with a Stanley knife, another one is one of the most brutal ones ever in a Giallo (and that is quite something regarding the genre's tendency to spectacularly gory killings). The plot has holes, which is not too tragic as such. However, the characters are not properly introduced, nor are they likable, which makes the suspense a lot less intense. In some parts, it is also kinda slow as it includes several unnecessarily uninteresting scenes. The score by the De Angelis brothers is once again great.Overall, "A Blade in the Dark" is an acceptably stylish and gory Giallo with a somewhat sloppy plot, that may be seen or missed by my fellow Italian Horror fans. It is definitely one of the weaker Gialli out there, but it is still entertaining enough to be worth spending 110 minutes watching it.

A textbook example of the Gilli, Lamberto Bava's A Blade in the Dark is an obvious homage to Dario Agento, the Italian director who (along with Bava's father Mario) served as his film-making mentor. Bava worked as assistant director on Argento's Tenebre, shot the year before; that film's influence is readily apparent. A major plot element is lifted from Argento's Deep Red (1975) as well - Blade's story also revolves around a composer who finds himself embroiled in a bizarre series of homicides. But Argento was working with much bigger budgets, longer production schedules, and better stories. Unfortunately, A Blade in the Dark can't begin to compare to its inspirational sources. Originally envisioned as a limited, episodic series for Italian TV, it was shot with a European theatrical release also in mind. The spare scenario (penned by prolific exploitation scribe Dardano Sarchetti) establishes only the most bare-boned of plots. Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti), a young composer, rents a large, rambling villa in which to work on his latest project, the score for a horror film being directed by his friend Sandra (Anny Papa). To the detriment of Bruno's solitude the house comes complete with a suspicious-acting caretaker (are there any other types in Italian horror?) and some unexpected visitors - Katia (Valeria Cavalli) and Angela (Fabiola Toledo), two attractive women, acquaintances of the former tenant, who live nearby. When the women mysteriously disappear shortly after he meets them, Bruno begins to suspect they've been murdered on the premises... He can't find any bodies, but clues abound. (Knife-holes and bloodstains would certainly qualify in that regard!) Someone definitely entered the villa uninvited and destroyed his latest demo tape, that much is sure. Stupidly, Bruno never once picks up the phone to dial the police. If our dimwitted hero did the smart thing, however, there'd be no movie. More people die horrible deaths. Meanwhile Bruno wanders about the house and its grounds, poking around and peering into the dark. There are a lot of such scenes in the flick, which will severely test the patience of even the most avid Gilli fan. (Rapido, Lamberto!) Obviously this was done to pad out the running time; too many of these sequences are obvious red herrings, devoid of any suspense, or just plain pointless. Bava does pile on the shocks, though, in the film's two main murder sequences. The stalking/slaying of Katia owes a lot to Tenebre in look and style (particularly the murder of the hotelier's daughter in that film), but Bava ends the set-piece with an original motif - the victim is trapped behind a sheet of chicken wire through which the killer slowly slashes her to death with a box-cutter - that's guaranteed to get your flesh crawling. The death of Angela, when she's attacked in the villa's bathroom, is a real dozy: a brutal, nihilistic bit of film-making that some could easily interpret as an exercise in misogynistic sadism. (Here Bava does for hair-washing in the sink what Hitchcock's Psycho did to taking a shower...) But amidst the unrepentant brutality Bava injects an occasional touch of sardonic humor, most notably when Sandra the horror director is strangled with a spool of her own film - murdered with her own movie. Aside from the visceral thrills and chills generated by these murder scenes the film is pretty much a misfire. The characters are all involving ciphers. It's not much of a mystery, either; most of the red herrings offered up by the plot are plainly obvious for what they are. As mentioned, an inordinate amount of time is spent following Bruno as he wanders about the villa, checking this room and that - scenes devoid of dialog but accompanied by repetitious theme music that quickly becomes annoying. In one way the dearth of dialog is a good thing... The English dubbing job is poor, featuring ludicrous translations ("You're a female!";"I am not a female child!" etc.) that might be funny in a Godzilla movie, but not one about a sadistic serial killer. At times it seems evident that the translators weren't even looking at a copy of the script - how else can one explain the scene in which Bruno chides Katia over her fear of a spider, telling her with a straight face that the bug isn't even a spider, but a cockroach... at the very moment we're shown a close-up shot of (yep) a SPIDER. Huh??? A Blade in the Dark has fans, no doubt appreciative of its effective, wince-inducing set-pieces. We love Gilli, too - just not this one. We'd much rather watch Bava's supernatural splatter fest Demons (1985) for the umpteenth time than sit through this one again. "Just a case of being a bit overwrought." Sandra sums up the movie Anchor Bay does a fine job with A Blade in the Dark considering it's a fairly obscure title here in America. The transfer is letter boxed and anamorphic ally enhanced for 16x9 TVs; as the film was originally shot in 16mm the picture is understandably on the grainy side. The Dolby mono audio track is service ably clear. In addition to the theatrical trailer, a short (10 min.), interesting video interview with director Bava and screenwriter Sarchetti is included. (This is in Italian, with easily readable English subtitles. Do not watch this before viewing the film itself. It's chock full of spoilers, including the murderer's identity.)

The version of this that I got is HORRIBLY dubbed. It's like they went on an online translator and changed the dialog to English and it's so ridiculous. There are words used that just make no sense and I got the feeling the whole time that it would have made more sense if it had just been subtitled."A Blade in the Dark" is probably my least favorite Lamberto Bava film that I've seen so far and I'm surprised because usually I love Sachetti's stuff (City of the Living Dead...) But this film was just full of holes. How big is this villa that the dude is staying in??? How come he's not shocked when there is a woman in his closet??? How come he doesn't contact the police??? Then, when you find out who the killer is, it's just totally implausible.I've seen it written that this movie was made to be a comedy. I think it takes itself way too seriously. The only thing that redeems it in the end is the gore. There are a few awesome gore scenes. The music is pretty cool too.5 out of 10, kids.

Thats right When The Lights Go Out - The Knife Goes In, which is just one of the many taglines to this nasty vicious thriller. In my review for "Stagefright" I mentioned that I purchased this one along with 3 other slasher movies, including the brilliant "Stagefright".The directer Lamberto Bava really piles on the terror with this twisted shocker "A Blade In The Dark" which set in a villa and the movie centres around Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti) a young composer whose being hired by a movie directer Sandra (Anny Papa) to write a score for her latest horror movie who refuses to let Bruno see the final scene for mysterious reasons and before you know it women appear at the villa and gets viciously killed, all of which has something to do with the horror movie he's working on and also the mysterious occupant Linda who also seems to be involved.Lamberto Bava really does a great job with this movie, creating tension and fear at the isolated villa all of which are shot beautifully, the gruesome deaths scenes are also a real treat, although I haven't seen that many giallo thrillers, I have to say that this one has got to be a stand out, the best is "Deep Red". On a bad note though the dubbing in this movie is terrible and a lot of the acting is quite bad, but that's all part of the cheesiness and this movie's charm.All in all a fine addition to the slasher genre, with a few flaws but great tension and death scenes are brutal.