A Blade in the Dark
Italy 1983. Director: Lamberto Bava
Cast: Andrea Occhipinti, Valeria Cavallini, Stanko Molnar, Anny Papa
Aka: La Casa con la Scala nel Buio

Musician Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti) moves into a big villa in order to compose the musical score for an upcoming horror movie written by a friend to him. A calm and quiet house he hopes, perfect for his work. How wrong. Oh, how wrong. Weird things happens. Strange messages are turning up on his tapes, sounds are coming from the garden, blood-stains are found, people are killed behind his back. Or so he thinks. No one believes him though. Is it only his imagination? And has the movie he's working on anything to do with it?

The plot (by the writers of Zombi 2) is not that original, although slightly more together than usual. A mixture of Psycho (the schizofrenic killer in women's clothing), complete with pastiche of the shower scene, and any standard slasher. The killer turn out to be... nah, I won't reveal that, but it comes as no surprise if you know the genre. You know, the one where the motive is grounded in someone's childhood, which is here neatly tied onto the movie Bruno is working on during the film. Well, at least it makes sense for a change.

Shot on 16mm and blown up to 35, A Blade in the Dark nevertheless looks reasonably good even by today's standards (if you can get a good print of it, that is). Partly thanks to its slow atmosphere and restrained pace, greatly immortalized by a beautiful photography of Bava regular Gianlorenzo Battaglia, who really makes the most of what must have been a very low budget. Lamberto Bava is always at his best when working on small or closed sets, like in Macabre or Demons. Being the bearded son of a maverick cinematographer director, Bava has clearly inherited the gift for making small sets look supergreat. However, his biggest problem have always been that his work is instead judged with Dario Argento as the aiming-point. Is it like Tenebre or is it like Deep Red or is it like this or that? The ghost of Argento will is always haunt Bava Jr. And for a good reason, he worked for the master for a long time. That said, never has these influences been more evident than in the style of this his second movie. Especially in the murder scenes, which are as violent and shocking (if not more) than anything Argento has ever staged. The film also takes place in a big modern and well lighted house. Kinda like some parts of... yea, Tenebre, on which Bava worked as assistant director. It's also somewhat similar in tone to Mario Bava's underrated Shock, which Lamberto more or less finished as his father lost interest in it. However, for some reason the film doesn't feel like a straight imitation of anything. Actually, instead this the most "Argentoesque" film from young Bava is probably also the most clear realisation of his own style, taking in the best of two worlds and pulling out something fresh.

To try and make a conclusion, A Blade in the Dark rank as one of Bava's most acclaimed efforts and, in my eyes, for a more obvious reason than say the sometimes overrated Macabre. It simply looks so much better. So although I'm glad for Lamberto Bava's sake that he has found success on TV in recent years, I also hope he'll return to the thriller genre more often. That the film still hold up is nothing else but a victory for great old-fashioned craftmanship. It's a great film by a great director.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.