A Blade In The Dark

Starring:Andrea Occhipinti, Anny Papa, Fabiola Toledo, Michele Soavi, Valeria Cavalli, Stanko Molnar, Lara Naszinsky, Giovanni Frezza, Marco Vivio
Director: Lamberto Bava
Studio: Anchor Bay
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

A blade in the dark/Macabre.
Everybody's Doing The LamBava!!
AWESOME DOUBLE BILL - 2 GREAT SEXY LAMBERTO BAVA THRILLERS
A light in the dark

A Blade in the Dark/Macabre
Starring: Bernice Stegers , Stanko Molnar , Veronica Zinny , Roberto Posse , and Ferdinando Orlandi
Director: Lamberto Bava
Manufacturer: Starz / Anchor Bay
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0000AC8L7
Release Date: 2003-09-09

Customer Reviews:

A blade in the dark/Macabre........2006-04-25

This double bill from Anchor Bay is excellent both films are from director Lamberto Bava son of director Mario Bava one of the earliest directors who did gialo films and has influinced other directors like Dario Argento and his son Lamberto. A blade in the dark tells the story of a young composer living in a secluded villa to finish work on composing a score for a horror film that his friend has made but soon finds himself caught up in a nightmare of murder and mystery. Lamberto Bava definently shows his talent behind the camera especialy when he sets up the intense scenes like the one where the killer is in the bathroom or the swimming pool scene which is stylishly made and the death scenes were very gory and bloody. If you liked the films of Dario Argento like Tenebrea or Deep red then you should deffinently check out A blade in the dark. Macabre is a different film from Lamberto and is more like a weird and twisted psychological thriller it is also his debut film, a married woman loses her lover who shes been having an affair with in a car crash that happened to decapatate him she is then traumatised by this incident and gets locked up in a mental institute, when she gets released she soon moves out to an appartment in New Orleans. This film has a shock ending but it doesn't quite work because you probably know whats going to happen unless you haven't read the back of the cover but still it was very wierd and entertaining I highly recomend this drive-in double feature from Anchor Bay it was fantastic.

Everybody's Doing The LamBava!!.......2006-03-26

A Blade In the Dark is a nifty little giallo from Lamberto Bava. It stars everyone's favorite Keanu Reeves lookalike, Andrea Occhipinti. He plays a kind of fictional Claudio Simonetti who's composing a score for a horror flick. He rents a villa for the purpose of writing the score. Then, in the immortal words of Thin Lizzy, "There's a killer on the loose again....A ladykiller on the loose". In the giallo tradition, Andrea becomes obsessed with finding out more about his home's former tenant and where the victims' bodies are.....or if a murder even occured. Andrea seems to keep his cool rather well considering he knows the killer has been in, and committed their crimes inside his home. Lots of red herrings, some brutal killings and a slow and steady pace make for a pretty good flick.
The second on the Bava double bill-Macabre-is an interesting one as well. A horny middleaged woman starts fooling around on her husband. Her and her lover have a horrible car accident while speeding to her home where her son has just died. Loverboy is killed and the lady spends a year in the funny farm. Once out she lives at her old lover's place and starts up a friendship with the blind guy who lives there. The blind guy naturally falls for the woman, but she doesn't seem to be interested in him. He's tortured at night by her sensual moaning, understanably angry that she prefers to get jiggy all alone rather than with him. Truth is, she's getting jiggy with the decapitated head of her dead lover. Talk about getting head!! Meanwhile , she's trying to rekindle her relationship with her daughter. The first three quarters of this film are basically a psychosexual drama. It's not really until the last act when everyone's dirty laundry is in the open that things go more down the horror route. Good film. Kinda slow moving, but not boring and certainly with more balls than anything made today. A good dvd for the asking price.

AWESOME DOUBLE BILL - 2 GREAT SEXY LAMBERTO BAVA THRILLERS .......2006-02-13

Horror fans have never had it better. As pointed out by another reviewer here, obscure and undiscovered gems are popping up on cool collections like this one, thanks to sharp companies like Anchor Bay.

MACABRO is a twisted little erotic thriller based on an allegedly true story. Bava's first feature as director, it shows off his pedigree as a third generation filmmaker, a worthy heir to the legacy of his wonderfully talented and efficient father, Mario.

Set in New Orleans, the film is handsomely produced and beautifully directed. Bernice Stegers is scintillating as a mourning lover with a hideously perverse secret, spending a good deal of screen time in luscious lingerie. Stanko Molnar is endearing as her gentle, blind landlord, a role almost the opposite of the one he plays in our next film.

A BLADE IN THE DARK is something else altogether. As Lamberto Bava has stated in interviews, he's not really big on slasher movies. That said, this movie should be studied by anyone attempting the genre, because Bava nails it, almost to a T.

Whereas American slashers rely on the "imaginative" variety of ways a victim can be killed, this movie is less imaginative in that area, but much more intense for two reasons. The victims are well-developed and unique characters, done up with the greatest care in regards to their make-up and costuming.

A simple shot of Fabiola Toledo bending over a bathroom sink with her pantie-clad bottom exposed is charged with more eroticism than every t'n'a scene from the Friday 13th series strung together. This might seem a crude point, but sex is part of the survival drive, and its psychological effect is an important ingredient in all of the thriller genres. And while costumers of American slashers all seem to shop at Target or Walmarts to fit their lowly budgets, Italian costumers working on even skimpier budgets manage to procure items which look expensive as well as sensational.

In fact every set, costume, camera move and lighting set-up in a Bava film is first class. Like most Italian movies, the style and intelligence displayed from top to bottom blow away comparable Hollywood films, where the bloated budgets go to overvalued stars and an overwrought, hit-or-miss development process.

The only negative to either of these movies is an abrupt and somewhat predictable ending. But the ride along the way is extremely satisfying, with plenty of eye candy, perfectly executed efx, great music and several spill-your-popcorn scares.

The extras on this DVD are also very well-produced, including one which gives much-deserved credit to SCREENWRITER DARDANO SACCHETTI. Sacchetti had a hand in some of the best Italian horror films of the past three decades, including Fulci's ZOMBIE, DEMONS 1 & 2, CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE, HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, and dozens more.

Fans of Argento, Fulci and the Bavas need to check out Sacchetti's screen credits to see how important he was to the films they love. Kudos to Anchor Bay for including this tribute to the routinely overlooked screenwriter.

A light in the dark.......2003-11-19

There is still light in the dark for us,horror fans,because companies like Anchor bay bring us so fantastic DVDs for so fantastic price,and Amazon.com bring it to our homes.This is two horror films from legendary Italian director Lamberto Bava
for the price of one VHS.
Macabro is very slow film,it can goes faster,gorier,but if you have the right taste and time,it is not bad film.But Bava can make it better,like he did on second film on this DVD,classic giallo BLADE IN THE DARK.If you like films like DEEP RED or TENEBRE,and still not have it enough,even in this "bigger and with more and more special effects films" times,dont waste your time and get it.

Average customer rating:

Average giallo with above average gore
Entertaining Enough. 3.5
A Dario Argento He's Not
You Are A Female! You Are A Female!
God Has Punished Me, Yet Again...

A Blade In The Dark
Starring: Andrea Occhipinti , Anny Papa , Fabiola Toledo , Michele Soavi , and Valeria Cavalli
Director: Lamberto Bava
Manufacturer: Anchor Bay
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000059PQ7
Release Date: 2001-05-29

Customer Reviews:

Average giallo with above average gore.......2007-05-22

I don't really envy Lamberto Bava. Sure, he's a director in the movie business, which means he comes into contact with very hot chicks on a daily basis. That would definitely rank as a plus in my book. His career also means he doesn't have to put up with the daily grind like the rest of us mere mortals. Another plus, I think. A final positive? He makes horror flicks. That's fun with a capital 'F'. He gets to stage all sorts of bloody mayhem, capture it on film, and entertain weirdos the world over. I still don't envy him, though. Why? Look at his last name. Having the name "Bava" in the horror business would be the equivalent of laboring under the title "Spielberg" or "Lucas" in the United States. Lamberto Bava is the son of Mario Bava, a legendary Italian filmmaker who could lens a movie in any genre with astonishing ease. Mario made romantic comedies, westerns, science fiction, gialli, and a host of horror films. I've never seen a Mario Bava film that I disliked. All of his pictures contain that certain something that makes them a good viewing experience. Lamberto, on the other hand, has a tough time living up to his father's reputation.

"A Blade in the Dark" is a giallo, one of those infamous Italian murder mysteries larded with red herrings, an enigmatic killer, and hot babes. It was only a matter of time before Lamberto tried to cover ground previously explored by his father. This movie is the result, and it's not a winner. The story focuses on Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti), a composer currently scoring a horror film for his director friend Sandra (Anny Papa). The opening of "A Blade in the Dark" shows a bit of the film Bruno's laboring on. A scene unfolds in which three kids, one of them played by Giovanni Frezza (one of the most annoying child actors in the history of the world, by the way), dare one another to descend into a darkened basement. Down the stairs goes the kid, and seconds later a bloody ball comes bouncing out of the darkness! Huh? Oh well. It's all a set up to get us into the story of Bruno and the strangeness he's about to encounter in the seaside villa Sandra set him up in so the composer could create a masterpiece. From the sound of the music he's banging out on his keyboard, I think it's safe to say John Williams doesn't have much to worry about.

The hijinks kick into high gear when Bruno discovers a woman, Katia (Valeria Cavalli), hiding in one of the house's closets. Hmmm. That's weird. Anyway, the two engage in mindless dialogue before Katia sneaks off and leaves the house. She's brutally murdered outside by some kook sporting a utility knife and clad in female attire. Bruno, noticing Katia's sudden disappearance, goes looking form her only to discover a diary she dropped outside. A clue! Upon reading the diary, Bruno learns some intriguing bits about the villa's former occupant, a woman named Linda. It's intriguing enough that Bruno begins to delve a bit deeper into the history of the house. He finds a locked door downstairs that he can't get into, and learns that the room has something to do with Linda. While all this is going down, other women suddenly show up only to fall into the psycho's orbit. Bruno's girlfriend Julia (Lara Naszinsky) and Katia's friend Angela (Fabiola Toledo) both meet their grim end in or around the seaside villa. What's going on? It turns out that the answers lie in the very film Bruno is working on. Prepare yourself for a shocking denouement in which the movie reveals all.

I'm sort of kidding about a "shocking denouement". "A Blade in the Dark" isn't really shocking at all in terms of plot or character development. What we're dealing with here is an average, muddled giallo that doesn't live up to anything made by Mario Bava (or Dario Argento, for that matter). I had a tough time keeping track of what happened as the film progressed, and the conclusion is a real groaner in terms of logic. Another negative plaguing the film is the lousy dubbing. Really, this movie contains some of the worst dubbing in the history of cinema. It's so laughable and distracting that it takes away from the movie's impact. What rescues the movie from the garbage bin is the gory kills. We see women sliced and diced with that utility knife in ways that will make the hardcore gore fans cringe. The killer wraps one gal's head in plastic and then proceeds to slam it repeatedly against a tiled countertop until she dies. The stabbings go on and on in nauseating detail. The murders in "A Blade in the Dark" are so violent that even Europeans had problems with the film. Too, it's hard to ignore the inherent misogyny in these crimes. Those wacky Italians!

Anchor Bay, which I'm told doesn't exist anymore thanks to a buyout, brings us a great DVD version of the movie. The picture and audio quality should keep most buyers happy, as will the extras on the disc. We get a trailer for the film, liner notes from Mario Bava historian Tim Lucas, and a twenty-minute interview with Lamberto Bava and scriptwriter Dardano Sacchetti. This last feature, called "Behind the Blade," is neat to watch, as the two men reminisce about making films on a low budget and offer their opinions about the film business in general. So there you go. If you like gialli, you'll definitely want to give "A Blade in the Dark" a shot. It's not nearly as good as the movies made by Lamberto's father or those from Dario Argento, but the excessive gore and laughable dub job should keep you marginally entertained for an hour and a half. Three stars.

Entertaining Enough. 3.5.......2005-01-29

This is the only Lamberto Bava movie I've seen, and it's pretty good. It's a giallo, and massively influenced by Dario Argento's work, particularly 'Tenebre'. (On which Bava was a assistant director, I believe) And no, it's not as good as that movie, or 'Deep Red' or 'Opera', but if you like all those films I think you'll at least find this to be quite watchable, and there's a good chance that you'll rather like it.

As with all giallo or slasher films, the quality of this film is primarily derived from how interesting the murder/horror scenes are. Fortunately, the ones here are quite good. Unfortunately, all the other aspects of this film are a bit sub par, but this doesn't effect the overall enjoyment level of this film much. 'A Blade in the Dark' was originally made with Italian television in mind, which likely hurt the film in a number of ways. First of all, it doesn't appear to have been made with an English audience in mind, so the dubbing isn't up to snuff, either in terms of performance or translation.(And the dubbing/dialogue never tends to be very good in this sorta film) It is never really incoherent, I guess, but it's pretty damn inelegant most of the time, and is occasionally laughably stilted and unrealistic. That, and there are some rather weird translations, such as when one character refers to another as 'cockroach', in a manner which suggests that this is a term of endearment. The basic plot is that there is a musician living out in a large, empty house, where there are a number of murders.(Or apparent murders. They don't find the bodies until late in the film.) Part of the reason it doesn't work as a mystery is because it's trying to hard to hide the killers identity. Virtually everyone is setup as a potential suspect, but no one really stands out, and the only way to figure out the killer's identity would be to be abundantly familiar with the genre's clichés. And there isn't really much of an investigation. The characters just sorta sit around and talk about who the killer might be, or whether there really is a killer at all.

Yeah, this film is far from plausible, but I don't really buy that it is any less plausible than your average Argento film. Sure, nobody calls the police, but no charred dummies are mistaken for corpses, nor are vengeful ravens used to identify the killer(Opera), no apartments are left unwatched by the police despite the fact that the killer is known to have dropped a note off there, in person, and will almost certainly do so again (Tenebre) and the entire investigation does not depend upon sheer luck and happenstance (Deep Red). (Well, actually it arguably does, but that only makes it equally implausible) Still, the whole murder-mystery is less interesting than in those films, for the aforementioned reasons. The film also has some pacing problems, which I suspect may have been created by it's intended medium.(It would need to fit into a time slot, on TV) Thus, the latter portions of the film are a bit too talky, with characters frequently just sorta rambling on without really discovering much.

This film isn't as stylish as lots of other Italian stuff, but it's nicely crafted, particularly during the murder scenes. It lacks any elaborate camera movements or surreal sets and lighting, but it is nicely shot, and the murder scenes have got a nice rhythm to them. Sadly, the first two death scenes are definitely the most interesting ones. The first one is the best, and it's really quite brilliant. It's a very extended scene, showing both the stalking and killing, juxtaposed with shots of our musician protagonist working on his music, and the following disposal of the body, and the near discovery of it by said protagonist.(I can't come up with his name right now. Sorry.) The most effective part is when the killer is dragging the body over a staircase, with the head brutally thumping itself against the steps again and again. The next, more famed scene, is less extensive, but still quite impressive. It is one of the most brutal murders I've seen in this sort of film, and it has a fairly nice, extended buildup, but there are a few basic execution flaws. Most notably, it involves smashing someone's head against a counter, repeatedly, but the attempt is less than convincing, as the killer sometimes lifts the head all of an inch of the counter before smashing it again, and it often doesn't seem to be being done with any real force. That, and I swear the sound isn't quite in synch some of the time, so that the smashing sound doesn't come at the right moment.(I haven't watched it carefully enough to know for sure, however). Still, it's a very effective scene, with a very cold and vicious finish. The rest of the murder scenes aren't as interesting or original, but they get the job done. The film isn't terribly gory, but it is very forthright and harsh with the violence, which probably works better overall, and is fairly typical of this sort of film.

The film looks and sounds pretty decent, as you'd expect for an Anchor Bay release. Lastly, in case you didn't notice, you ought not to buy this version of the film, as there is the 'A Blade in the Dark'/'Macabre' disc which is also available. I haven't actually watched 'Macabre' yet, so I can't vouch for it's quality, but that disc only costs half as much as this one, and I'm betting that `Macabre' is worth -15 dollars, at the very least.

A Dario Argento He's Not.......2004-11-15

Lamberto Bava is lucky to have a dad like Mario. According the the bio in the DVD, his dad used to feign illness to let Lamberto direct scenes from "Shock." How nice of the more talented Bava to humor him like that! It also said that Mario asked Lamberto to help him with scripts when the story wasn't so good. After you watch "A Blade in The Dark," you'll ask yourself, "What was Mario thinking?"

This movie begins promisingly enough. Three young kids (although sadly, none of them are malevolent) enter an old creepy building late at night. One of them throws a tennis ball down a long, dark staircase. In some sort of bizarre Cool Kids Club initiation ritual, the two really tough kids tell the third wimpy kid he has to go down and get it. If he doesn't do it, he's a sissy little girl. They begin to chant, "You're a female, you're a female," over and over again until he starts down the stairs. (Thanks, boys. Some of us were born this way!) Seconds later, we hear a scream, and the tennis ball flies up and hits the wall behind the two boys, leaving a bloody stain.

After then, the opening credits begin, and the awesomeness has ended. We then learn that the prologue is actually a scene from a horror film the main character has been contracted to score. As it turns out, the scene was based on an actual event that happened to someone the director really knew. Alright! I can get behind that! That opening scene really held my interest! I wanna know what happens next! Tell me more!

Sadly, I never got to find out. The "traumatic childhood experience," that is obviously very central to the plot, is never explained. All we know is that it was based on a story told to the director by her friend, but never what the whole story actually was. What we never find out is what really went on down there, why did the little kid scream, and most importantly, why was the tennis ball bloody?

Like most giallos, this one is about a regular guy who is not a detective or a police officer, who is trying to solve a murder. Dario Argento, undoubtedly the master of the giallo, usually has his protagonist as an eye witness to a murder who sees some weird detail that he is sure is important, but the police don't take him seriously. This leads to the protagonist trying to solve the mystery himself. But this, of course, is AFTER the protagonist has already gone to the police and they didn't buy his theory. This isn't really a very hard concept to work into your script. However, this guy never even goes to the police. The director he's working for asks him the same question I'd been dying to ask the entire movie. "Why don't you call the police?" He explains that since there are no bodies, they would think he was nuts. Well, if you don't have a body, you can't make an arrest, and it's true that none of them have been found yet. But this is AFTER he's found a blade-shaped hole in his bathroom counter top with blood coming out of it. Now, I think that constitutes physical evidence of foul play, don't you? That at least warrants a police investigation. Maybe if they did a search of the area, they could find out where those bodies are?

I know that if the police had gotten involved, he would have been asked to leave the house, and there would be no movie. Call me an armchair quarterback if you want to. I'm not trying to say that if I found a bloody dent in my bathroom, I would react more rationally. But Argento was able to create characters that were believably obsessed with solving the puzzle. This guy's only motivation is his safety, and that's a problem that could be easily solved by calling the police.

Let's quickly review this movie's strength's: for one thing, it has the hot babe who played Eva in Aenigma, the Lucio Fulci film that borders on the absurd. (I say that as if it's the only one.) Not that I really care about that hot babe, or anything, I just thought you might. Also, the death scene in the bathroom was very well done. Lamberto managed to do the blade-through-the-hand thing even better than the master Argento did in "Phenomena." That's pretty impressive, because I don't think I ever recall watching any horror movie and saying to myself, "they did that better than Argento!" even if it was in "Sleepless."

Getting back to other things that really annoyed me...there is a red herring that makes no sense whatsoever. We find out that one character has been telling ridiculous lies about where she's been. The main character even goes to the trouble of finding a PHONE BOOTH to make the call to find this out. Anybody who watches giallos knows that a phone booth means serious business, and an important plot point is about to be revealed. However, as it turns out, these gigantic lies have nothing whatsoever to do with the story, and we never even find out why she told them! Now I can appreciate the red herring. And I know that if you don't have at least one, Dario Argento will kick you out of his Super Secret Giallo Society. But if you're going to have the main character enter a phone booth to discover someone else was lying to him big time, you obviously want us to think she's the killer. Then, when you pull the rug out from under us, (you really had me going with that phone booth) could you at least explain what the heck was going on there?

Lamberto Bava's finest moment was by far the supernatural horror flick, "Demons." In that movie, people enter a theatre and begin to transform into Demons for reasons that seem to exist, but don't really make much sense. But that part doesn't matter, because it's fun. Unfortunately, "A Blade In The Dark," is a giallo, and when giallos don't make sense, they just don't work.

You Are A Female! You Are A Female!.......2004-01-06

Lamberto Bava's A BLADE IN THE DARK from 1983 is one of the greatest giallos of all time regardless of the dubbing, which is rather incongruous and weird at times. This movie is a combination of the great Dario Argento's DEEP RED (my favorite giallo) and TENEBRE (Awesome ending!), where a composer is drawn into a bizarre murder mystery involving the former tenant of the villa that he's rented to compose a horror movie score. This movie had me on the edge of my seat whenever the killer was on the loose; the box cutter clicking made my skin crawl and the bathroom scene made me cringe with fear! The scene where the director of the horror movie in question gets strangled by the film of her own final reel, the one she doesn't anyone to see, left an impression on me; this was perfectly ironic and kind of humorous when you consider that the director is killed by her own movie! I also like the humorous tone of this movie (I actually read the booklet that came with the DVD, which is how I learned about the sense of humor); this must be a precursor to SCREAM in that respect.
Lamberto Bava learned a lot from his father Mario and Argento, with whom he worked with on INFERNO and TENEBRE, which is why this film is so good. I loved the music score in this one as well and I still have it stuck in my head as I write this review! In my opinion, although I knew about this movie since I read about it on Terrortrap.com (which summarized the entire film), the way the killer is revealed made me scream just like the ending in TENEBRE did! A must for giallo buffs and horror movie fans alike!

God Has Punished Me, Yet Again..........2002-09-25

Do not watch this DVD. It is soo scary and gave me nightnares. It would be real good to watch for Halloween in a dark room with your friends, if you have any after showing them this movie. It's too scary and good people are in it that act real good and scary. I ate popcorn while I watched and now I do that every night, pop popcorn and watch this movie in the dark, by myself, because all my friends are too scared to watch it over and over again, but not me. I like being scared. Especially around Halloween time and I also like owning two copies of this movie on DVD because I know I will wear the copy that I keep watching, because it's soo scary, out. So don't buy this DVD, because my copies might wear out and I'll need to buy another one and there's no telling when a scary movie like this will be real hard to find. Buy 'The Tigger Movie' because I own two copies of that one too and it's not soo scary but it's a good movie and I think that you will like it. But if you want to watch my copy of this DVD, I think that would be fine as long as you close your eyes with me during the scary parts, which come at different times of the movie. If you do find a used copy of this movie then buy it because I don't buy used copies and that would be fine. If there's anything that you want to know about this movie just ask because I know everything about it and all of the scary parts. I don't even know who could write such a scary movie, they must be real nice and smart, but scary too. Thank you for reading.

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