Our 501st post is a review of a movie directed by Italian auteur Lamberto Bava(director of the legendary film, Demons). Released in 1983, A Blade in the Dark tells the tale of Bruno, a composer, becomes involved in a series of murders who lives in a villa. In a horror film Bruno is scoring: a young child, taunted by cruel bullies, descends into a dark cellar after a bouncing tennis ball. The kids hear a scream and the ball bounces up to them, leaving bloody tracks on the wall. Sandra, Bruno's director, explains that her inspiration was the childhood of Linda, the villa's previous tenant.
I can't say I found this film very appealing. Though the murder scenes are fantastic, they are interspersed with long, drawn out set-ups that bog this movie down in nearly inane dialogue. The twist ending is fairly obvious and the dubbing to me seems on par with the worst of the Godzilla films. On the other hand, the main theme is quite elegantly eerie. We know that Lamberto would, two years later, unleash onto the horror universe Demons, but unless you care deeply about the man's filmography, you can probably skip this one.
5/10
3 comments:
you think so? IMO it's one of the best Italian horror films of all time. All the gore, all the atmosphere, the suspense, the settings - I love it!!
The problem as I saw it was, the drawn-out set ups. I don't expect in an Italian horror flim a hack-slash-sex scene-hack-slash, but I would prefer a somewhat quicker pace.
In addition, I just didn't find the house very atomspheric. But again, it's just an opinion. Yours is as valid as mine.
I always found this film to be rather inspired....
Love the creativity of the death scenes.
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