Directed by Lamberto Bava (son of the legendary Mario Bava), A BLADE IN THE DARK combines elements of Italian giallo and American slasher films to create something, well...not very original, but still not a bad way to kill an hour and a half. You have to admit, Lamberto has some awfully big shoes to fill, having a father like Mario Bava--who is not only the Godfather of Italian horror, but one of the best director's period--of any genre. Yet, Lamberto doesn't seem to be trying to outdo his father or have some sort of Oedipus complex, but rather he seems more influenced by the likes of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. A BLADE IN THE DARK seems way more in the vein of early films by those two directors than any of Big Daddy Bava's films. There is nothing gothic or psychedelic about BLADE, in fact there is a sterile coldness about the whole film that gives it a whole different vibe. In fact it reminded me of the Argento's TENEBRE, which was released a year before. The film is set up as a mystery/who-dun-it flick, yet if you have half a brain you'll probably figure out who the killer is about 30 minutes in. Wisely, Bava throws in red herrings and uses a few sneaky tricks to make you question if you're right or not. Still, the films final reveal manages to be creepy non the less.

The story is about a film score composer named Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti) that uses a friends house to write his next piece. The house isn't being used and he has the enormous place all to himself. Soon some strange occurrences start to happen. He finds a neighbor lady hiding in one of the closets and she soon disappears without a trace, leaving behind a diary. He picks up a person's whispering voice on his reel to reel recordings. There's a creepy care taker living on site and soon another woman disappears. All the oddities seem to be connected to a woman that lived in the house previously, whom was also friends with Bruno's friend that owns the house. So left to his own devices in abig empty house, Bruno tries to solve the mystery all the while not knowing if there's a mystery 'to' solve or if it's all in his head. There are moments that drag, but that is probably due to the fact that the film was first intended to be a 4 part mini-series for Italian TV, with a killing taking place at the end of each one.

The score was written by the awesome duo of Guido and Maurizio De Angelis. It is simple yet affective. Not their best score, but even a bad score by those guys is a good one. I also enjoyed the atmosphere of the film (the non linear style reminded me of Fulci) and the look of the house--yet it was hard to get an idea of the house's layout in your head by the way it's filmed. There seemed to be a section of the house that was not connected to the rest (a pool house maybe?), yet at one point it becomes a basement under the music studio area--it was confusing, but not detrimental to the film. The main highlight to me was the kill scenes, which were very well done. The second kill which takes place in the bathroom I would rank with the hanging scene in SUSPIRIA and even the eye gouge scene in ZOMBIE. It's brutal as hell and filmed perfectly--a classic! Also, as I mentioned, the final reveal of the killer is very creepy and well done by it's actor, whom I won't name. Plus the movie director that gets strangled with her own film was very cool too.