A Blade in the Dark

Three years after the not-awful “Macabre” (1980), young Bava misfires, venturing into a second-rate Dario Argento-like thriller sprinkled with metacinematic touches along the lines of Brian De Palma’s “Blow Out” (1981).

Unfortunately, it follows the “spaghetti thriller” format to the letter:

1. Plot riddled with holes, characterized by a core lack of respect for the audience;
2. Gruesome deaths that set new records for creativity;
3. Main theme music repeated ad nauseam;
4. Shallow characters with unclear motivations behaving ridiculously;
5. Ever-present/all-knowing killer who spends half the time whispering, panting, chuckling (it goes without saying s/he’s a victim of the classic graphic childhood trauma).

Beyond that, we get to see the protagonist’s interminable wandering as he drifts from one room to another in the villa, collecting blood samples and dispensing pearls of wisdom such as: “The difference between fantasy and reality often become minimal… is coincides“.

The fact that perfect strangers keep appearing at the villa as though drawn by a mysterious magnetism doesn’t seem to faze him in the least – luckily for him, they’re mostly all beautiful women.