Customer Reviews for
A Blade in the Dark/Macabre
Any movie that has a director being killed by their own film has something going for it...
It's all to easy to understand why Lamberto Bava's solo directorial debut Macabre failed to find much of an audience back in 1980: it feels more like a pitch than a fully fleshed out story, and one that's overly reliant on a shock ending that's pretty obvious. At times it feels like two separate underdeveloped films almost in competition with each other. Unfortunately the most interesting, a bad seed plot with the anti-heroine's homicidal daughter taking revenge on her for her infidelity by killing her young brother and trying to drive mommy back into the asylum, gets the least screen time in favor of mom not letting a little thing like decapitation stand between her and her dead lover. Much of it feels padded out and repetitive and unfortunately leading lady Bernice Stegers, admittedly hampered by a presumably dubbed deep fried Sowthan aksunt, simply cannot carry the film. Too well made to be unintentionally funny (at least until the absurd final shot), too boring to hold the attention and too predictable to offer any suspense, it's not difficult to see why this was such a flop that Bava didn't direct another film for three years.
Lamberto Bava's second film, A Blade in the Dark, is a slightly above average late giallo despite some incredibly some heavy-handed clues (a female director who dresses in men's suits, an actress appearing in a play about Vita Sackville-West, a flamboyantly gay assistant and an opening scene where two children taunt another for being a female - gee, do you think they're trying to tell us something about the killer?). Somewhat surprisingly originally intended for television but turned down for excessive violence, it mostly makes a virtue of its low budget though isn't able to make much of its key location, a large but rather characterless and unmenacing villa that conveniently belonged to the film's producer. Still, any film that has a director being killed by her own film has something going for it.
A Blade in the Dark/Macabre
Macabre Slashing Pleasure Giallo!
Macabre is a really sick film! The story is really twisted and maniacally disturbing, good acting of all the cast, not too much explicit violence, like I said the script is extremelly well done to produce a psychotic thriller with some sexual bizarre feelings. The fx are not present except for the...best watch the movie!
Blade in the Dark is a slow tempo serial killer story because was intended like some kind TV serial feature. It`s very into the Giallo vein, and believe me this film got one of the best homicidal scenes ever, the girl in the bath room! It's a good film with the perfect sadistic mix of explicit violence(the italian legacy of horror masters blood it's here on the shoulders of Lamberto Bava) and Hitchcock influence.
A good movie pack 2 side disc that you don't regret, the soundtrack it's very good too for both films, good image quality and video transfer and includes inlay miniposter of the movies and the price is fair I think. Amazon use to put out Anchor Bay items on sale , the more regularity in this practice the best chances to get perfect saturday nights italian gore delights!
A Blade in the Dark/Macabre
A blade in the dark/Macabre.
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.A Blade in the Dark/Macabre
Everybody's Doing The LamBava!!
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.A Blade in the Dark/Macabre
AWESOME DOUBLE BILL - 2 GREAT SEXY LAMBERTO BAVA THRILLERS
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 Blade in the Dark/Macabre
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