Unclean & Unseen! – A BLADE IN THE DARK (1983)

With its subjective direction, gory kills, and curious-artist-in-danger plot, it may be tempting to dismiss Lamberto Bava’s second feature, A BLADE IN THE DARK, as a derivative mix of two of Dario Argento’s classics, DEEP RED (1975) and TENEBRAE (1982). But when you consider Bava’s maturing sense of suspense while delivering a host of nasty, blood-soaked particulars, the film becomes a bit more difficult to assess, especially when compared to his downright awful directorial debut, MACABRO (1980).

Bava’s pedigree–serving as a protege of sorts to Dario Argento while being the son of Mario Bava, the man who pretty much put giallo thrillers on the map–is never as evident as it is here. A composer sits alone in an isolated house, working on the soundtrack for an upcoming thriller. As he immerses himself in the creative process, he begins to experience some top-shelf heebie-jeebies of his own. Soon, he finds himself trapped in a film within a film, his own surreal life unfolding like a scene set to the very score he was hired to compose. Some of the sequences come off head-scratching one minute and hilarious the next, but Bava consistently instills an air of danger around a number of ugly murder sequences. Little details – a thatch of a victim’s hair caught in a wire fence, slashed Penthouse nudes, and the click-click-click of the killer’s utility knife–form a muscular frame for the film’s sour mix of graphic physical violence and quiet, stylized creeps.

The killer’s identity seemed pretty damn obvious to me from the get-go, but the ‘how’ and ‘why’ are more important than the ‘whom’. However, when you’re dealing with a slasher film that runs 108 minutes, a heavy dollop of misogyny can go a long way, and A BLADE IN THE DARK is more than happy to oblige in that department. Most of the victims are pretty females, some who grace the screen for mere minutes before being brutalized via a range of shiny, sharp-edged weapons. 

Despite its director admitting the film is a parody of gore films, A BLADE IN THE DARK is a cruel, uncomfortable experience. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Though Bava’s career would arguably peak two years later with DEMONS (1985), and the genre would later normalize the kind of mean-spirited murder sequences on display here, his work was rarely as distasteful, intriguing, or disturbing as it was here. 

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