A Blade In The Dark

A Blade In The Dark  Directed By Lamberto Bava, Starring Michele Soavi (1983).

After seeing House By The Cemetery did you want to tear your ears off with a claw hammer while suffering through the whiny, shrill, middle aged woman's voice of Bob, the small fry? Or did you think, what's that delightful little moppet up to anyhow, well here he is in Lamberto Bava's Blade In The Dark.

Home Alone: the prequel

   All of the pasta-land talent is represented in this flick like Dardano Sachetti, who I totally lost respect for after Aladdin, and even soundtrack dude Guido Maurizio De angelis (who seems to be channeling Simon Boswell here). This got a "good stuff" recommendation in the Deep Red catalog, so it must be decent right? 
   I have a phobia of Lamberto Bava, some would say Lambertitus (not this definition though http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lambertitis ). 
   I mean if you've noticed it's been a long while since I've seen his films (my favorite one still being Delirium: Photo's Of Gioia and the first Demons). Goat Scrote on the other hand has seen everything as far as I can tell, I put him on these special assignments because he does such a top notch job. Look forward to more Demons review coming soon (which I refuse to watch).

Did you get that official Cosby sweater I sent?

   Michele Soavi makes an appearance once again (he mentions that his dad in this film is stuck in an oil war in 1983, not very topical yet).

Bruno the soundtrack composer is played by former Conquest actor Andrea Occhipinti, donning a sweet ass Cosby sweater instead of a loin cloth.

I'm gonna write a tune about Jello Puddin Pops

   The director of the film decides to put him up in a creepy haunted villa to inspire his work, which has to resonate the perfect amount of spookiness. The composer stuck in a ghostly mansion premise sort of reminds me of The Changeling.

   A Geena Davis look-a-like shows up and is super forward and annoying. He accidentally finds her diary (which is in Italian and littered with Snoopy stickers). There's killer lurking in the shadows that uses an x-acto knife on Katya (the fake Geena Davis).  

    

Waaahh, get that knife outta my face--Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice

Bruno hears a strange voice on the reel to reel as he is working on a song for the film's soundtrack. Bava steals some of this from Depalma's Blow Out, which I thought was a pretty flawed effort to begin with, so it's an improvement to rip from it. Sacchetti has been disappointing me lately, did he lose a bet or did the producers put a gun to his head and he patched together some Hitchcock and Depalma in three seconds in order to stay alive? This hypothetical situation is retarded I know, but I need to tell myself this in order to justify the awful dreck I've been seeing with his name attached lately! 

   Not much happens for awhile and then another girl shows up, a former date of Bruno's who's very jealous. They establish a slimy wino caretaker character who has Playboy centerfolds everywhere and makes scrap books, he seems like the obvious murder suspect. 

   A third girl shows up (who looks sort of like a chunky Brinke Stevens), she swims around and finds the murder weapon at the bottom of the pool. As she washes her hair in the sink, a Mrs. Bates copy cat plunges a blade into her hand then wraps her head in plastic wrap.

Let's recreate that Kids In The Hall Citizen Kane sketch

The pacing is excruciatingly slow and the worst crime of all is its lack of gratuitous nudity! I mean you could leave the room, get some chores done while they try to solve the mystery and you don't miss anything! The ending is worth sticking around for, even though its pretty derivative. Snore…..

Stop prank calling me about Mickey, I'm not Toni Basil!

IF YOU WANT AN INSTANT MIGRAINE THEN BY ALL MEANS PROCEED!