La casa con la scala nel buio (1983)

Director:

Lamberto Bava

Writers:

Elisa Briganti (writer)
Dardano Sacchetti (writer)

Release Date:

6 August 1983 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror | Music | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

When the lights go out, the knife goes in.

Plot:

A killer stalks a composer staying at a posh Tuscany villa while writing the score to a horror film which has an incriminating clue to the killer's identity.

Plot Keywords:

Composer | Killer | House | Film In Film | Dripping Blood

Cast

Andrea Occhipinti	...	Bruno
Anny Papa	...	Sandra
Fabiola Toledo	...	Angela
Michele Soavi	...	Tony Rendina
Valeria Cavalli	...	Katia
Stanko Molnar	...	Giovanni
Lara Naszinsky	...	Julia (as Lara Naszinski)

Also Known As:

A Blade in the Dark
House of the Dark Stairway

Runtime:

110 min | France:96 min | USA:108 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-18 | Singapore:M18 | Italy:VM14 | France:-16 | UK:18 | USA:Unrated | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Trivia:

Originally filmed as a four-part, half-hour, suspense mini-series for Italian TV with one killing at the end of each part. It was then turned into a theatrical movie when TV networks rejected it for being too violent to air on network television.

Quotes:

Bruno, Sandra, Angela, Katia: Chow!

Bava is no Argento, but quite good all the same

A music composer moves into a villa to try to get into the right mood to make a pulsating score to a horror movie. Things get awry when bodies begin piling up around him. Could these events have anything to do with the film the composer is working on?

This is the second feature by director Lamberto Bava and it's not as interesting as his debut Macabre. The film is very slow, it's horribly dubbed, badly acted and has far too many false alarms.

However, the film isn't all bad. It's got very creative and disturbing death scenes and really picks up in the final 15 minutes or so, with some nice touches of humor to go with the gore. Considering the fact that the film was shot in just about 2 weeks and was originally intended as a tv episode, it shows how creative Bava really was, having such a limited time schedule and a relatively low budget.

The mystery of the film (i.e. who's behind the killings) isn't hard to figure out. I would say that 9 out of 10 viewers (those familiar with the giallo genre anyway) would have the killer figured out half way through the film.

In my opinion, Bava is quite interesting a director, but he's no Argento. 5 out 10.