Andrea Occhipinti

Anny Papa

Fabiola Toledo

Michele Soavi

Valéria Cavalli

Stanko Molnar

Lara Lamberti

Giovanni Frezza

Marco Vivio

Maurizio De Angelis

Elisa Briganti

Mino Loy

Luciano Martino

Guido De Angelis

Dardano Sacchetti

Lamberto Bava

Stefano Paltrinieri

Gianlorenzo Battaglia

Angeluccio Maccarinelli

Paolo Frati

Giovanni Corridori

Roberto de Laurentiis

Giovanni Amadei

Eros Giustini

Donatella Botti

Ofelia Garcia

Saverio Mangogna

Mario Giacco

Enzo Frattari

Carla Catanzaro

Teresa Negozio

Isabella Mauro

Horror

Mystery

Thriller

La casa con la scala nel buio

Nuova Dania Cinematografica

National Cinematografica

Italy

English

Italiano

A Blade in the Dark

stalker

murder

killer

tuscany, italy

Wiccaburr

Well that was one unexpected twist. 
Though the slow pace made it almost not worth watching.

The effects were great but the story could've been shortened I feel but hey, this is a giallo movie after all.

This movie will be good for those really into this style of films.
I do enjoy the movie though. Just won't be watching it again anytime soon.

**_Swimming Pool in Rome_**

A young composer (Andrea Occhipinti) gets the opportunity to score an Italian horror film and so stays at a nice villa to do his work, but it’s hindered by visiting females and strange goings-on, including… murder by a utility knife.

Helmed by the son of Mario Bava, "A Blade in the Dark" (1983) is a traditional slasher more so than a giallo. It borrows from “Psycho,” “Home for the Holidays” and “Halloween,” not to mention a Brian De Palma movie that I can’t mention. “Swimming Pool” was obviously inspired by its milieu twenty years later (even though it’s not a slasher). Speaking of the setting, the entire film was shot at the producer’s villa, except for one sequence filmed on a boulevard in Rome.

It was originally made as a mini-series of four half-hour installments with each segment ending in a murder, but the TV networks rejected it as too violent. So, it was released as a 97-minutes movie, but the full version (with an additional 11 minutes) was eventually released, which is the version I watched. Don’t view the English dubbed version as the dubbing is lousy (and amusing). If you speak English, see the subtitled version.

Some people complain that it’s too slow and the setting is too one-dimensional, but it worked for me for what it is, even though I figured out who the killer was with about 20 minutes to go. The female cast is decent, featuring Fabiola Toledo as Angela, Lara Lamberti as Julia (aka Lara Naszinski), Valeria Cavalli as Katia and Anny Papa as Sandra.

Its title in Italian is “House of the Dark Stairway” or “House of Dark Stairs” (translated).

It runs 1 hour, 48 minutes.

GRADE: B

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A Blade in the Dark( 1983)

Don't Go Down the Stairs

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A review by Wiccaburr

Written by Wiccaburr on Fri Oct 02 2020

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