A Blade in the Dark, All Euro-Babes Die

 Being a sultry European beauty in an Italian horror film is demanding. Nude scenes. Pre-marital sex scenes. Lesbian love scenes. Death scenes...elongated death scenes, often in the nude. Today we look at a Lamberto Bava film, 1983's "A Blade in the Dark." There will be so many sultry Euro-babes in this film and they will all die quite horribly in elongated bloody scenes. The guys in this film? Clueless. SO sad, really. The Euro-babes here dress seductively, engage in carnal relations, sunbathe, and scream well...and yes...bleed well. 

Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti) arranges musical scores for horror films. He is hired by horror movie director, Sandra (Anny Papa). The beautiful moviemaker sends Bruno to a cavernous villa which is quite creepy to get him in the move to compose creepy music. He doesn't get much work done as right away Katia (Valeria Cavalli) pops out of the closet. She is a sultry Euro-babe and has a two-fold mission...sex with Bruno and to find the mystery of the missing Linda. Bruno turns his head for a moment and a killer slices her pretty face and body to shreds and hides the body. Meanwhile, Sandra pays frequent visits and lets Bruno know she can't tell him the ending to her movie...it is a secret. Sultry model Angela (Fabiola Toledo) comes a calling next...looking for her roomie, Katia. Katia will give us a gratuitous nude scene and a nice swimsuit scene until meeting the goriest death of the film.

Bruno, still clueless, starts looking for the missing beauties. His girlfriend, Julia (Lara Lamberti) arrives. She is an actress with some mental issues...but she's really beautiful and is willing to engage in pre-marital sex, so Bruno overlooks that. Now as Bruno enjoys the moody Julia, he starts unraveling the mystery of the missing (dead) Katia and Angela, and realizes the end of Sandra's film may be the key to this macabre mystery. As more beauties die quite horribly, Bruno wastes a lot of time. The ending is twisted and fans of Giallo will have seen it coming. Still, it will involve more beauties dying in bloody fashion and Bruno moving to slow to save anyone.

Is there even the remotest possibility that Sandra or Julia will survive this film? Are there any frumpy, middle-aged women in Italy? What is the mystery ending of Sandra's film and might she be the knife wielding killer? The actresses are all stunning and they die well. For a misogynistic great time, see "A Blade in the Dark" and try to figure out why old Italian moviemakers get off on slicing up babes.