Blastfighter / Force of Vengeance / L' Exécuteur

Released from prison after serving eight years for killing the hitman who murdered his wife, ex-cop “Tiger” Sharp's first thought is to assassinate the corrupt District Attorney behind the crime. But after former colleague advises Tiger to think things over a bit, whilst also incongruously supplying him with an experimental, state-of-the-art, multi-function gun, Tiger instead returns to his old home in rural Georgia, complete with blind, mutant banjo player.

His peace is soon disturbed by the some of the local rednecks who are systematically killing the area's wildlife population to make into Chinese medicine. Their no-good leader, Wally, turns out to be the younger brother of Tom, with whom Tiger has a history. He was responsible for injuring Tom, leaving him with a limp that has kept him in the small town. It may have been a blessing in disguise, however, since Tom has subsequently built up a successful logging business.


Tom and Tiger

Out of mutual respect, the two men agree to disagree over the slaughter, though Tom also makes it clear what will happen if push comes to shove:

“You want a war?”
“Nope – you just tell your brother to leave the animals alone and I'll leave them alone.”
“Tiger – if something happens between you and my brother you know whose side I'm going to have to be on.”

And, with Wally and his idiot gang foolishly escalating the conflict, going beyond the point of no return by raping and murdering Tiger's daughter Connie, who had shown up wanting to bond with the father she has never known, this is exactly what happens...


Connie and Tiger

Though obviously drawing inspiration from both Deliverance and First Blood, this 1984 actioner from John Old Jr. / Lamberto Bava, Blastfighter seeks to be a bit more than hicksploitation through also throwing in touches of science-fiction, in the form of Tiger's experimental super-weapon; giallo, through a traumatic flashback scenes incorporating a black gloved killer that seems to pay hommage to his father's Blood and Black Lace and mentor Argento's Tenebre in equal measure; (super)cop on the edge poliziotteschi; western style a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do attitudes and settlings of accounts, and post-mondo / cannibal survivalism.

If the giallo and poliziotto elements are perhaps misplaced, its worth thinking about the western one in relation to Deliverance and First Blood themselves, as respectively a film in which the redneck is the equivalent of the unknowable Native American other and a film in which the hero is coded as the Indian against the white man, and what they thus highlight about the increasingly confused boundaries of Hollywood cinema around this time. If, that is, both films have certain western qualities, these are also those of the post-spaghetti western with its very different worldview.




Special make-up effects, rather than mondo / cannibal no-effects

As far as the mondo and cannibal filone are concerned, meanwhile, I say post here because in its pro-ecological message and avoidance of actual animal slaughter – thought apparently a deer suffered a seizure and died during the production – Blastfighter distinguishes itself from these earlier cycles, whose own logical end point, Cannibal Holocaust, he had worked on as assistant director.






Giallo imagery

If Bava seems to be atoning for this involvement here, his experiences on Deodato's film would seem to have also stood him in good stead, insofar as he works well with the rugged locations and up to the kinds of filmmaking challenges they pose – challenges very different, we might note, from the characteristically studio-based and more heavily resource-constrained films made by his father.

Michael Sopkiw makes for an agreeable lead, capable of being troubled and taciturn without turning the viewer off from caring about his character, whilst Valentina Forte is appropriately everyday attractive and sympathetic as the ill-fated Connie.

Though bad guys are written as a bunch of backwoods redneck clichés for the most part, being all 4x4s, plaid shirts and retrograde attitudes, the filmmakers also succeed in conveying something of their limited world through this, including the hostility it breeds towards those who are different from them and the desperate self-destructiveness that all too often result as they attempt to (im)prove their worth in abiding by outmoded doctrines of rugged and macho individualism.

It further helps here that the various Italian performers hiding behind Anglo-sounding pseudonyms also look and feel the part rather than standing out like sore thumbs; besides the always useful Luigi Montifiore / George Eastman we've also got the likes of Ottaviano Dell'Acqua as one of Wally's gang and Michele Soavi, credited as Michael Saroyan – and also performing second unit duties – as Connie's doomed forest ranger boyfriend.


The Deerhunter hunter




Things exploding

Nicely shot by Lawrence Bannon / Gianlorenzo Battaglia and scored by the Barrymore / De Angelis brothers with a combination of suitably mauldin Country & Western and energetic pumping action themes, Blastfighter is simply a good, unpretentious little filone film that accomplishes all it sets out to do in delivering action thrills, with plenty of things and bad guys exploding, and its messages, however rudimentary this may be to the (non-filone) cognoscenti.

Morirai a mezzanotte / The Midnight Killer

We open with a man stalking a woman, observing her as she enters a boutique – complete with surrealistic mannequins – picks out some lingerie and trysts with her lover in the fitting room.

There is an angry confrontation as we learn that the man, a policeman by the name of Nicola, and the woman, Sara Levi (the name suggestive of that giallo fascination with Jewish characters, though nothing is to made of it on this occasion) are in fact married.

He hits her. She retaliates by stabbing him with an handy ice-pick, although it seems more that it is his masculine pride that is damaged rather than anything else, inasmuch as he is still able to half-drown her in the sink, before recovering a measure of composure and walking out.




The obligatory but still effective mirror-based compositions; note also the yellow

As Sara takes a shower and contemplates revenge, a black-gloved killer stabs her repeatedly with the ice-pick, fatally.


Not a mirrored composition but rather one making good use of the distinctive architecture of Anna's split-level apartment with its interior window

Nicola arrives on the doorstep of criminal psychologist Anna Bernardi, whom he had bumped into earlier that morning, and confesses that he almost killed Sara in his rage.

Meanwhile, his colleague Paolo Terzi (Paolo Malco) has been called to the crime scene and calls Anna, the presence of their mutual acquaintance the judge further indicating that this is kind of place where everyone who matters knows everyone else to help overcome what could otherwise seem like one contrivance too many.

Believing that no-one will believe his innocence, Nicola goes on the run, only adding to the weight of circumstantial evidence against him. While Terzi has some doubts – “I'd like to find out why a good policeman could get mad and become a criminal,” as he explains to Anna in indicating why he has involved her in the case – he is unwilling to countenance her alternative hypothesis. Might the crime may mark the return of the maniac Franco Tribbo, presumed dead following a fire at the asylum where he was incarcerated? (A plot idea that prefigures Sleepless's dwarf killer returning from beyond?)


Effective use of 'natural' frames within the frame


The preservation of rare birds


Anna, Terzi and Carol discuss the case


A mannequin looks on at the action concealed by the yellow curtain

But as subsequent murders are committed and new evidence comes to light, Terzi is finally forced to reconsider – precisely at the moment when his daughter Carol (Lara Wendel) and two of her friends, Gioia and Monica, all of whom happen to be criminology students studying under Anna, have gone for a study weekend at an otherwise deserted, out of season hotel...

Like many gialli, 1986's Morirai a mezzanotte / The Midnight Killer / You'll Die at Midnight is the kind of film that works better in the set piece moments than as a convicing, sustained narrative. The issue, I would contend, is that in attempting to deal with the weight of history – a theme admittedly diegetically germane – by referencing a number of their genre predecessors, the film ends up feeling too much like a greatest hits compilation

Much the same thing could – and has – been said about Argento's near-contemporaneous Phenomena – itself one of these reference points, though the similarities between the traumatic incidents that emerge as root cause for their respective killers' psychoses – but there is a crucial difference. In Phenomena we have are given a consistent point of identification, that this is a story centred about Jennifer Corvino. Here, by contrast, our point of attention shifts too often – from Nicola to Anna and Terzi to Carol and her friends – which is perhaps beneficial by way of keeping us guessing as to the killer's identity as we sift through the suspects, but rather less satisfactory in that we end up caring less about the victims than we might.

Nor does it help that the Torso-style final act recalls Sergio Martino and Ernesto Gastaldi's success there in performing the Psycho trick in unexpectedly killing off Tina Aumont's character to position Suzy Kendall's as our point of identification against the clumsiness with Lamberto Bava and Dardano Sacchetti attempt comparable tricks here.

The same can be said for their borrowing from another major reference point, Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. The issue here is that, a well-mounted and suspenseful stalking sequence in a museum tellingly lined with cases full of stuffed birds aside, the reference does not actually become apparent until the moment at which, with the killer unmasked and brought to book, the facts of the case are usefully summed up. So, instead of joining a protagonist in their obsessive quest to uncover what precisely was “wrong with that scene” we are again distanced from the action and given a shock revelation when a suspenseful process of discovery would perhaps have been preferable.


Voyeurism...


Black Gloves...


Self-referentiality...




and the usual phallic cutlery...

Bava's nods to his father's work are more successful, perhaps because they are less to do with the structural aspects of the film, as with the vaguely Blood and Black Lace lichtspiel when the killer targets the boutique assistant, or a nod to The Girl Who Knew Too Much when one of Carol's classmates reads a giallo before going to sleep, has a nightmare and then awakens with a start only to find herself in a much worse situation.


La Maschera del demonio


Unfortunately for Monica, here seen attempting to fend off the killer with a whisk – a nod to Puzzle, perhaps? – she's not the marked out as the final girl

Elsewhere the director and his production designer, Guiseppe Bassan's son Davide, have fun with that 80s penchant for pastel shades by dotting lemon yellow curtains, shirts and sweaters around the place, while Claudio Simonetti delivers an effective synthesiser led score that ratchets up the tension as and when required.

Fans of Fulci's The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery will also enjoy seeing Gianpaolo Saccarolo in yet another sweaty, shifty cameo role as a caretaker who discovers a body but is quickly determined by Malco – inducing a sense of deja vu for those who've seen the latter Fulci – to be harmless rather than a possible suspect.

La Casa con la scala nel buio / A Blade in the Dark

Hired to score a low budget horror movie, Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti / Andrew Painter) rents an isolated luxury villa for the month. The ambience of the place soon gets to him as, going to investigate a noise from the basement, he is finds a young woman, Katya, who literally leaps out the closet at him, frightened – she says – by a spider. Acting strangely, Katya asks if Bruno is a friend of the previous tenant, Linda, then makes her exit as Bruno answers a phone call from landlord Tony (Michele Soavi). Curiosity piqued, Bruno searches around and finds Katya's diary in the closet, containing cyptic references to Linda and her “fascinating” secret.


Giovanni Frezza in the film-within-the-film


The house, reminiscent of Tenebrae


The New York Ripper meets Lucio Fontana, as the killer slashes up an image of sexualised femininity

Returning to his work, Bruno remains oblivious to the mayhem outside as an unseen figure attacks Katya with a craft knife, finally cornering and dispatching her in the basement. Playing back his tape, Bruno then notices a voice, which he isolates as that of the mysterious Linda. Another noise draws him outside, only for another telephone call to draws him back inside again – this just as he looked about to literally bump into Katya's corpse. Picking up the phone, there is no answer from the other end...






Echoes of Deep Red as Bruno tries to work

Noticing bloodstains on his trousers, Bruno goes outside yet again and discovers others in the undergrowth. By this time Katya's body has been removed, however, and so his search of the grounds reveals nothing other than the absence of the caretaker from his quarters – we have a suspect; all the more so when he is later found furtively moving a heavy bag of rubbish from the basement and to have an enthusiasm for collecting newspaper crime clippings – and some more telltale marks in the basement, before the sound of his music playing draws Bruno back to his studio, where he finds his tapes mangled.




Effective compositions in a film full of them


As with his father's Blood and Black Lace, a diary holds the secret

Bruno's girlfriend, Giulia, then shows up unexpectedly. She had tried to phone, she explains, but the line went dead. She also asks whether Bruno has noticed the strange smell emanating from the pool. He hadn't but when he recounts his own strange encounter with Katya, Giulia takes it as a confession of infidelity and angrily departs almost as soon as she had arrived...

Conducting a more thorough search of the house, Bruno finds a locked door in the basement at which point Tony shows up. He explains that the room contains some of Linda's belongings but that he can have it opened up if Bruno wants her things moved. Before Bruno can ask any other questions they are interrupted by yet another phone call. While Tony makes his exit – “I'd better go; I have to change”– Bruno answers. On the other end is a woman, who threatens him. It is only Sandra, making a prank call...




Classic giallo imagery; note Katya's yellow skirt


The killer's weapon, held first-person shooter style like the axe in a similar scene in Tenebrae


Those stairs look familiar...

Sometime later Angela, a friend of Katya's shows up, asking if she can use the pool. The previous occupant, Linda, always let her do so, she explains. Her behaviour is again somewhat strange though Bruno, keen to get on with his work, thinks little of it or the revelation that Katya had apparently come to the villa to retrieve her diary.

As she swims Angela notices a knife at the bottom of the pool. It is a discovery that leads to her death as an unidentified figure selects a knife from the kitchen – “the usual phallic cutlery” indeed – and dispatches Angela in the bathroom. Oblivious to all this, Bruno later notices the misplaced knife and, more worryingly, a blood-encrusted gash in the bathroom that fits its blade perfectly, thus prompting yet another exploration of the house and the recording of a message in which Bruno summarises the facts of the case and his fears that he may be cracking up and / or the next victim...

Sandra arrives and suggests that the killer likely would not have had the time to remove the bodies, such that they are still probaby hidden somewhere in the grounds. Given that Bruno has already conducted a number of searches that have exhausted almost all the possibilities, attention turns to the locked room containing Linda's things. On hearing the name, Sandra mentions once knowing a Linda herself, although it would surely be too much of a coincidence were she the same person – the kind of thing that could only happen in “a bad movie”...


Under the soles of your shoes...




Tony's yellow tie and Angela's yellow bag

Going to investigate, they find the room unlocked. It contains various boxes and a suitcase. The boxes contain books, not body parts. The chest contains tennis balls – a sight which bemuses Bruno and horrifies Sandra, as she realises that this Linda and the one she once knew, the one who inspired her film – a film “A childhood trauma turning a normal person into a monster” – are likely one and the same...

Upstairs there is a noise...

A somewhat long precis admittedly but also one that, I would argue, gives some indication as to A Blade in the Dark's particular strengths and weaknesses. Foremost among the former are a engaging and economical mystery – virtually all the action takes place in one location, while the filmmakers play mostly fair with us as far as suspects and red herrings go – with well-handled suspense and shocks, whose nastiness belies the film's television origins. This also unfortunately, also accounts for many of the the latter in terms of a somewhat over-extended narrative – even reading the above, how many times does Bruno explore the house or go answer the phone at an (in)opportune moment? – and a slighty too episodic structure in which a murders at the end of parts one, two and three are followed by recapitulations of “the story so far” at the start of parts two, three and four.


Knife in the water; cinematographer Gianlorenzo Battaglia was a specialist in underwater photography having also worked on the ballroom sequence in Inferno among others.




Angela's murder and the killer's non-black gloved hand cleaning up afterwards

What it does not convey, however, is the general assurance of Lamberto Bava's direction, with lots of elegant camera movements as he explores the environments of the house, all surfaces, textures and minute details a la Argento, albeit without quite that same extravangance and sense of defamiliarisation, with budgetary constraints obviously precluding Louma crane experimentation.

The De Angelis brothers' effective synthesiser-led score is another asset. While derivative of Goblin it also gains a certain justification in these selfsame terms as being exactly what an early 1980s Italian horror film should sound like.

Indeed, one of the major pleasures of the film for the genre-aware viewer – i.e. most of us – is what a theoretically inclined commentator might term its palimpsestic qualities, those traces of other films – Tenebrae, The House by the Cemetery, Deep Red etc. – that repeatedly show through.

Again something similar could be said about Argento's films, Tenebrae in particular. But there is also, I think a vital difference. Whereas Tenebrae's self-consciousness is of a deadly serious sort, in that Argento seems to have intended it as the ultimate giallo, the final word on 20 years of filone production, A Blade in the Dark simply aspires to be an entertaining diversion, its game-playing more akin to that found within the film that started it all, The Girl Who Knew too Much; in this respect, at least, Lamberto Bava is more like his father...

Le Foto di Gioia / Delirium Photos of Joy

A maniac is murdering the models for Pussycat magazine and sending snapshots of his/her handiwork to its editor / proprietor Gloria (Serena Grandi); the character is named Gioia – i.e. Joy – in the Italian, thus giving a double meaning to the title Le Foto di Gioia, depending on whether one reads Gioia with or without an initial capital.


Serena Grandi as Serena Grandi or Gioia?

Who could it be? The procession of usual suspects facing Inspector Corsi (Lino Salemme; you'll know his face if not his name as he's cast against type and ironically remarks on how he is often mistaken for a thug on account of his distinctive physiognomy) is a long one.

There's Mark (Karl Zinny), the wheelchair-bound peeping tom who lives opposite Gioia, watches her every move from his rear window; makes obscene phonecalls and suffers from a paralysis that is, according to his doctor, entirely psychosomatic.










The film is replete with phallic imagery, if one wants to look for that sort of thing; note also Mark's yellow room

There's rival publisher Flora (Capucine), who would seemingly stop at nothing to be top dog – or is that bitch – once more and happily tries to turn the situation to her advantage.

There's Roberto (David Brandon), the gay photographer who has conveniently managed to misplace some compromising photos from Gloria's modelling days, and Eveline (Daria Nicolodi), the devoted personal assistant who always seems to be on hand to receive the maniac's latest package.

And then there's the Gloria's own dubious past, before her husband died in a speedboat accident to leave her the magazine...


One of the killer's still lifes




The obligatory black gloves and mannequins


Gioia wakes up to find a crowd standing over her, much like Nora Davis in Mario Bava's The Girl Who Knew too Much, but without the same visual flair

Lamberto Bava seems forever doomed to be compared to his father Mario and mentor Dario Argento and found wanting. While his work sometimes warrants more recognition in its own right, with A Blade in the Dark serving as a textbook example of how to make a low-budget giallo, Delirium: Photos of Gioia is not such a work, instead operating at the trashier end of the spectrum.

Admittedly some aspects of the piece cannot be helped. Whereas the styles and technology of a 60s or 70s gialli now have that retro aspect to them, the 80s – big hair, shoulder pads, pastels and patterns etc – still emerges as too close in time for such a re-evaluation to take place, while Serena Grandi compares unfavourably to the likes of Edwige Fenech in the woman-in-peril stakes and, on this showing at least, as an actress.

Elsewhere, however, Bava and his collaborators do themselves few favours in borrowing liberally from the Argento playbook in choreographing murder-as-spectacle to a propulsive rock soundtrack – Simon Boswell in Goblin / Simonetti mode – but rarely manages to quite push things into the same delirious, absolute territory.

When Bava does introduce some ideas of his own, most notably the horror masks worn by the victims during the stalk and slash sequences and intended, along with the use of Suspiria-like colour filters, to convey the killer's warped perspective, the results are as much laughable as anything else.








Some of the killer's subjective visions

A macabre bathroom death by bee-stings recalls Phenomena and some of the more inventive murder methods seen in the likes of Crimes of the Black Cat and The Black Belly of the Tarantula. “Murder considered as one of the fine arts,” indeed.