A Blade in the Dark & Macabre (Anchor Bay Entertainment Horror Double Features) [DVD]

The best part is the psychopathic 12-year old daughter who successfully murders her brother, gaslights an adult man, and then drives her mother insane. All in a day's work! (Why she did it we have no idea, as neither the screenwriter nor Bava seems to care.)As others have said here, if you like insane, whacked-out 70s Italian movies, this is what you're looking for--just be ready to trudge through the middle part, which drags... the movie is essentially plotless, because it never tells us why anyone is doing anything. So in the middle part you're essentially just watching people go about their lives. Hitchcock once said drama is life with the boring bits cut out, but Bava never got the memo... but hang in there, because the ending is just as bonkers as you were hoping.Fwiw, it's an Italian film, so there are no people of color, and no LGBTQ characters. Unless you count necrophilia as queer.But, like I said, it's also driven by a "creepy kid," which is the best argument I know for not having children. So with that and the necrophilia, it's not exactly heteronormative. ;)

Great Movie for your Horror collection. Best ending ever!

A friend's mom worked at a psychiatric hospital and wore a T-shirt that said, "Insanity is Inherited! You Get It From Your Kids!" After watching Lamberto Bava`s "Macabre," I believe that T-shirt was right. Jane is insane. Her crazy daughter, Lucy, made her that way. While Jane is away from home (in bed with her lover, Fred) Lucy becomes very angry. She drowns her toddler brother, Michael, in the bathtub. While rushing home, Fred and Jane are in an accident. Fred is killed and Jane is hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital, blaming herself for Fred and Michael's deaths. Jane is eventually released and moves back into the love nest she shared with Fred. Lucy begins secretly tormenting her mother. Meanwhile, the blind landlord begins investigating the strange occurrences in Jane's bedroom. Though Fred is dead, Robert hears her passionately cry out Fred's name during nocturnal bouts of ecstasy. "Macabre" means "ghoulish" and this movie certainly is. It's one of the most perverse and bizarre I've ever seen. Not too surprising since Lamberto Bava is the son of the late Mario Bava who was known as the Italian Master of the Macabre. Unfortunately, "Macabre" is not on the same level as the films of Mario Bava's career. Also, it is too slow moving for modern viewers though it is sometimes suspenseful, especially towards the end. The ending was a real shocker, but very unrealistic and silly. Speaking of shock, the film "Shock" was Mario Bava's last feature film; it was co-directed by his son, Lamberto. Both "Shock" and "Macabre" bare many striking similarities. Both involve women recently released from the mental institute. Gradually, they begin losing touch with reality and slide back into their original state of insanity. New Orleans scenery and a jazzy score are nice. Stanko Molnar's performance as the blind Robert is excellent, the best part of the movie. I fear for his safety when he discovers Jane's horrid secret. Unfortunately, none of this is enough to warrant purchasing the film unless you are a diehard Lamberto Bava fan or, if you're like me, you can buy it a dirt cheap price on Amazon.com. If you are really curious about Lamberto Bava's directorial debut, I suggest renting it on a dark, lonely night.

It's all to easy to understand why Lamberto Bava's solo directorial debut Macabre failed to find much of an audience back in 1980: it feels more like a pitch than a fully fleshed out story, and one that's overly reliant on a shock ending that's pretty obvious. At times it feels like two separate underdeveloped films almost in competition with each other. Unfortunately the most interesting, a bad seed plot with the anti-heroine's homicidal daughter taking revenge on her for her infidelity by killing her young brother and trying to drive mommy back into the asylum, gets the least screen time in favor of mom not letting a little thing like decapitation stand between her and her dead lover. Much of it feels padded out and repetitive and unfortunately leading lady Bernice Stegers, admittedly hampered by a presumably dubbed deep fried Sowthan aksunt, simply cannot carry the film. Too well made to be unintentionally funny (at least until the absurd final shot), too boring to hold the attention and too predictable to offer any suspense, it's not difficult to see why this was such a flop that Bava didn't direct another film for three years.Lamberto Bava's second film, A Blade in the Dark, is a slightly above average late giallo despite some incredibly some heavy-handed clues (a female director who dresses in men's suits, an actress appearing in a play about Vita Sackville-West, a flamboyantly gay assistant and an opening scene where two children taunt another for being a female - gee, do you think they're trying to tell us something about the killer?). Somewhat surprisingly originally intended for television but turned down for excessive violence, it mostly makes a virtue of its low budget though isn't able to make much of its key location, a large but rather characterless and unmenacing villa that conveniently belonged to the film's producer. Still, any film that has a director being killed by her own film has something going for it.

"Macabre" is the perfect title for Lamberto Bava's debut gonzo horror treat. "Lurid" would have also worked, or "Grotesque." I dare say there is no other movie like it. A lot of the film is played seriously, almost like an art-film drama, but the rest is completely 'over the top, no, this can't be happening' insanity. Imagine if William Castle's House on Haunted Hill is a '5' on the campy, grotesque horror scale, then Macabre is cranked to '11.' The two female leads, one a child actress, play their madness to the hilt in Joan Crawford fashion. The Grand (Guignol) Finale is simply off the charts nutso, and is worth the wait. A very perverted, twisted movie indeed of the "so bad it's great" variety. A must-see for giallo and grindhouse fans!

Jane Baker is a middle aged married woman and mother of two, she's also been having an affair. One morning after her husband leaves for work, Jane decides to leave her young daughter and even younger son at home alone to meet her lover. Angry at being left alone when she believed her mother was going to take her and her brother to the cinema, Lucy finds her mother's phonebook and calls her at her lover's. Jane hangs up on her daughter which seems to irritate her even more, Jane soon gets another call informing her that her 5 year old son Michael has drowned in the bath. In tears and wracked with guilt, her lover starts to drive her home when he crashes the car and he's decapitated by a guard rail.A year later Jane gets out of the mental institution where she was sent to recover, now seperated from her husband she decides to return to the place where she and her lover would meet. The house owner has died in the time Jane has been away, leaving her blind son in charge of the house. Over time the blind Robert starts to develop feelings for Jane, but he can't shake the strange feeling that there's now something very wrong going on in the apartment upstairs. Normally to mention more of the story would be a spoiler, but the front cover completely gives it away anyway. Jane obviously should have spent much more than a year in the mental institution, as once she gets out she continues her relationship with her dead lover.Bernice Stegers gives an excellent performance as Jane, she manages to be strangely sexy and creepy at the same time. Despite her character being quite dislikeable in that she cheats on her husband and leaves her kids alone, there's also times when you sympathise with this clearly disturbed woman. I was quite often reminded of the performance Clare Higgins gave as Julia in Hellraiser, they're quite similar characters in how far they go to maintain the sexual desires they have for their former lover. A few years after Macabre she starred as Rachel in the cult horror film Xtro, but has mainly done tv work since. I really enjoyed Stanko Molnar's portrayal of Robert, he's extremely likeable and you constantly find yourself hoping he decides to stay away from her. He plays a blind man very well, there seems to be a real sadness about him. He later went on to appear in the director's next film called A Blade In The Dark, but hasn't acted since 1990. Veronica Zinny also deserves a mention as Lucy, it remains her one and only film credit.Macabre was Lamberto Bava's directorial debut, having previously spent around 15 years working as an assistant director including on several of his father's films, the legendary Mario Bava. Lamberto Bava always had a tough task considering who his father was, and as is always the case, he will always be in the shadow of his more famous and respected dad. That's not to say that Lamberto didn't direct several excellent films before Italian cinema basically disappeared in the late 80's. A Blade In The Dark is a really effective and atmospheric giallo, and the Demons films he's best known for are fantastically gory and over the top. If you're a fan of his Demons films and want to check out some of his other films, then Macabre would be a great place to start. I feel I have to warn you though, Macabre is a very different type of film. Co-written by Bava, Pupi Avati who directed the superb House With Laughing Windows, Antonio Avati and Roberto Gandus, Macabre is a slow film that gradually builds up a quite sickening atmosphere and sense of dread. The film is set in New Orleans but is mainly shot in Italy, the dubbing is annoying from time to time as the exaggerated southern drawl is sometimes a bit much. The music and camera work is excellent, giving it a kind of gothic look and feel.The dvd from Arrow is good but not one of their best, apart from the usual reversible sleeve and booklet there's only one real extra on the disc, an 11 minute feature called Macabre and the golden age of Italian exploitation, it features Bava, Joe Dante and Ruggero Deodato as they briefly discuss the days when Italian films like this was all the rage. There's a photo gallery and trailer, but the booklet is the real highlight as it's a fascinating 12 page Q & A with Lamberto. The picture quality has quite a lot of speckles, lines and other blemishes, but it doesn't detract too much and the colours and image is very strong despite this. After about 5 minutes once you get used to it, it almost adds something to the film giving it a real grindhouse look.Macabre was Bava's first film, it's also probably his best. I absolutely love the Demons films and they're so much fun, but this is a much better and more refined piece of work that shows he could create atmosphere and tension around a pretty simple premise. This is another great example of the classic Italian horror films that were so popular in the 70's and 80's, but for someone who isn't really familiar with these type of films, this one probably isn't one you should watch first. I would suggest starting with the Demons films, watching a couple of Dario Argento's more popular films, moving on to Fulci and then give Macabre a go. Macabre may seem very strange and far too slow if you don't already love Italian horror, but it's a beautifully shot and highly original film.

Twisted, cheesy horror that is entertaining if you like those cult like films that appeared back in the day.Great artwork on the front and comes with a little keepsake inside too.

Wonderful kitsch movie. Fantastic mood. Great garden suburb new orleans house too.

Just plain crap really. If you like well paced well made horror movies avoid at all costs. J Counsell.

not my cup of tea but the person it was bought for was well pleased at receiving it. so if you like this sort of thing. must be a good buy.