Main Cast: Andrea Occhipinti, Anna Papa, Fabiola Toledo, Michele Soavi, Valeria Cavalli
Release Year: 1983
Country: IT
Run Time: 92 minutes
Plot
This horror-thriller from director Lamberto Bava stars Andrea Occhipinti as Bruno, a composer who becomes involved in a frightening series of murders while staying at an isolated villa. The story turns on a scene in the horror film Bruno is scoring: a young child, taunted by cruel bullies, descends into a dark cellar after a bouncing tennis ball. The kids hear a scream and the ball bounces up to them, leaving bloody tracks on the wall. Pretty Sandra, Bruno's director, explains that her inspiration was the childhood of Linda, the villa's previous tenant, but there is something far more sinister going on. Anyone who has seen Psycho probably has a good idea what that "something" is, but the plot is really incidental. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
A Blade in the Dark (Italian: La Casa con la scala nel buio) but also known by the title House of the Dark Stairway, is a Horror/Giallo/Slasher/Mystery/Splatter that was among such other foreign titles as The New York Ripper & Tenebrae to be branded as video nasties. Containing elements of Psycho & Halloween it was originally conceived and filmed in the style of a four-part, half-hour, suspense mini-series for Italian TV with one killing at the end of each part. However it was instead turned into a theatrical movie since TV networks rejected such material as being far too violent for airing on network television.
Movie composer Bruno is commissioned to write a theme tune to a horror movie surrounding a supposed real-life psycho... no sooner than he does so than residents and those in his life start disappearing only to turn up mutilated... what's going on? Could it have something to do with the motion picture he's working on that connects itself to mysterious Villa resident Linda?
