A Blade in the Dark

Lamberto Bava (born April 3, 1944) is an Italian film director, specializing in horror and fantasy films.

Bava was born in Rome, Italy, the son of cinematographer/director Mario Bava, and grandson of cameraman Eugenio Bava. He is also a protege of director Dario Argento.

After working as a personal assistant, assistant director and screenwriter with his father, Bava worked as an assistant director with Dario Argento (on Inferno and Tenebrae) and with Ruggero Deodato (on the notorious Cannibal Holocaust). Eventually, Bava moved into the directing chair, making his debut with the twisted Macabre, then going on to helm several other features, including A Blade in the Dark and Monster Shark (aka Devilfish).

In 1985, Bava re-teamed with Dario Argento, this time as a writer/director for Demons and Demons 2 (both of which Argento produced). Demons 3 (aka The Church) was later directed for Argento by Michele Soavi. However, a made-for-Italian-TV film that Bava later directed under the title The Ogre somehow got released as Demons 3 on DVD in the USA. Lamberto himself has said that The Ogre was never a part of the Demons series and that the real Demons 3 was always the Argento/Soavi project that was later released as The Church.

(Umberto Lenzi’s 1991 film Black Demons was also later released on video as Demons 3 in some countries, adding to the confusion). Michele Soavi later directed The Sect: Demons 4 (aka The Devil’s Daughter), and Lamberto Bava’s 1989 film Mask of the Demon was later released on video in some countries as Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil. Luigi Cozzi’s 1990 film Black Cat has been referred to in reference books as Demons 6.

In 1987, Bava directed Until Death, an unofficial sequel to Peter Medak’s 1980 haunted house film, The Changeling. Reportedly, famed Italian horror director Lucio Fulci was furious when he learned that Bava went ahead and directed this film, since he had understood that he was going to direct it with the project’s screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, and he even accused Sacchetti of stealing the original idea from him, which was not at all true according to Sacchetti.

Bava was hired to direct four episodes of the Italian TV series Alta Tensione, these four films not as yet being distributed in the USA unfortunately. Bava then went on to work on the Italian TV fantasy series Fantaghirò, which has since spawned four sequels. He has continued making television films in this style, including The Dragon Ring and Pirates: Blood Brothers. It seems Bava has given up making horror films in favor of these made-for-TV fantasy films. He said in a recent interview that he enjoys creating imaginative movies for children, rather than cranking out more repetitive violent slasher flicks. Horror fans in the US and Britain seem to remember him best however for his two Demons films and Blade in the Dark. —wikipedia