You'll Die at Midnight

MORIRAI A MEZZANOTTE

YOU'LL DIE AT MIDNIGHT

Italy 1986

D: Lamberto Bava Sc: John Old Jr. (Lamberto Bava),

Dardano Sacchetti. Music: Claudio Simonetti. Cast: Valeria D'Obici, Leonardo Treviglio, Lea Martino, Eliana Hoppe, Paolo Marco, Lara Wendel.

Nicola (who is a cop) and his rich/bitch wife are fighting again only this time, she turns up dead (killed, once again in a shower, with an icepick thrust through the curtain and into her torso). Nicola (Leonardo Treviglio) is the prime suspect and one of his co-workers, Inspector Pierro Terzi (Paolo Marco) is assigned to the case. Anna (Valeria D'Obici) is a criminal psychiatrist who is a friend of both men. She refuses to believe that Nicola is guilty, instead, she postulates that the killer is really Tribbo, a madman supposedly killed several years ago in a hospital fire where she worked. Even after Nicola is killed (he was involved in a scuffle with Anna), the murders continue, lending credence to Anna's theories. Terzi's daughter Carol (Lea Martino) is threatened by the killer and so she and two school friends head to an abandoned hotel for safety. The killer follows the girls and after killing all but Carol, Paolo arrives in time to blow the murderer away.

Lamberto Bava continues to get a raw deal in the fan press for his TV movies (of which this is one). It's true that THE OGRE and GRAVEYARD SHIFT aren't exactly masterpieces, but they and especially this film, put 90 % of the horror TV movies in this country to shame.  While Bava and Sacchetti have brought nothing new to the genre with their script, it is Bava's camera placement and technique (along with yet another excellent score by Simonetti) that save the day. The last third of the film owes a lot to Sergio Martino's TORSO when the three girls isolate them-selves at the abandoned hotel. It slackens the pace considerably as we wait for the killer to stalk his victims. Bava casts the crucial part of Anna with an androgynous actress that helps to sell the fact that she dresses as a man whenever the act of murder occurs. Look for Lamberto in a swift cameo as the police photographer who appears in the background at the scene of the first murder.