Review: Blades in the Darkness

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2023
Images from the Internet

Blades in the Darkness (aka Kthetrat e Shqiponjes)
Directed by Alex Visani
Aspide 1 Productions; J&K Media Partners/Unimaginable Productions
84 minutes, 2022
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I do believe this is the first time I am reviewing a film from the Balkans, and I am excited. It is in Albanian and mostly Italian, with subtitles. Unlike some, I love subtitles; comes from seeing to many live, loud bands in my youth.

Taking place in the Albanian capitol of Tirana, the prologue is set in 1997, after the fall of communism in the area, and the rise of the infamous and bloody civil war that followed. In a supposedly abandoned bunker stumbled young Matia (Matia Çobanaj) meets the Commander (Francesco Rossini), and especially the Commander’s Wife (Manuela Arcuri), who are hiding out in the bunker, which sets up the story to follow, and will intermix back and forth for a while with the present.

Emir Jouka

Back in modern day, arriving in Albania from the UK – but speaking Italian – is Adrian (Ermir Jonka), his girlfriend Nua (Ilirda Benleri), and Giulia (Ingrid Monacelli) and her boyfriend Davide (Endrit Ahmeta). Carrying their money in a leather bag (you can see that this is not a good idea, of course), they plan to open a restaurant in an abandoned bunker with the help of Adrian’s restauranteur cousin, Ilir (Arnold Damazzeti), who is a bit of a sketchy character, into MMA-style kickboxing (as a participant, not viewer).

Ilirda Benleri

Thanks to a betrayal by one or two of the group, with Romanian mobsters and drug dealers and money owed, their savings are gone, but some do not know it yet. This leads to them meeting up with the now insane and murderous Matia as an adult (Lorenzo Lapori, also a co-writer and fight coordinator), who had been sealed behind a wall. Years of loneliness and a seemingly perpetual 8mm propaganda film (200-foot reel, or 20 minutes) has made Matia – now known as Eagle Man in the credits – a bit tetched in the haid. He does, however, have a couple of cool and rusty knives and reminds me a bit of Kruger’s infamous claw (he even tends to run it along a wall), except one big blade for each hand. And, as the film shows, he is not afraid to use it on associates and indiscriminates alike. Yes, he is both mad, and angry, having his childhood and life taken away from him for a cause that never recovered (think of the roundly defeated Confederates or Nazis who hoped their evil beliefs would rise again.

There is a bit of a crime drama mixed in at some point, as the abandoned bunker where Eagle Man is captive behind a wall, is being utilized by a gang of drug dealers – we see a mound of bricks of white powder, perhaps representing the wall of evil that held Eagle Man captive – and their molls, more commonly known as the body count when Eagle Man flies to coop, blood and sorrow will follow.

Arnold Damazzeti

Into this scenario comes our Italian crew from England, hoping to make a new restaurant by recycling and transforming the very same bunker. As I have quoted before, Marshall McLuhan famously said when an object becomes obsolete, it comes back as art. Or in this case, a fancy eatery. While they may have served bird on the menu, they become the prey of an Eagle.

Our two couples arrive at the nest – I mean bunker – late at night, and that is where I end my descriptions, and the battle for life and death (mostly the latter, of course, as this is a literal slasher film). Somehow, in my head, I keep mishearing Creedence Clearwater Revival singing, “Down in the Bunker / Killing in the streets / The Eagle Man’s a-playin’ / Killin’ with knives so sweet.”

Lorenzo Lapori

Eagle Man is actually quite an interesting character by himself. He is as physically filthy as the Pig-Pen character from the Peanuts cartoons from literally years of not bathing, he wears the long coat and boots of the defeated army, his hair is long (though his beard not as much), and he is extremely scarred thanks to a meeting as a youth with some barb wire. Like most genre serial killers, he does not speak (though he does scream), probably from decades of loneliness. His anger comes out in the brutality of his kills. Most modern slashers, the killers like Jason and Michael are stoic, or punsters like Freddie, but this is pure rage. And then there are the cool booby-traps.

A certain level of disbelief is definitely needed around the Eagle Man, mostly pertaining to longevity. For example, he runs the projector constantly, but the bulb has not burned out, he eats food from cans, but how large a supply did they have in 1997 to the present? How does he shave (most of) his beard? How many gas drums does he have for the generator; perhaps he is Jewish, and this is a Hanukkah tale? I kid…

Manuela Arcuri

What I find interesting is that as brutal as Eagle Man is, and he really is, he is also a sympathetic character, rather than a one-dimensional killing machine. The murders are brutal and look great, without being overly graphic (i.e., not body horror), though there is a nice amount of blood to keep the customers satisfied. Hell, they even find a way for (female) nudity and a gratuitous sex scene.

While the acting is top-notch, it is the cinematography by the director that stands out for me, especially the last shot. Despite most of the film being in an ill-lit bunker, it was all clearly seen (thank you, blue filter). The bunker itself is both a maze and claustrophobic at the same time. Well done.

IMDB listing HERE