Youll Die at Midnight

In this stultifying mess, director Lamberto Bava and his co-writer, the ubiquitous Dardano Sacchetti, manage to rip off nearly every giallo cliche in history and still deliver a tedious film. Cop Leonardo Treviglio and his wife have a loud fight and she ends up stabbed to death with an ice-pick. His buddy Paolo Marco is put on the case and believes Treviglio did it, but criminal psychologist Valeria d'Obici (who often uses the technical term "maniac") believes he's innocent. She thinks it was a killer named Tribbo, who supposedly died in a fire many years before. Treviglio is shot to death by another cop, but the murders go on. Eventually, the killer follows Marco's daughter (Lara Wendel) and two friends to a secluded hotel for the lengthy final standoff. Viewers who have seen any of Dario Argento's thrillers (The Bird With the Crystal Plumage in particular) will guess who the killer is in about 15 minutes, and the hotel scenes -- borrowed wholesale from Torso -- fail to generate the least bit of suspense. It's hard to believe from a director who made the stylish A Blade in the Dark only a few years before, but even Bava's legendary father had his off-days.