Alessandro Poggi is Martino, a young boy who lives in a remote country home with his pretty mother, Camilla (Nathalie Delon of Bluebeard). He seems like a nice enough kid and he's definitely got an active imagination as evidenced by his tendency to want to spend all of his free time with his imaginary friend named Luca. As his friendship with Luca becomes stronger, Martino starts having some seriously freaky nightmares that revolve around the house and the graveyard that lays just off of their property line.

Camilla isn't too sure how to handle things, and her husband, Alex (John Philip Law of Danger Diabolik! is no help, instead choosing to occupy his time else where and with other, less wholesome activities than child rearing. When strange things start happening around the family home, Camilla's concern grows and once the accidents begin, some quite dangerous indeed, she soon starts to become very, very worried for her son and for herself and she starts to believe that Luca is in fact the ghost of the child she would have had after Martino's birth had she not miscarried.

Eventually Alex gets fed up with his wife and son's behavior and he sends the pair of them off to visit a local psychiatrist played by Joseph Cotton of Maria Bava's Baron Blood. The good doctor comes to the conclusion that yes, it is Camilla's miscarried child haunting the family home and not only that but he's a rather sinister child with an unhealthy love for mischief of the most diabolical kind.

Influenced by such notable seventies supernatural films as The Omen and Don't Look Now, Marcello Aliprandi's A Whisper In The Dark is a wonderfully crafted Italian horror film in the grand gothic tradition. Plenty of atmospheric lighting, accentuated by creaky old headstones and plenty of fog and smoke and lighting effects gives the film an absolutely gorgeous old school look and flavor that does a fine job of hiding the fact that the story really is a bit on the predictable side. While it is easy to figure out where it's all heading if you pay attention to detail while it plays out, that doesn't diminish the fun of getting there, however, thanks to some interesting and oddball set pieces.

Evil manifest in many different forms in this film, be it a car that won't turn over or a bathtub full of evil toads and it's this strange creativity in portraying the sinister side of the spirit that haunts the family home that makes this a rather interesting film. Add to that a fantastic cast that sorely under uses Law but does do a fine job of letting Cotton work his magic and a couple of interesting effects scenes and you've got yourself a pretty decent horror movie.

The sets, scenery, and cinematography are all top notch on this production, which also helps boost things up a few notches in terms of entertainment value and overall enjoyment. Even more mundane moments, like when a red car gets stuck in a green field of muddy grass, look very nice and do a good job of really brightening up the film with some interesting color contrasts and compositions. The middle of the film does drag a slight bit but once the camera captures the macabre majesty of the ballroom and its masked inhabitants you know that things are going to take a bizarre turn – and they do. Pino Dinaggio's classy and eerie score stands out and helps make the movie a more enjoyable experience and also serves to accent some of the more intense and intriguing moments as well.

Video:

First off – I'm happy to report that with this latest batch of titles, No Shame has started flagging their transfers for progressive scan playback and as such, A Whisper In The Dark looks gorgeous on DVD. Black levels stay strong and deep and don't break up at all. There are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts nor are there any serious line shimmering or edge enhancement issues. Color reproduction looks lifelike and natural and there's a wonderfully revelatory level of both foreground and background detail present from start to finish. Skin tones look normal, reds are well defined but not overly boosted nor do they bleed at all, and print damage has more or less been completely eliminated from this 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen high definition transfer.