Lamberto Bava (born 3 April 1944) is an Italian film director, specializing in horror, giallo and fantasy films. Bava was born in Rome, the son of horror maestro Mario Bava and grandson of cameraman Eugenio Bava. He is also a protégé of directors Dario Argento and Ruggero Deodato.

Biography

Lamberto Bava was born in Rome, Italy on April 3, 1944. Lamberto's father Mario Bava was a film director was primarily known as a director of horror films. Lamberto's film career began working as an assistant director on his father's film Planet of the Vampires. Lamberto would collaborate with his father on several of his projects including Danger: Diabolik (1966), Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) and Shock (1977) On Shock, Lamberto Bava was credited as a screenwriter as well as an assistant director. Lamberto Bava had a co-direction credit with his father Mario on the television film La Venere dell'Ille, which was a film in the Il Giorno del Diavolo film series. Outside the work with his father, Lamberto also contributed to the story for films of Italian director Ruggero Deodato on his films Ultimo mondo cannibale (1977) and Cannibal Holocaust (1979).

A meeting with director Pupi Avati led to Bava directing his own feature film Macabre in 1980 which was co-written with Pupi and Antonio Avati. The film stars Bernice Stegers as Jane, a woman who has an affair with a man Stanko Molnar who dies. After his death, Jane keeps his severed head in her a refrigerator and performs erotic acts with the head. According to Lamberto Bava, after witnessing Macabre, Mario told him that "Now, I can die in peace". Mario died later in 1980. Following the relesae of Macabre, Lamberto Bava worked in advertising and continued to write stories for potential future film projects. After being approached by director Dario Argento to assist him with his giallo film Tenebre (1982) where Bava is credited as an assistant director. In 1983, Lamberto Bava shot and released his second featured film as a director, the giallo film A Blade in the Dark. A Blade in the Dark was originally developed as television film shot in four 25-minute segments on a very low budget. The film stars Andrea Occhipinti as the music composer Bruno, a man who becomes involved in a series of murders while staying at his secluded villa.

Bava's next two film projects were in different genre's than his previous giallo and horror film output. Bava was given a script for Blastfighter, a film originally written as a remake of the Australian film Mad Max with the intention of giving it to director Lucio Fulci. Blastfighter starred Michael Sopkiw as Tiger, a detective who had been released from prison for shooting the man who killed his wife. Tiger moves into the woods with his daughter where he is terrorized by a group of thugs. Lamberto's next film was a science fiction film about a mutated shark that goes on a killing spree with two marine biologists attempt to track down the creature to stop it.

In 1985, Lamberto Bava re-teamed with Dario Argento on the film Demons. Argento co-wrote and produced Bava's film about a theater showing invitation-only screenings of a horror film. In the theater's lobby a young woman is scratched by part of a display in the and transforms into a hideous creature who then attacks other audience members, spreading her demonic infection. The film was followed by the sequel Demons 2 in 1986 which had many cast and crew members from Demons.

In the mid-1980s, Bava was hired to direct six episodes of the Turno di Notte Italian TV series (1986), four films in the Brivido Giallo TV series (1987), and four films in the Alta Tensione TV series (1988). Unfortunately, only the four "Brivido Giallo" TV movies are available in the USA on DVD (English-dubbed).

In 1987, as an entry in the "Brivido Giallo" TV series, Bava directed Until Death, an unofficial sequel to The Changeling. Reportedly, famed Italian horror director Lucio Fulci was furious when he learned that Bava directed this film, since he had understood that he was slated to direct it with the project's screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti. Fulci even accused Sacchetti of stealing the original plot idea from him, which was not at all true according to Sacchetti.

Bava then went on to direct the Italian made-for-TV fantasy film Fantaghirò, which has since spawned four sequels. He has continued making television films in this style, including The Dragon Ring and Pirates: Blood Brothers. Although Bava more recently made 2 violent horror films entitled Ghost Son and The Torturer, it seems he strongly favors the made-for-TV fantasy films. He said in a recent interview that he enjoys creating imaginative movies for children, rather than just cranking out repetitive violent slasher flicks. Horror fans in the US and Britain seem to remember him best however for his two Demons films and A Blade in the Dark.