Short Night of Mysterious Blu-rays

It was past six p.m. on the sixth day of the sixth month. I was working late, because I'm a writer. Thinking I was the last one in the office, I quietly listened to my music and finished my revisions. Feeling a sudden pang of hunger, I went to the break room for a snack.

Upon entering the glass antechamber, I saw my colleague eating her dinner. I guess I was not as alone as I thought. For a brief moment, I observed her through the glass. She did not see me, as she chowed down on her bowl of reheated spaghetti. I must admit that this colleague was my long-running office crush, so I took this voyeuristic moment to admire her. That was until I saw the shadow move.

From the looming darkness behind her, a mysterious figure appeared. This obscure visage wore a yellow trench coat, a black hat, and black leather gloves. Its face was covered with a white mesh mask. The figure crept closer to my colleague, and that's when I saw the razor.

I tried to warn her, but the glass must've muffled my shouting. She never looked up, as she took another behemoth bite. The wraith moved in a swift and gentle motion; its blade slicing through the spaghetti hanging from my crush's mouth, slashing her delicate throat. She reached up and grabbed the wound, but it was too little too late. Blood poured like water from a fontanelle.

Oh, how I desired to run and save her, but this abstract paralysis consumed my body. I don't know if it came from fear or something else, but I could not move. It was through the glass that I watched my crush's face fall splat into her spaghetti.

My heart was in my throat. My ears rang. My legs, cement.

The faceless shadow reached into its yellow trench coat and pulled out a small black box. They placed it on the table beside my brutalized colleague. With that last motion done, this murderous terrorizer retreated back to the darkness from which it came.

Once the assassin vanished, my paralysis disappeared and the feeling returned to my legs. I rushed over to my colleague and checked her pulse. Flat, nothing, mort.

I let out a blood-curdling cry. I ran to the shadow where the unexplainable stranger had vanished, but I only found emptiness and silence. I returned to the table and collapsed, mourning my beloved crush. The hours I'd spent thinking of what could have been between us, all the giallos we could have watched together, now were for nothing. My butterfly was squashed. After what was either minutes or hours, I lifted my head and through my drowning eyes I saw the box the killer had left. The pooling blood had just reached its corner. I stood and grabbed the box before it was totally soaked.

It was a box-set 4K Blu-ray restoration of a movie I'd never heard of. On the cover, a moustached man looks up at a line of serious-looking men in suits; a man opens a door; a woman smiles; in the bottom left corner, it reads: Short Night of Glass Dolls.

I arrived home and investigated the box further for answers. Created by a company named Celluloid Dreams, this collector's edition included a booklet, which detailed director Aldo Lado's life as well as the production history of the movie. Four discs lay inside: one with a 4K restoration, one with a Blu-ray version, one with four hours of bonus features including interviews and a video essay, and one with the "grindhouse" and VHS versions. There was so much material, so many options. The clue to who killed my co-worker could be anywhere. I knew my night would be anything but short. After brewing a double espresso, I turned on the 4K restoration and began.

This giallo film was littered with ambiguous clues about the knife-wielding masked murderer. It begins with Gregory, played by Jean Sorel, being discovered dead. Already, it was hitting too close to home. It's quickly revealed that Gregory is not entirely dead. Yes, he is stiff as a board, but he still has conscious thoughts. I wondered if this was the killer's message — that our consciousness continues after we die. It's possible, I suppose. How would we know if it wasn't? I could barely focus on the plot, as I struggled with this existential dilemma. Luckily, I had three more versions of this movie to watch, thanks to Celluloid Dreams.

Next was the grindhouse version, which is a reprint of the movie in its 1971 quality, so it's not as clean as the Blu-ray, but more authentic to what audiences witnessed when the movie first came out. I started to grasp the plot a little better, this time around. It's a frame narrative, where the "dead" Gregory must remember his final days to better understand how he ended up in this predicament. This leads him deep into society's upper echelons, and culminates in his witness of an illuminati-like ceremony.

This secret-society ending surely was a clue as to why my colleague was murdered. She was beautiful, just like Mira, played by Barbara Bach. Perhaps she was used in one of these wild rituals, and was killed in order to keep her silent. The hypothesis made me realize how little I knew about my now-deceased colleague. Perhaps she rolled with a highfalutin crowd. She could have had connections I never knew about.

As my mind whirled, I began to wonder if the killer had seen me during the murder. If so, did I face the same fate as Gregory?

When I finally did go to bed, I did not sleep well. There was too much on my mind. Laying there, I felt the paralysis take over my body again. Tears of fear trickled down my temples, but I was unable to wipe them away. What was happening to me? I felt possessed, but I did not know by what.

Images swirled in my head of the illuminati, death, and my colleague. Rich parties and bloodsuckers. Masks, daggers, and murder.

The sun rose and the sky was a brutal yellow. I hadn't slept a wink.

I returned to the 66th floor where I worked. I walked by the lunch room. There was no sign of an investigation or even of the events of the night prior. It looked like it did every other day.

I went to my desk among a sea of co-workers. Nobody acted any different. It was simply business as usual. I looked over at my colleague's desk and it was empty. Why was nobody mourning? Why was everyone acting normal? I hadn't dreamt the whole thing, had I?

That's when she walked in. Dressed stylishly as ever; her hair done in its typical way. She acted like nothing had happened. She sat at her desk, smiled at those around her, and unpacked her belongings.

I could not stop staring at the back of her head. Yesterday, I had witnessed her murder, and now she was here, alive, smiling. Maybe I had finally lost it. She turned and we made eye contact. It was at that moment that I knew she was not the same person. I leaped out of my seat. "What have you done with her?!" I shouted. The entire office turned and looked at me. I continued to shout the same phrase, "What have you done with her?! What have you done with her?!"

She only smiled at me. It was a knowing smile.

My boss rushed out of their office and asked what all the commotion was. I was too furious and too terrified to say anything coherent. I was ordered to go to the break room and cool off.

Alone in the same place where the murder had occurred (surely it had occurred!), I decided I needed a cold, carbonated beverage to settle me down.

I opened the refrigerator and there, stuffed into its confines, was my colleague — naked, eyes and mouth agape, throat cut from ear to ear.

I stumbled back, knocking over several chairs. I did not notice the shadow growing behind me.

I cried a silent scream, as the pieces fell into place and I finally felt true terror.