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Anna Berardi is the hidden main antagonist of the giallo film Midnight Killer a.k.a. You'll Die at Midnight. Berardi is a criminal psychologist and a serial killer of women copying the murders of deceased murderer Franco Tribbo, complete with a mask modeled from his face.
She's portrayed by Italian actress Valeria D'Obici, her in-costume scenes as Tribbo portrayed by Peter Pitsch.
Biography[]
Berardi worked with police, as well as taught students at the university where she worked. As a woman, she was always second fiddle to her male colleagues, yet she still took in Carol Terzi, daughter of Inspector Piero Terzi, as one of her students. She was also an old flame of policeman Nicola Levi, but her married a woman named Sara after leaving Berardi. Berardi's work required her to also interview dangerous criminals, one of them being Tribbo. During the interview, Tribbo raped Berardi, the trauma permanently breaking her. Tribbo later died in a fire he set in the psychiatric hospital he was in, but people had doubts he was dead. After writing about the rape in her thesis, Berardi dissociated from her own identity and identified with Tribbo, badly enough she became compelled to restart his killings. Berardi fashioned a mask of Tribbo's face for herself to wear during the spree, as well as bought dark clothes.
After Nicola attacked Sara at their apartment for having an affair, Berardi began her spree by stabbing and mutilating Sara with an ice pick in the house. Nicola was the prime suspect, so he went into hiding at Berardi's apartment. She was ironically assigned to her own murders, along with Inspector Terzi, having stolen his pipe during the investigation to see if he'd catch onto the trail she was leaving. She acted confident that Tribbo was dead and not behind the new sprees, while Terzi was staunchly reserved to believe Tribbo was back. Berardi didn't stop her spree, and the next woman she killed was chased into a theater and similarly slashed and mutilated with the same ice pick. During the spree, Berardi snuck into her own institute and wiped all of Tribbo's case information from her database. To get under Terzi's skin, she stalked Carol while in full disguise. But because she was also mentally ill, she hallucinated seeing Tribbo and acted like she "believed" Terzi.
While police were casing Berardi's apartment, one cop found her trying to stab Nicola to death. As he misread the situation and didn't see the knife was in Berardi's hand, he shot Nicola in the belief Nicola was after Berardi. Berardi acted devastated and pretended to be convinced of his awful nature to point the finger at him for murder. She, nevertheless, didn't stop, as she broke into a lingerie store at closing time and made the cashier try on one of the bras at knifepoint, vulgarly insulting her as she did so. When the woman tried to run, Berardi suffocated her with various pieces of underwear shoved down her throat. Carol decided to go on a vacation with her friends and classmates, Monica and Gioia, as Terzi insisted she leave the city for her safety. This was when Berardi left his pipe for him discreetly, as she figured he'd realize the truth once she followed the three women to the beach side.
Berardi stabbed Monica with a knife, then bludgeoned Gioia with a fire poker. When Carol found the scene, Berardi chased her in disguise; she then appeared out of disguise and faked her death to distract Carol, as well as turn the blame on Carol's boyfriend Alberto. Alberto arrived suddenly and revealed he read Berardi's thesis, knowing for sure she was the killer. Carol was in disbelief after presumably hearing Berardi die; but then Berardi came out in disguise to stab and wound Alberto, before slowly approaching Carol. Inspector Terzi appeared and shot Berardi dead, removing her mask to reveal the truth.
Victims[]
- Sara Levi - Stabbed and mutilated with an ice pick
- Unidentified woman - Stabbed and mutilated with an ice pick
- Nicola Levi - Attempted to stab; ultimately shot by a cop confusing the attack
- Unidentfied woman - Forced lingerie down her throat
- Monica - Stabbed with a kitchen knife
- Gioia - Bludgeoned with a fire poker
- Alberto - Assaulted; stabbed
- Carol Terzi - Attempted to stab; Berardi was shot instead
Gallery[]
