ROME -  American student Fabio Malpeso, 19, is recovering after he was stabbed 25 times in his flat on Halloween by fellow student.

The victim's sister, Federica Malpeso, and friends were awoken by Malpeso's screams as Italian-American Alessandro Reid Schepis, 20, stabbed him repeatedly with a kitchen knife.

Roman Andrea Rinaldi, Federica's boyfriend, rushed into the room and succeeded in disarming the attacker, receiving mild wounds to his hands and arms in the process, while she called the police.

The stabbed man's sister reported that the evening started around 9pm with a group of them going to the Atlantic, a nightclub in the EUR area of Rome. The young people returned at 3am, and reportedly drank and consumed drugs in the flat the Malpesos inhabit on via near the Collosseum.

The police found empty liquor bottles and traces of ecstasy, marijuana and cocaine on the table in the flat.

The tragedy occurred around 8am, once everyone had dispersed into separate rooms to sleep. Awoken by cries of terror and pain, the couple rushed to Malpeso's room to find Schepis attacking him. The victim had apparently been sleeping when Schepis got up, fetched a knife with a 20cm blade from the kitchen, and started stabbing him.

Schepis was arrested by the police for attempted murder. He made his first appearance in court on Saturday.

Malpeso was rushed to the San Giovanni hospital in critical condition. He has been operated on for a punctured lung and has had other more minor cuts treated. Thankfully no other vital organs were damaged.

Rinaldi told La Repubblica: “He went berserk. He wouldn't stop.”

"I still have that bloody blade in my mind. When I saw Alessandro with the knife in his hand, I thought he was messing around—but unfortunately it was not a joke,” he added. "I thought Fabio was dead, there was a lot of blood. Alessandro was saying that he was taking revenge for something. It seemed like he was possessed."

When Schepis was brought to the police station on Friday morning he was reported to still be in a hallucinatory state and was unable to answer any questions.

Lawyer Vincenzo Comi, who represents Schepis, said that the accused told the judge he "did not remember anything of the episode."

"Fabio and Reid were the best of friends” Comi said. The police suspect that the drugs and alcohol consumed may have caused Schepis to become delirious.

Both young men are students of the American John Cabot University in Trastevere.

Recent hospital reports are optimistic, as Malpeso appears to be responding to treatment. He was able to talk to the police from his hospital bed on Sunday.

"He is obviously still under observation but he is awake and talking," Police Chief Lorenzo Suraci told NBC News.

The event comes five years to the day after the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. The 21-year-old British exchange student was stabbed to death in her flat on Halloween in 2007.