31 Days of Halloween, Day 18- Black Sunday (1960)
AKA The Mask of Satan AKA Revenge of the Vampire
Directed By: Mario Bava
MVP’s: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Arturo Dominici, Ivo Garrani, Andrea Checchi, Germana Dominici, Enrico Olivieri, Antonio Pierfederici
Plot: Satanic witch, Princess Vadja is burned and has a demon mask hammered into her face along with her trusty henchman. Well now there vampiric corpses are back to get sweet revenge as well as transfer Vadja’s spirit into the body of her descendant, the Princess Katia. That’s right, they’re doing a The Mummy.
Response: The eerie haunted potentiality of night. “And now you shall enjoy a beautiful life of evil and hate in me” Moonlit wolf fog hugs the earth, making fungal spores at midnight. Ilya Iyanovich has risen from the grave. Trapped in the tomb with old new eyeballs.
Review: What’s not to love here? Stylish vamp romp that’s halfway between the old Hammer/Universal elegance and the gore pics to come. That old Italian/Spanish movie dubbing never gets old for me.
Background: Most lovers of film know Mario Bava, (Hercules in a Haunted World, A Bay of Blood, Danger: Diabolik, Planet of the Vampires, need I say more?) but before his name became synonymous with cinefilia he was a second unit director for Galatea, a production company mostly known for sword and sandal pictures. Well their films were making a splash in the foreign market, especially in the US and Terrence Fisher’s Dracula was doing good business so president Lionello Santi said, “hey Bava, how’d you like to do a vampire picture for us.”
Mario took, as inspiration, Nikolai Gogol’s “Viy” and AIP and Samuel Z. Arkoff (remember him, from our Day 14 picture?) bought the US distribution rights, cut out some gore (can’t have it too squishy for the censor boards), redubbed and rescored it.
Can Kid’s Watch It? I’d say 10+, there’s some eyeball stuff and some stakings/stabbings. But if your kid is into gothic lyricism, old cobwebbed castles, Scooby Doo trap doors and the like, who am I to stop you.
Halloween Score:
Autumn Vibes: 5/5
Scares & Chills: 2/5
Cultural & Cinematic Importance: 5/5
Monster Action: 4/5
Second Opinions:
“It shows his wide cinematic knowledge, visually quoting everything from White Zombie to David Lean's Oliver Twist and Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He also layers the film with visual motifs and rhymes, deploying eyes, windows, reflections, and long, tense right-to-left pans, which sometimes come full circle to their point of origin, Bava's crew presumably crouching on the floor to stay out of shot, or else trotting around the camera ahead of the advancing lens.” - David Cairns, Electric Sheep Magazine
“Can’t say there’s many movies I love more than this, and Barbara Steele’s ability to captivate a viewer is unstoppable… to resist the sheer magnetism would be an act in futility.” - Ian West on Letterboxed
“Swirling chiaroscuro, viscous rhapsody” - Fernando F. Croce, Cinepassion
How Do I Peep it J-man?
Get thee to Tubi. They have the original english dub (I think) plus the Roberto Nicolosi score (no offense Les Baxter)
Hint for Tomorrow:
Despite my better judgement, we’re going hardcore with a real hateful and disgusting picture. One of those vanguards of the fucked up. Will I owe Brandon another pumpkin spice latte? Time will tell.
Images left to right: Original American poster, Italian poster, later Italian variant, Vampix VHS cover, Jasper doodle, German poster