MY DVD Collection - 09 Feb 2007

(Die Stunde, wenn Dracula kommt [de] • The Mask of Satan / Black Sunday [en])

Italy 1960
d: Mario Bava
Image Entertainment (Region 0 us)

>> The Cast & Crew [click to show or hide]

>> The DVD [click to show or hide]

>> Reviews [click to show or hide]

A classic horror film (from a story by Gogol) involving Barbara Steele as a resurrected witch who was burned to death in a small medieval town and seeks revenge on her persecutors. The exquisitely realised expressionist images of cruelty and sexual suggestion shocked audiences in the early '60s, and occasioned a long-standing ban by the British censor. The visual style still impresses, but the story beneath it has become too formularised for the film to retain all its original power.
— DP, Time Out Film Guide
•••••
Cinematographer-director Mario Bava (1914-1980), "Maestro of the Macabre," was a supreme stylist whose niche-horror, from witchcraft and "neo-mythologicals" to blob monsters-was transcended by "sinuous camerawork, moody pacing, and delirious mise-en-scène" (New York Film Forum retrospective tribute). "Black Sunday", based on Gogol, "investigates with a restless, moving camera the 'hour of the wolf,' that time of morning when dream and reality are interwoven inextricably. His landscapes are like Dante's 'dark woods'-shadowy, deserted, mist-filled. His interiors are exaggerated, Baroque-decaying castles, cobwebbed mausoleums, somnolent villages... [A] sorceress returns to possess the body of a young girl (both played ... by the regal, cadaverous Barbara Steele); [a] young hero braves the perils of evil and illusion. Upon these bare crickety bones Bava weaves his tapestry of nightmares. Ambiguity reigns supreme....
— James Ursini
•••••
"Her coffin explodes! Half naked, she looks around and spots the man who accidentally brought her back to life. 'Oh, you're here again,' she whispers seductively. 'I need you again.' She stretches her arms luxuriously. 'Kiss me. You will die, but you will know bliss beyond the reach of mortals.'
This is the film that made Steele's reputation. Beautifully shot by Italian cinematographer–turned–director Mario Bava, it's a stylish, terrifying horror film with the unmistakable look of a classic—despite a plot that borders on incoherence. If Steele owes it all to "Black Sunday", "Black Sunday" owes as much to Steele. She plays two parts—Ava, a 200–year–old vampire; and Princess Katia, an innocent young woman who is Ava's descendent. In both roles she is, well, legendary. The two women, and the two plot components, come together on "Black Sunday", the one day in each century when Satan walks among the living.
— Michael Goodwin, PFA
•••••
Bava chose to adapt the short story “Vij” by one of his favorite Russian authors, Nikolai Gogol, into an homage to the early Universal horror films he had long admired. The film's original title "La Maschera Del Demonio" was a play on the Italian release title of Hammer's "The Curse of Frankenstein – La Maschera di Frankenstein" (1957) – which had been a box-office sensation a couple of years earlier. The modestly budgeted film was shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome. Bava prepared an English-language version of the film, originally titled "The Mask of Satan", for Samuel Z. Arkoff and James Nicholson's A.I.P. in 1960. Arkoff trimmed off a few gore shots to appease the Los Angeles MPAA board, commissioned a new score for the film from Les Baxter and re-titled the film "Black Sunday" (it was now almost four minutes shorter), before releasing it in the U.S. in 1961. The British board of censors refused to certify the A.I.P. version of the film (responding to the public backlash against violent films such as 1959's "The Stranglers of Bombay" [Terence Fisher] and Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" in 1960) which meant "Black Sunday" could not be shown in any licensed movie theater within the United Kingdom.
... Bava immediately establishes an old fashioned gothic atmosphere through gnarled tree branches, swirling mists and fog, and later a decaying castle, a dark foreboding crypt, and more. The brief splashes of gore and somewhat dated but stylishly shot effects are still effective enough to make an impression on modern audiences. For example, there are scenes where Javutich digs himself out of his grave, a seemingly possessed carriage glides through the forest in the moonlight, a hypnotized victim kisses a corpse, a face on fire is shown in close-up, an eye is gouged – all of which would have been shocking to theater audiences in the early '60s. Another memorable sequence is the resuscitation of Asa – after we watch her rotting corpse grow new skin and new eyes, instead of merely rise out of her crypt – in which Bava suggests there is so much energy being created that her stone crypt cracks and almost seems to explode into dust as she transforms back into a living creature.
— Christopher J. Jarmick, Senses of Cinema, February 2003
•••••
"Black Sunday" served as our introduction to one of the crucial icons of Italian horror: the face of Barbara Steele. In "Black Sunday", she played both Princess Asa and Katia. Without Barbara Steele, Italian horror might have been very different. Her face evoked both beautiful and demonic features--instantly suggesting a dual and possibly dangerous power of character. With her sharp nose, Joan Crawford-style eyebrows, angular jaw and large eyes, shadows became accentuated on her face. Compare her, for example, with Daliah Lavi in Bava's "What" (Italian title:" La frusta e il corpo", "The Whip and the Body"). Lavi's face was soft, smooth, and sensual. Her face didn't suggest the wicked duality of Steele. While Lavi's performance in "What" is one of the finest performances in the golden-age of Italian horror (her eyes, in particular, are marvelously expressive), she didn't possess the iconic features of Steele, who simultaneously presented a gentle child-like visage and a perverse, twisted countenance. It's no wonder that Steele would star in many of the greatest movies from this period of Italian filmmaking. ...
But the real star of "Black Sunday" is Bava's camera and the images that it provides. Bava keeps the camera moving, as if it's a shark that must keep moving or die. When the two doctors enter Princess Asa's crypt, the camera follows them and turns 360 degrees, showing us the crumbling stonework and the shadowy recesses. This is no mere movie set. The 360 degree turn eliminates the removable fourth wall from the set and traps us in the movie's world of palpable, exotic evil. Bava's camera moves throughout much of the movie, as if stalking prey. In one of the movie's most famous sequences, Dr. Kruvajan becomes trapped in Princess Asa's crypt. Her coffin begins to shake and then it explodes. The camera tracks toward her, revealing her reconstituted body, her chest heaving, and her mouth gasping for air. With gaping spike scars on her face, she pants as if in the throes of passion while greedily eyeing Kruvajan. She's simultaneously erotic and horrifying.
— Gary Johnson, Image.com
•••••
This film has been shown in the United States in four (five counting the tv version) different versions.
BLACK SUNDAY (84 minutes) distributed by American Internatinal Pictures. This U.S. version features a more dramatic dubbing job recorded in the U.S. and a new score by Les Baxter to replace the original score. Further edits to this version were used to create the 16mm U.S. television syndication version.
REVENGE OF THE VAMPIRE The long delayed British version is a different cut that features the original English language dubbing recorded in Italy and the original Italian score by Roberto Nicolosi.
THE MASK OF SATAN (87 minutes) The complete version of the film featuring the original English language dubbing recorded in Italy and the original Italian score by Roberto Nicolosi. This is usually referred to as the "European Version."
LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO (85 minutes) Not the original Italian version as you might expect from the title. The main title is video generated (in bright red) amd superimposed over the black and white film. The film uses the original English language dubbing recored in Italy. The score is a mixture of both the original Italian (Roberto Nicolosi) and U. S. (Les Baxter) scores.