BLACK SUNDAY (1960)

 

(a.k.a. THE MASK OF SATAN; director/cinematographer/uncredited co-screenwriter: Mario Bava. Co-screenwriters: Ennio De Concini, Mario Serandrei, who based their work on a story by Nicolay Gogol, billed as Nicolaj Gogl. Additional English dialogue written by George Higgins, billed as George Higgins III.)

Storyline

A seventeenth century Maldavian witch and her diabolical servant rise from their graves two hundred years later to get revenge on the descendants of her brother, who condemned the undead to death.

 

Review

This Gothic, black-and-white horror film is a stylized, highly influential work. Many of the scenes are striking in their now-familiar-to-the-genre sets, familiar storyline, scene set-ups and framing, and spooky score (courtesy of Roberto Nicolosi and, in the American version, Les Baxter). SUNDAY is Bava’s first credited feature as a director (known primarily as a cinematographer, he’d helped shoot five other features). Two of the things that set SUNDAY apart from other works is the sexualized vibe (tame by today’s standards) and the for-the-period graphic violence (e.g., when Princess Aja Vadja’s spiked satanic mask is hammered onto her face). It’s still hard-hitting now although more horrific cinema has been created and released since 1960.

Of course, this being an Italian production, there’s the post-production dialogue dubbing that is sometimes obvious. And Bava’s cinematography is superb, striking.

Everything works about SUNDAY, including the actors. Barbara Steele (THE CRIMSON CULT, 1968) is great as Princess Aja Vadja, the vengeful spellcaster, and her two-centuries-later relative, Katia. Arturo Dominici plays her equally frightening servant, Igor Javutich, also bearing the scars of the mask of Satan. Andrea Checchi played Dr. Choma Kruvajan and his descendant, Dr. Thomas Kruvajan. Ivo Garrani played Prince Vadja, the modern-day head of the Vadja castle. An uncredited Nanjo Gazzolo provided SUNDAY‘s narration.

With its themes of witchcraft, Satanism, vampirism and possession, this often fogbound, shadowy film, with its wind-whispery hallways and Vadja family crypt, horrible deaths (whose resulting corpses were revealed in slasher flick-like style) is one of the best films in the terror genre. If the above descriptions sound attractive to you, you might want to check it out.