Black Sunday
Beware of wandering into forsaken tombs in the desolate countryside, for you never know when you might disturb the forces of darkness. Black Sunday (1960) is the story of a dread curse which haunts the royal Vajda family, its surviving members living in their ancestral home in 19th century rural Russia. When the decrepit family crypt that hosts the corpse of their satanic ancestor, Princess Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele), is disturbed by the travelling Dr. Thomas Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi), he and his assistant, Dr. Andre Gorobec (John Richardson) find themselves caught up in this centuries old hex.
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Black Sunday--also known as The Mask of Satan--is a horror movie about the return of the vile curse placed upon the Vajdas, which originated in the 17th century, when Asa was executed for being a witch and a vampire, along with her presumed lover and fellow creature of darkness, Prince Igor Javuto (Arturo Dominici). The judgment, carried out by Asa's own brother, carries the suggestion that the act is political, although this element of the story is abandoned in favor of the legacy of supernatural terror the witch Asa leaves behind. Black Sunday posits that at this point in time, Satan's grasp was strong over the countryside in Russia, manifested in creatures like vampires. The distinction between witches and vampires is blurred in Black Sunday, for both Asa and Igor rise from the dead, executed for their satanic allegiance by means of the gruesome, eponymous "Mask of Satan"--a metal mask fitted on the inside with long, sharp spikes that are driven into the face of the condemned all at once when the mask is applied. Although at least Asa was intended to be burned following her death, through some wicked force of nature, a downpour of rain forced the villagers to entomb her instead, with a window in her coffin looking up at a cross--the hope being that the presence of the cross would deter her from rising. Following the unintended desecration of the tomb by the travelling doctors, Prince Vajda (Ivo Garrani) tells the story of his vile ancestor, the curse, and the fate which befell yet another ancestor of his a century prior, suggesting that some supernatural force continues to strike at his family at the behest of the long-dead Asa. On yet another anniversary of that curse, the prince considers how a portrait in his home of Asa looks uncannily like his own lovely daughter, Katia (also played by Barbara Steele), and dreads the implications. His horror is visible to Katia and her brother, Constantine (Enrico Olivieri), and their concern grows when in a state of perceived delirium, he cries out in the night about the manifestation of the late Igor coming to his bedside. This episode leads to Kruvajan being summoned to their home for aid, and the wheels of darkness begin turning, death and horror swooping in to pick off the family and anyone in their way one by one...
Directed by Mario Bava, Black Sunday is frequently cited as an influential and iconic horror film, noted for moments of shocking terror and gore. By today's standards, however, the violence would no doubt be considered tame; but coupled with the occult creepiness and gothic horror plot, they combine into a potent brew which has inspired many filmmakers. Moments like the wild carriage ride to the Vajda castle and others inspired similar scenes in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. Moments in Black Sunday capture the chilling terror of the dead rising and lurking in the shadows, like when the awakened, yet still weak, Asa calls out for Igor to arise. His coffin slowly exhumes itself from the unconsecrated earth of two hundred years, dirt bubbling over like a cauldron, clawing his way out with talon-like hands. With the Mask of Satan still affixed to his face, and only the sound of the thunder and the wind to be heard, he staggers through the ancient boneyard, seeking out his prey. When Kruvajan discovered the body of Asa and removed her mask, the grisly reveal was of a rotting face beneath it, replete with puncture marks and crawling with scorpions; the presence of the mask on Igor implies an equally gruesome visage left to the audience's imagination. Another shocking moment comes when Kruvajan finds himself trapped in the Vajda mausoleum once again--Asa having grown stronger on the spare drops of blood he inadvertently left behind--and the coffin of the revitalized Asa shudders, shakes, then explodes in a violent display, and her reconstructed corpse telepathically seizes the unfortunate doctor with a hypnotic spell. Katia's first appearance in Black Sunday is as an imposing, regal force--accentuated by Barbara Steele's massive eyelashes and her piercing gaze. But as Asa becomes more powerful, Katia's presence in the film shifts from a statuesque amazon to a damsel in distress, a metaphor for Asa leeching away her life force and identity.
Black Sunday is a horror film more concerned with composing scenes of undead chills and occult thrills than being a slave to logic or plausibility. It is almost unreasonable how clumsy Kruvajan is in his destruction of the cross which holds Asa's vile spirit in check, all to smite an oversized, aggressive bat which attacks him, going so far as to shoot the beast with his revolver. Similarly, his associate, Gorobec--a doctor himself--is surprisingly dim and fumbling in his advances toward the attractive Katia. He lays on rote platitudes in an attempt to console her, dismisses her panic at seeing a spectral hand in her room out of hand, and is a little too quick to dose her on a sedative. Prince Vajda expounds to his footman on the dreaded curse at length in a way which is clearly for the benefit of the audience more than the patient manservant. And numerous moments of dialogue between characters have either awkward pauses, or are recited with a kind of staged recitation without pause at all. This creates a surreal environment, a dreamlike atmosphere where characters operate as if under a spell. Katia's describes the portrait of her doppelganger ancestor as though it were like a flame which compelled her--an unusually poetic response to a painting of a great-great-great aunt. But obsessing about the verisimilitude of characters' behavior is not the focus of Black Sunday; on the contrary, the heart of the film is the found on the shadowy, haunted pathway that leads into a realm of gothic horror, bleak castles enshrouded in darkness, looming corridors and creaking doors...the haunts of evil.
Recommended for: Fans of a lauded horror film of vampires and witches haunting the Russian countryside in the 19th century. It is a work that is emblematic of the gory adaptations of gothic horror stories--similar to those of Roger Corman and others--that have been so popular with horror movie fans and filmmakers alike for decades.
Directed by Mario Bava, Black Sunday is frequently cited as an influential and iconic horror film, noted for moments of shocking terror and gore. By today's standards, however, the violence would no doubt be considered tame; but coupled with the occult creepiness and gothic horror plot, they combine into a potent brew which has inspired many filmmakers. Moments like the wild carriage ride to the Vajda castle and others inspired similar scenes in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. Moments in Black Sunday capture the chilling terror of the dead rising and lurking in the shadows, like when the awakened, yet still weak, Asa calls out for Igor to arise. His coffin slowly exhumes itself from the unconsecrated earth of two hundred years, dirt bubbling over like a cauldron, clawing his way out with talon-like hands. With the Mask of Satan still affixed to his face, and only the sound of the thunder and the wind to be heard, he staggers through the ancient boneyard, seeking out his prey. When Kruvajan discovered the body of Asa and removed her mask, the grisly reveal was of a rotting face beneath it, replete with puncture marks and crawling with scorpions; the presence of the mask on Igor implies an equally gruesome visage left to the audience's imagination. Another shocking moment comes when Kruvajan finds himself trapped in the Vajda mausoleum once again--Asa having grown stronger on the spare drops of blood he inadvertently left behind--and the coffin of the revitalized Asa shudders, shakes, then explodes in a violent display, and her reconstructed corpse telepathically seizes the unfortunate doctor with a hypnotic spell. Katia's first appearance in Black Sunday is as an imposing, regal force--accentuated by Barbara Steele's massive eyelashes and her piercing gaze. But as Asa becomes more powerful, Katia's presence in the film shifts from a statuesque amazon to a damsel in distress, a metaphor for Asa leeching away her life force and identity.
Black Sunday is a horror film more concerned with composing scenes of undead chills and occult thrills than being a slave to logic or plausibility. It is almost unreasonable how clumsy Kruvajan is in his destruction of the cross which holds Asa's vile spirit in check, all to smite an oversized, aggressive bat which attacks him, going so far as to shoot the beast with his revolver. Similarly, his associate, Gorobec--a doctor himself--is surprisingly dim and fumbling in his advances toward the attractive Katia. He lays on rote platitudes in an attempt to console her, dismisses her panic at seeing a spectral hand in her room out of hand, and is a little too quick to dose her on a sedative. Prince Vajda expounds to his footman on the dreaded curse at length in a way which is clearly for the benefit of the audience more than the patient manservant. And numerous moments of dialogue between characters have either awkward pauses, or are recited with a kind of staged recitation without pause at all. This creates a surreal environment, a dreamlike atmosphere where characters operate as if under a spell. Katia's describes the portrait of her doppelganger ancestor as though it were like a flame which compelled her--an unusually poetic response to a painting of a great-great-great aunt. But obsessing about the verisimilitude of characters' behavior is not the focus of Black Sunday; on the contrary, the heart of the film is the found on the shadowy, haunted pathway that leads into a realm of gothic horror, bleak castles enshrouded in darkness, looming corridors and creaking doors...the haunts of evil.
Recommended for: Fans of a lauded horror film of vampires and witches haunting the Russian countryside in the 19th century. It is a work that is emblematic of the gory adaptations of gothic horror stories--similar to those of Roger Corman and others--that have been so popular with horror movie fans and filmmakers alike for decades.