Post by slayrrr666 on Nov 18, 2005 14:22:48 GMT -5
A new entry in my "Never-ending Shame" series, and one that will start off my older horror film viewing:
'Black Sunday' is a Gothic masterpiece made in the modern era.
**SPOILERS**
Tried for witchcraft, Princess Asa Vadja (Barbara Steele) and her lover Javutich (Arturo Dominici) are fitted with the Mask of Satan and burned alive. Asa vows to get her revenge, which everyone at the time takes as an idle threat. Three hundred years later, one of Asa's descendents, Dr. Thomas Kruvajan, (Andrea Checci) discovers a tomb not far from his castle and gets a friend of his, Dr. Andre Gorobec (John Richardson) to look at the tomb with him. Finding the masked body of Asa, he accidentally cuts his finger and drops several ounces of blood onto the corpse. Thinking nothing of it, they return back to the castle and Thomas' girlfriend, Katia Vadja. (Barbara Steele) Katia is intrigued with the castle, as one of the paintings bears a remarkable similarity to her. That night, both Asa and Javutich are resurrected and spread death across the Italian landscape. Gorobec and Kruvajan discover the possibility that they are back to claim their revenge, which would include the killing of Katia. As Thomas is in love with Katia, he decides to fight for her against the undead witches inside their tomb.
The Good News: Wow. This is one of the creepiest films ever committed to celluloid. True, the concept of a witch returning from the dead to claim vengeance is a pretty cliché story, here Bava turns it around and manages to throw surprise after surprise at the viewer. The biggest surprise is how well the film is photographed. It is very beautifully filmed and angled, which isn't a very common trait nowadays in horror films. It isn't all that fancy, but the sets used and the costumes are a major help. The inviting black & white colors draw on an even similar tone as they use the inherent creepiness it gives on viewers to meld together and create an atmosphere that Hollywood has overall lacked, save for Hitchcock. Not necessarily filled with scares or jumps, this film instead decides to unnerve you with images that are creepier than anything else. The sight of Javutich crawling out of his grave is a simply classic example. We have all seen movies of people crawling out of graves. Instead, 'Black Sunday' shows the moving and heaving Earth nearby and then the rocks part and a bony skeletal hand springs forth and hauls the body out of the ground. The black & white photography has the biggest advantage to the film, as the film is uses them in such a way that only the early Universal films had managed to recreate. Instead of using colors, the black & white offer a different viewpoint as we are not sure what we are seeing, but yet the images are there for us to be enjoyed and creeped out by. Bava has always been a master scene-setter, and here is only the beginning of ample evidence to support this. Having Barbara Steele in a dual role allows us to view the deadly aspects of Asa and the beauty of Katia. That, combined with the remarkable ending, in which Thomas is about to kill the good Katia at the urging of the evil Asa, and just to make sure puts a cross to her head and it doesn't burn her head, is a chilling moment as we finally learn that Asa has been reborn is a great Bava moment. The painting that so intrigues Katia is a great inclusion as we have the important film-making technique of us knowing that Katia and Asa are related without us being explicitly told that is so rarely seen I felt it had been forgotten, as we are never told until the very end that the two of them are related, but yet we've already known for a long time, due to the painting. A timeless move that I wish would reappear soon in movies.
The Bad News: This is a Gothic horror film, and as such, there isn't a lot of graphic violence in this movie. Despite a sizable body count for the time, there really isn't a very graphic killing done in the film. The lone instance is in the beginning, where the Mask of Satan is pounded onto Asa's face. We see the holes of the mask afterward, but that is about as graphic as it gets. This could turn off Bava fans that are into his later, more violent and graphic films.
The Final Verdict: True Bava fans won't be put off by this relatively bloodless movie, as it is a classic of horror cinema. It is so well done that the hour and a half running time is thoroughly enjoyed and spent in a state of nervousness. See it if you consider yourself a fan of horror movies, period.
Today's Rating; PG-13: Violence, demonic themes