Black Sunday, La Maschera del Demonio (1960) - DVD Review at Mondo Esoterica

Mario Bava had a sucessful career in the late 1950s as a cinematographer, particularly on the newly popular peplum films. While working on The Giant of Marathon (1959), he was put into the director's chair after the credited director, Jacques Tourneur, walked off the set. The production company Galatea Film, for whom Bava had worked on three peplums and the horror picture Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959) offered him a chance to direct a film of his own choice, complete with a six week shooting schedule and a suitable budget. The end result was Black Sunday...

Russia, 1700 - a witch and her partner are sentenced to death, as she dies, she curses the family of her persecutor - her own brother. Two hundred years later, two doctors are passing by the family castle when their coach loses a wheel. Taking the time to explore a ruined chapel they discover the witch's coffin and Doctor Kruvajan manages to break a cross standing over the coffin, and then removes the 'Mask of Satan' placed on the corpse to stop it coming back to life. Re-empowered, the witch returns to life and calls her partner back from the grave to avenge her death on the family behind it...

The storyline is very loosely based on Viy, a tale written by persecuted Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, and written in the style of ancient folk legends. The story works well for the most part, with some decent characterisation, and a strong atmosphere. This strong and very dark atmosphere helps to create some genuinely scary sequences without resorting to any 'jump' shocks. Unfortunately, the film does suffer from a very poor climax as Doctor Gorobec ends up in a fist-fight with one of the monsters, like something out of a comedy horror picture, destroying all the atmosphere built up to that point. There are a lot of overly convenient plot points that can distract as well - the castle having large, centrally hung paintings of a 200 year-old witch and her partner seems unusual; the love-story must be the quickest romance in history and is very flatly written; while the film's ending is rather predictable and cliché.

Visually the film is outstanding, every shot looking like a work of art. Mario Bava was an experienced cinematographer and shows off some very impressive skills here - including a number of very nice long tracking camera sequences and very good use of shadows and darkness. The set design is perfectly suited, and helps to give the film its strong and often scary atmosphere, of note given the Russian setting, are the correct Orthodox cruifixes. The soundtrack from Roberto Nicolosi is rather poor - notably missing in the fight sequence and with some sappy love themes that sound like something out of Brief Encounter (1945) - it does the film no favours.

Note the accurate Othodox Russian crosses

Barbara Steele - for a short time Euro-cult-cinema's queen of horror - made her cult movie debut here in a dual role as Princess and Witch, although she doesn't get much chance to show off her acting abilities, her "romantic scenes" are notably poor. The rest of the cast is decent but unimpressive - John Richardson doesn't carry enough gravitas to play the romantic hero.

Often hailed as one the best horror movies ever made, Black Sunday is a very impressive looking film and genuinely scary in scenes, however it suffers from a quite poorly written plot with a terrible climax. Recommended to classic horror fans.

Anyone famous in it?	John Richardson - British star who starred in the Hammer production One Million Years B.C. (1966) Babara Steele - British actress who worked on dozens of Italian films during the 1960s.
Directed by anyone interesting?	Mario Bava - Often considered to be one of the best European cinema directors he directed a wide range of films, but was most at home in the horror genre.
Is it scary?	There are a number of atmospheric scenes that, watched properly, will be very scary - don't expect any jump shocks or cheap scares.
Any violence/gore?	Some quite bloody deaths.
Any sex?	None.
Who is it for?	Fans of classic horror should enjoy this.
Good Soundtrack?	A rather unimpressive track that does the film few favours.

Visuals	Original Aspect Ratio - 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen. Black and White. The print is strong, with good detail. It is quite grainy and has some minor flickering and damage in some scenes, but is free of speckles. The additional scene (see cut? below) is slightly darker than the rest of the scenes, but similarly undamaged.
Audio	German, Italian and English mono. The Italian and English tracks are strong, although German is slightly tinnier. The English track is missing one scene (see cut? below) which plays in Italian only. The German track is missing several scenes which play in English or Italian.
Subtitles	German - translation of the Italian track. German - infill of the missing scenes.
Run-time	Feature: 1hr 24m 36s (PAL)
Extras	The disc includes: Audio Commentary by Tim Lucas containing a lot of facts and details about the film. English. Interview with Barbara Steele. Italian with optional German subtitles only. (8m 23s) From the Cutting Table - A reel of alternate takes and unused scenes. Silent with soundtrack music over the top. Decent print quality. (3m 22s) Original Italian and American cinema trailers. Still galleries - photos, posters and advertising. Presented as a video file with film soundtrack over the top. Chapter scrollable. Original opening title sequences, German (Die Stunde wenn Dracula Kommt), American (Mask of Satan) and American AIP version (Black Sunday), with different soundtrack and English dub. Various qualities. Very detailed biographies (German text) of Bava, Steele and Richardson. Bonus trailers for Bava's Blood and Black Lace and The Whip and the Body, plus Harald Reinl's Castle of the Walking Dead. 8 page liner notes booklet - German text only, translated from Tim Lucas' liner notes for the US release. 40 page comic-book adaptation of the film, full colour in the style of the classic horror comics. German text.
Availability	German release. DVD Title: Die Stunde, wenn Dracula kommt
Packaging	A standard Amaray case contained within a cardboard slip-cover.
Region	Region 2 (UK, Europe) - PAL
Other regions?	US Anchor Bay Mario Bava collection has less features and only the English soundtrack. Italian version has more features including English subtitled interview with Steele, also includes 'intermission break' cards. More details at DVD Rewind.
Cuts?	The film is believed to be fully uncut. This version includes a dialogue scene between the Princess and her father that was only present on the Italian print of the film. This version is missing the 'End of Part 1' 'Part 2' cards present on the original Italian cinema print, and included on the Italian DVD.

Black Sunday (1960)

The Film

In Brief

The DVD

Summary

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