Amazon.com video review:
The reigning masterpiece of Italian horror cinema, Mario Bava's Black
Sunday remains one of the most stylishly photographed of all horror
films, ranking with any other black-and-white film of lasting repute. This
was the master cameraman's official directorial debut, and his striking
compositions are the work of a genuine artist in peak form. Loosely adapted
from a story by Nikolai Gogol, this chilling vampire tale begins in
17th-century Moldavia, where the evil Princess Asa (Barbara Steele) is executed
for witchcraft and vampirism, along with her brother Javutich (Arturo
Dominici). Two centuries later, a pair of traveling doctors discover Asa's
crypt and inadvertently revive the evil princess, whose scheme of vampiric
revenge is aimed at her own identical descendant Princess Katia, an
innocent
beauty (also played by Steele) whose lifeblood will ensure Asa's
immortality.
Influenced by Universal's classic horror films of the '30s and British
Hammer films of the late '50s, Black Sunday (released in Italy as
The Mask of Satan) is a dark fairy tale, with horror queen
Steele as the definitive embodiment of erotic horror. With shocking
violence
(tame by today's standards) and visual emphasis on tombs, secret passages,
ominous castles, and unseen forces, the film offers a wealth of memorable
imagery and inventive technique. Redubbed, rescored, and harshly edited
for
its American release in 1961, Black Sunday is presented on DVD in
the
original English-language director's cut of The Mask of Satan, never
before available in the U.S. The perfect movie to watch on a dark and
stormy
night, this timeless classic is the Citizen Kane of horror films,
entirely worthy of its lofty reputation. --Jeff Shannon
