Black Sabbath Blu-ray Review

• 14th May 2013

Originally scheduled to be released on 29th April alongside another Mario Bava film, Baron Blood (1972), the delayed Black Sabbath has now been released on 13th May. This is, after the master horror director’s first film Black Sunday (1960) is considered to be arguably his best film. Made three years after Black Sunday the title, in English at any rate is a reminder to audiences that this is from the same director and in one story is a nod to that first classic in atmosphere, sets and landscape. The Italian title didn’t feel it needed to exploit the audience’s memory in the same way as it is titled, I Tre Volti della Paura (The Three Faces of Fear). It is also a portmanteau film, of the type for which British company (with American producers) Amicus would make a name for themselves and become specialists through the 1960s and 1970s of such films that often starred the likes of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. But this Italian film pre-dates them all and stars another old master of horror, Boris Karloff in what many consider to be his final great role. And Karloff clearly enjoys his part in this film to the point that he remarked that this was the film he had most fun on the set in his entire career. He was originally cast thanks to the American release company, American International Pictures (AIP) who were to be the international distributors of the film who he was under contract with; the Italian company was Galatea.

Karloff, as well as being one of the key characters in one of the stories also introduces each of the three stories and his opening introduction is high camp and very witty stuff: “Ladies and gentlemen, how do you do? This is Black Sabbath. You are about to see three tales of terror and the supernatural. I do hope you haven’t come alone.” He then hopes that the person sitting behind you in the movie theatre is not a blood drinking vampire or ‘wurdalak’. He then proceeds to present the first story. But despite what the titles tell us, the stories are not written by Chekov, F.G. Snyder and Tolstoy. The stories order differs as to whether you watch the Italian version or the international one. The AIP/international order runs like this: ‘A Drop of Water’, ‘The Telephone’ and ‘The Wurdalak’ whereas the Italian print runs in this order: ‘The Telephone’, ‘The Wurdalak’ and ‘A Drop of Water’. ‘A Drop of Water’ is the spookiest tale, a supernatural one about a nurse called by a maid to her charge’s home where the old lady has died during a séance with a frozen expression on her face. The figure of the woman is made with a wax head by Bava’s father and as unnaturalistic it might look it is genuinely terrifying. The maid coverts her former employer’s ring and steals it when she is haunted by a fly and a specter the old woman. Here the director uses sound in a distinctly terrifying way with the sounds of drops of water and key uses audio as well as any director to create more than a frisson of terror. The next story also uses sound in ‘The Telephone’, a thriller made in the typical Italian giallo style in which a beautiful woman is tormented by phone calls by a man claiming to be her recently deceased boyfriend. The final story, ‘The Wurdalak’ is considered the best and most famous, set in old Eastern Europe with a community cursed by the Wurdalak (vampire) and a family’s suspicion that the vampire might be the gruff grandfather (Karloff). This is by far the longest of the stories and is although it may be a little overlong it gives a very clear idea of what Black Sunday would have looked like in colour. And colour and its use is very much at the heart of the film with all the lurid palette of Bava’s film blinding in its use of primary colours and greens, what some have seen as a psychedelic hue of colourisation. This becomes a distinct feature of the director’s work.

It is a film which deserves several viewings and is an enjoyable feast for horror fans and fascinating to see Karloff in an international film. The extras on the disc are many. However, be warned those who already own the Mario Bava boxset released by Starz Entertainment will find that the extras are exactly the same. The extras include an insightful introduction by Bava expert Alan Jones, beautiful looking and highly colorized versions of the film in both dual format Blu-ray and DVD and in both the Italian and English international release which have slightly different edits and cuts as well as sound editing and music score, audio commentary by another Bava expert and biographer, Tim Lucas, as well as an interview with American actor Mark Damon who had also appeared in similar films by Roger Cormon. As well as the usual trailers, best of all there is a documentary, ‘Twice the Fear’ which is interesting in that it compares both the Italian and international releases side by side.

…And yes Ozzy Osbourne’s group renamed the group Black Sabbath after this film.

Chris Hick