Black Sunday (1960) Princess Katia image provided by Filmgrab
Mario Bava... I'll let that name linger for a moment. If you don’t understand why it carries such weight, then you clearly haven't explored much Gothic horror. To be fair, I hadn’t either, but after recently watching Bava's Black Sunday, I completely get the hype. From the very first scene, it's evident that Mario Bava was not fucking around.
Black Sunday also known as The mask of Satan opens with a scene where Asa Vajda, played by the alluring Barbara Steele, is found guilty of witchcraft and tied to a large stake, along with her lover, as a raging storm approaches. She is branded with the letter 'S' for being a satanist, and she vows to seek revenge on the descendants of the man who sentenced her to death: her own brother. As she proclaims her love for satan, a muscular, shirtless executioner positions a spiked Iron Maiden-style mask over her face and forcefully hammers it down, driving the sharp spikes deep into her skull— and delivering a shock to my system. Who knew the 1960s could be so heavy metal?
Naturally, for the sake of the story, Asa Vajda is not burned to ash but instead buried in the family crypt—like, hello, did you not hear her warning about coming back? But I digress. Decades after her execution, a pair of doctors stumble upon her corpse in the family crypt and suddenly get the urge to become grave robbers, the vengeful Princess Asa Vajda and her fiendish vampire servant are resurrected and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of Asa Vajda's beautiful look-alike descendant Princess Katia.
Naturally, one of the doctors, Dr. Andrej Gorobec, is rather handsome and quickly becomes smitten with Princess Katia and so resolves to be her knight in shining armor. So it’s a Horror with romance elements (yawn) which I don’t have anything against but the idea of romance on screen was very different in the 1960’s and mostly revolved around the female lead fainting several times into the male lead’s arms because she’s just such a vulnerable dame. Despite the dramatics, Brava’s Black Sunday is a stunning film. It’s visually sticking, from the production design to the lighting to the visual effects Black Sunday is beautifully presented.
The lighting is amazing - Image provided by filmgrab
However, it’s not an easy watch—not because it’s scary, but because it’s… funny. As a film enthusiast who hasn’t seen many films from the 1960s, I found myself laughing at certain tropes and elements within the film—not out of malice, but in recognition of how far cinema has come. For instance, there’s a scene where Dr. Choma Kruvajan is fighting off a bat, which is clearly just a large puppet covered in feathers. As he battles this bat with his cane, they’ve added some dramatic expressions in post-production that he’s clearly not making.
Another scene that nearly brought me to tears is the fight between our 'Dr. McDreamy' and Asa’s vampire lover. As they grapple on the ground, the fight loses all semblance of continuity, and somehow the vampire gets caught in a trap floorboard while Katia's brother dies in McDreamy’s arms. How did he even end up there?
Overall, the film is extremely dramatic and fun. Even today, it could be considered exceptionally well shot. I loved Barbara’s portrayal of both Asa and Katia; she superbly balances the line between creepy and sexy, innocent and unhinged. The music deserves a 10/10 for its dramatic flair, and most of all, I appreciated that it was a vampire story that didn't focus on Catholicism. While it ultimately offered a Christian solution to the problem, it was refreshing to see it rooted in Orthodoxy instead. Despite some general oddities, there’s no denying that this film is a classic.
Black Sunday (1960) Princess Katia image provided by Filmgrab
Mario Bava... I'll let that name linger for a moment. If you don’t understand why it carries such weight, then you clearly haven't explored much Gothic horror. To be fair, I hadn’t either, but after recently watching Bava's Black Sunday, I completely get the hype. From the very first scene, it's evident that Mario Bava was not fucking around.
Black Sunday also known as The mask of Satan opens with a scene where Asa Vajda, played by the alluring Barbara Steele, is found guilty of witchcraft and tied to a large stake, along with her lover, as a raging storm approaches. She is branded with the letter 'S' for being a satanist, and she vows to seek revenge on the descendants of the man who sentenced her to death: her own brother. As she proclaims her love for satan, a muscular, shirtless executioner positions a spiked Iron Maiden-style mask over her face and forcefully hammers it down, driving the sharp spikes deep into her skull— and delivering a shock to my system. Who knew the 1960s could be so heavy metal?
Naturally, for the sake of the story, Asa Vajda is not burned to ash but instead buried in the family crypt—like, hello, did you not hear her warning about coming back? But I digress. Decades after her execution, a pair of doctors stumble upon her corpse in the family crypt and suddenly get the urge to become grave robbers, the vengeful Princess Asa Vajda and her fiendish vampire servant are resurrected and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of Asa Vajda's beautiful look-alike descendant Princess Katia.
Naturally one of the doctors, Dr. Andrej Gorobec, is rather handsome and quickly becomes smitten with Princess Katia and so resolves to be her knight in shining armor. So it’s a Horror with romance elements (yawn) which I don’t have anything against but the idea of romance on screen was very different in the 1960’s and mostly revolved around the female lead fainting several times into the male lead’s arms because she’s just such a vulnerable dame. Despite the dramatics Brava’s Black Sunday is a stunning film. It’s visually sticking, from the production design to the lighting to the visual effects Black Sunday is beautifully presented.
The lighting is amazing - Image provided by filmgrab
However, it’s not an easy watch—not because it’s scary, but because it’s… funny. As a film enthusiast who hasn’t seen many films from the 1960s, I found myself laughing at certain tropes and elements within the film—not out of malice, but in recognition of how far cinema has come. For instance, there’s a scene where Dr. Choma Kruvajan is fighting off a bat, which is clearly just a large puppet covered in feathers. As he battles this bat with his cane, they’ve added some dramatic expressions in post-production that he’s clearly not making.
Another scene that nearly brought me to tears is the fight between our 'Dr. McDreamy' and Asa’s vampire lover. As they grapple on the ground, the fight loses all semblance of continuity, and somehow the vampire gets caught in a trap floorboard while Katia's brother dies in McDreamy’s arms. How did he even end up there?
Overall, the film is extremely dramatic and fun. Even today, it could be considered exceptionally well shot. I loved Barbara’s portrayal of both Asa and Katia; she superbly balances the line between creepy and sexy, innocent and unhinged. The music deserves a 10/10 for its dramatic flair, and most of all, I appreciated that it was a vampire story that didn't focus on Catholicism. While it ultimately offered a Christian solution to the problem, it was refreshing to see it rooted in Orthodoxy instead. Despite some general oddities, there’s no denying that this film is a classic.
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