Black Sabbath (AKA I tre volti della paura) (1963) Review
I have a confession to make. Until quite recently, in fact very recently, I had not seen a Mario Bava film. Yes, you’ve read that correctly. Well, aside from A Bay of Blood, which I thought had its moments but hardly left me hanging for more. However after viewing a gorgeously clear print of his rightly acclaimed Black Sabbath I have been afforded the opportunity to see why Bava is rightly praised and revered.
Aside from Argento’s Suspiria I have never known a horror film to be as well framed and sumptuous as his Black Sunday. Every frame is lavish and handsomely mounted, often distracting from the action on-screen with its gorgeous sets and exquisite cinematography, courtesy of Ubaldo Terzano. The lush colour scheme and visuals are given suitable accompaniment from Roberto Nicolosi’s score along with decent sound effects that ramp up the atmosphere.
Horror anthologies are an incredibly mixed bag, as the recent V/H/S and The ABCs of Death demonstrate. Black Sabbath is arguably the only horror anthology that works aside from 1945’s Dead of Night. Generally the problem with anthologies is that once the viewer has engaged with one plot arc and its assorted characters they are then asked to do so the same with another lot again and again.
Psychologically this can make the film seem longer than it actually is because of the changing visual diet before them making them feel that they have been watching the film for ages. A bit like an All-You-Eat Chinese buffet you’re offered a variety of dishes all of which you sample a bit of before trying something else. By the end you feel full but later feel hungry for something else.
That’s how it works with most anthologies. Not so with Mario Bava’s film which actually gets the order of stories right with the intriguing but lesser The Telephone kicking off proceedings following a very colourful introduction from horror icon Boris Karloff before he himself steps in for acting duties on the longer The Wurdalak (based on the novella The Family of the Vourdalak by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy). The climatic The Drop of Water appealed more to this critic’s sensibilities for being creepier and more atmospheric rounding off a near perfect evening’s viewing.
The Telephone, by Howard Synder, is a simplistic tale of an attractive Parisian call-girl called Rosy (Michèle Mercier) who is terrorised by phone calls she assumes are from Frank, her ex-pimp, whom has escaped from jail. It was Rosy’s damning testimony that saw Frank end up in jail so understandably she’s a bit jittery especially when he keeps saying he’ll kill her before the night is out.
Rosy needs comforting so phones her estranged lesbian lover Mary (Lydia Alfonsi) who agrees to pop over and keep her company. Naturally things are not as they first seem and Bava neatly builds every plot reveal leading to a satisfactory climax to the tale. The Telephone is simple in structure and the reveals work ensuring that you are kept hooked throughout, the equivalent of a good book that has you eagerly turn each page to see what happens next.
The Wurdalak is the longest of the three tales, set in 19th Century Russia and starring our host, good old Boris. He plays missing father Gorca to a family that a young nobleman Vladimir d’Urfe (pretty boy Mark Damon) happens across upon his travels. Prior to finding the family’s small rural cottage d’Urfe discovers a beheaded corpse that has a knife anchored in its chest.
Vladimir removes the knife and keeps it for a souvenir. Spookily enough this knife could just be the same one that is missing from the family home at which he is looking to bed down for the night. Giorgio (Glauco Onorato) explains to his guest Vladimir that the knife belongs to his father, who has not been seen for five days. His father had ventured off to do battle with Ali Beg, a wurdalek. A wurdalek is similar to a vampire. They are no longer alive and like vampires have a taste for the red stuff however they won’t, or can’t, drink just anyone’s blood, it has to be from loved ones such as close family and friends.
As the extended family contemplate their father’s fate he comes toddling back at exactly the stroke of midnight. Gorca shuffles into the family abode looking like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards and is more than a tad grumpy, but then wouldn’t you be if you’d been out in that howling wind (a wind that is heard on the soundtrack but appears to affects nothing on the landscape).
It is obvious that their father has ‘become’ however they still let him play with his grandchild all the while toying between feelings of love for their old man or the rather more crucial matter of killing him. Given that this is a horror anthology it goes without saying that the wrong decision is made which leaves this longer middle story visually and aurally intoxicating but a little obvious on in respect of the story’s outcome.
The same could be argued with the anthology’s climactic tale The Drop of Water however knowing the outcome is more part of the fun here whereas with the middle section you kind of groan as to the inevitability of it all. It helps too that The Drop of Water is simply ravishing to look at. Set in Victorian London, England (in case you weren’t sure where London was) grumpy Nurse Helen Chester (Jacqueline Pierreux) is initially all huffs and puffs at being called out to assist with preparing the corpse of an elderly medium for her burial.
The deceased’s house is HUGE and wonderfully decorated making one think, as they watch, that they are in the wrong career if being a medium pays so well. Anyhow Helen soon brightens up when she spies a rather large sapphire ring on the deceased’s finger. Given that nurses have always been underpaid she gives in to temptation and steals the ring. No sooner has Helen done so than very strange things start to happen most of which is accompanied by the sound of water dripping. Things get no better for Helen upon returning to her East End flat and the tale finishes with a neat wink that matters are set to continue for someone else.
The film was re-titled and re-edited by American International Pictures (AIP) for the US release with their choice of title a homage to Black Sunday, the previous film that Bava had made for AIP with an eye to tapping into the financial success of the earlier picture. I tre volti della paura, the original cut, plays better for several reasons.
The order of the anthology’s three stories was changed for the American release (an order which didn’t need changing, it was perfectly fine to begin with) and additional dialogue, and some additional footage, courtesy of co-producer Salvatore Billitteri, to help explain what for most would be obvious as well as more music and sound effects to help spoon-feed the US audience further.
It takes a lot for this critic to be enthralled or surprised or indeed fall in love with a film given the humongous volume of flicks he keenly sees. Black Sabbath did just that and I can’t wait to watch it again.
And if you hadn’t guessed this is where heavy metal band Black Sabbath appropriated their name from. When the band were performing in Birmingham, then called Earth, they noticed that more people were queuing to see a movie called Black Sabbath at a theatre across the street than turning up for their performance. Deducing that horror sells their changed their name to…tah dah! And the rest is history….sort of.
