Black Sabbath
| release date | August 17 1963 |
| studio | American International Pictures (AIP) |
| director | Mario Bava, Salvatore Billitteri |
| writer | Mario Bava, Alberto Bevilacqua |
| starring | Boris Karloff, Michèle Mercier, Jacqueline Pierreux, Mark Damon |
| tagline | This is the night of the nightmare...The day of the Undead. |
| trailer 1 | Trailer #1 |
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Anthology films are not my favorite, but I do enjoy the well-made ones from time-to-time. Even more-so, I enjoy a HORROR anthology, and those don’t come along too often. And when they do, sadly, they almost always turn out to be trash. This is because with an anthology film, you need to tell a story even if as a whole, the thing feels uneven. It’s damn hard to make a good anthology film; one that makes sense and is worth the viewer’s valuable time. But they’ve done it before, and by golly, they’ve done it here.
“Black Sabbath” is a delightful, delirious creep-show; a magnificently macabre anthology film kept together by master filmmakers doing what they love to do: make horror films. This film is a winner in a number of ways, and I could tell that from the very beginning. I’m not so sure if it’s a genre classic, but I admittedly enjoyed myself quite a bit.
The first story: The Telephone. Well, I guess it wouldn’t be doing you no harm to spoil most of the plot for this one. The premise says it all; a woman gets terrorized from a man who will not stop calling her. Speculations that this man is a serial killer? Yes, I guess so. The first part of the film is pretty good, and has some really good moments of tension; almost Hitchcock-like in their whimsy. The ending isn’t as incredible as it wants to be, but hey: at least it works.
The second story: The Wurdalak. The first thing you may be wondering about is the name. A “Wurdalack” is some sort of demonic presence within the film, which takes form of a child and then a vampire-like man. The story follows a family who gets paid a visit from a creepy old man who turns out to be a vampire. That night, he runs off and takes the child of the house. The child returns in a rather ghastly state, and what happens from there I will not say, for it is not worth spoiling. Perhaps the best of the three parts, this one does not pull any punches; it is what it is. I can’t complain.
The third and final story: The Drop of Water. A woman prepares a corpse for its burial by laying it down on a bed. When she sees a good-looking ring on the corpse’s finger, the woman takes it out of greed, and the ghost of this woman, or some ghost (I don’t know) comes back to haunt her for her humane greediness. Pretty good, with a nice feeling to it. Better than the first part, not as good as the second.
Atmosphere will never get old; and the best horror films will always rely on it. There are masters of suspense (Hitchcock) and masters of the macabre and all things horrific (Argento). This film was directed by the well-known Italian horror filmmaker Mario Bava, and it is one of his finest pictures. “Black Sabbath”, as a whole, is pretty creepy and has a good number of scares. Horror fans should be pleased, and really, anybody else should too. This film does not exactly have limited appeal, but most horror films are made for those with a certain passion for the genre. Here’s a movie that will exercise some sort of charm for those who admire good horror, and I’m one of those people who just couldn’t resist. This is not a perfect film, nor is it a really great one, but “Black Sabbath” is still thoroughly entertaining and creepy enough to be called a horror film. Unlike many films within the genre, it does not abuse the term.
This movie came out in 1963?!?!?!?! You’ll be scratching your head too after you watch it. Why you may ask? Well for starters the ENTIRE opening scene from SCREAM is copied from one of the three segments in this anthology movie from Mario Bava, the grandfather of the grand gullion. However in this version the woman is a super hot lesbian (yea, a 1963 movie had a killer stalking his openly gay victim by telephone) and this is the weakest of the three! And by weakest I mean it rocks hard core but isn’t quite as good as the two that follow it.
The second segment finds a nurse given the task of preparing a recently passed woman for her open viewing aka worst job ever! Guess with all the lesbians and telephone stalkers running around no one had time for community college. Well this dead woman has some BLING BLING on her RING RING (…yup, a HOT CHICKS reference in a 60′s Italian horror film review, DEAL!) that is just too tempting. So the nurse steals it of course and from this point on the film turns into a remake of Edgar Allen Poe’s THE TELL TALE HEART with deafeningly loud drops of water slowly driving the poor nurse insane. I mean NOT poor nurse; bitch stole from a dead body! She deserves to be freaked out by as many noises as the deceased gypsy sends her way. Oh, did I mention the dead woman was a feared and renowned gypsy? Well, she was. Did these people not see DRAG ME TO HELL!?!?!?! Oh that’s right; everyone involved in DRAG ME TO HELL weren’t even a twinkle in their fathers’ eye when this film came out. It’s too bad that generation after generation has to find out the hard way to never fuck with Gypsies.
The last story stars Boris Karloff in the best segment OF THEM ALL!!!! (That sounds like a big deal, but there are only 3 segments so I guess its faint praise…but praise none the less) This story deals with…oh lord, what doesn’t it. “A Russian count in the early 1800s who stumbles upon a family in the countryside trying to destroy a particularly vicious line of vampires” is what IMDB.COM describes the plot as, but just so you know I didn’t realize vampires were involved at all until I read that. So all you twilight haters that have a knee jerk reaction to knee a jerk every time you hear “vampire” can cool your heels. There are headless bodies, lots of cleavage, a couple scary ghost stories told, a couple decapitated heads (though the heads and headless bodies never match up, a GLARING oversight or subtle hint at a more complex history to the plot?) and all kinds of other gothic creeps.
This movie was so far ahead of it’s time that while watching it you’ll think you’re watching a movie currently in release. I mean that in storytelling tecnique only. The picture quality is horrible and everyone speaks in Italian with even more horrible than the picture quality English dubbing. Regardless Bava films everything with slanted camera work and garish colors that are as limitless as LISA FRANK’s paintbrush. There is genuine suspense at a couple points, and even when it’s not generating much in the way of frights it is consistently amazing to look at. At times it resembles a gay disco tech in the middle of a hurricane (no really, on more than one occasion I lost track of the actors amidst all the streams of day glow lighting and fog machine theatrics). But if you’re a fan of older cinema or horror movies or fog enshrouded gay clubs walk, don’t run, to see BLACK SABBATH (or just sit in front of your computer and log onto Netflix. it’s available there instantly.)
A classic, chilling anthology! I could watch ones like this all day!
Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler changed the name of their early metal band to Black Sabbath after seeing crowds line up to watch said horror movie in 1963. I’m sure back then it was quite the trill – but this one doesn’t hold up to the test of time in my opinion. If you like old movies with stormy castles and gothic decor and you can overlook the cheese … this one is for you. If not you’re in for a nap. The vampire story is the best of the trilogy by far. Karloff still brings it.