By Hank Reineke
Two years after Kino Lorber Studio Classics issued their
Blu-Ray of the continental version of Mario Bava’s horror anthology BLACK
SABBATH, the boutique label has now chosen to release the film’s U.S. cousin in
the same format. Originally released in
Italy in August 1963 as “I tre volti della paura" (“The Three Faces of
Fearâ€), BLACK SABBATH was issued in the U.S. the following spring under the
American-International banner. The film
is often invoked as Bava’s personal favorite among his many directorial
efforts. The Eastmancolor-shot film is
certainly one of his best; though, truth
be told, I personally find the monochrome, atmospheric and gripping witches
tale, BLACK SUNDAY (1960), to be his true high-water mark.
There is, of course, an interesting back-story to this
U.S. issue. American International infamously
tinkered with the original continental cut of the film. These changes have long
been a subject of angst and scorn amongst horror film fans and scholars; their
main complaint is that A.I.P.’s interference wrecked what was previously a perfectly-wrought
and taut trilogy. Their re-sequencing of
episodes and their trimming of a few frames of shocking but gratuitous gore, both
unwelcome and disparaged, would ultimately be the least of concerns.
The greatest outrage was reserved for the studio’s controversial
re-editing of one particular episode, “The Telephone.†In a clumsy effort to protect American
audiences from any contemplation of perceived sordid behavior exhibited
on-screen in the European version, this segment was re-edited in such manner as
to totally remove any suggestion of vengeful lesbian-culpability as a motive in
the ensuing terror. It was, without
doubt, a calculated business - rather than creative - decision to placate the
moralists at home, but it also inarguably subverted the intent and arc of the original
storyline.
Having said this, I must admit that I’ve always been fond
of this often pilloried A.I.P. cut. Not
only was it the version to which I was first introduced - through repetitive telecasts
on Saturday night’s Chiller Theater on
New York’s WPIX - but this English-language version, far more importantly,
features the genuine ominous and sepulchral tones of the great Boris Karloff.
There’s no reason to note here the many small and large
differences between Bava’s original Italian and the subsequent A.I.P. version of
the film. The changes are all exhaustively
and expertly attenuated on the colorful commentary track courtesy of Tim Lucas,
editor of the popular cult-film magazine Video
Watchdog. Lucas is undeniably well
suited for the task: he’s the
acknowledged foremost Bava scholar and author of the thousand plus page
labor-of-love tome “Mario Bava: All The
Colors of the Dark.â€
It also must be said that the studio’s meddling paid
off: BLACK SABBATH did very well for
A.I.P. It opened in neighborhood
theaters and drive-ins across the U.S. in late May of 1964, the top-bill of a
pairing with another 1963 Bava Italian import, EVIL EYE (aka THE GIRL WHO KNEW
TOO MUCH). It was still doing the
circuit in October 1964, now paired with Herschell Gordon Lewis’s splatter-fest
BLOOD FEAST (1963). One year following
its U.S. release, the film was still being programmed as dependable late night
drive-in fare, but now reduced to bottom-bill status to director William
Conrad’s exploitation-shocker TWO ON A GUILLOTINE (1965).
Cineastes can – and most certainly have – argued the
merits and failings of A.I.P.’s re-sequencing of the trilogy, but the A.I.P.
cut inarguably starts things off with a chill. The haunting and nightmarish “A Drop of Water,†possibly the most
celebrated segment of the trilogy, had climactically closed the earlier continental
version of the film. Reportedly based on
a tale by Anton Chekov, this entry concerns the eerie retribution suffered by
nursemaid Helen Chester (Jacqueline Soussard) following her theft of an amethyst
ring from the corpse of an elderly female patient. The newly departed victim would, only
temporarily, lose possession of the precious stone to her scheming health-care
aide.
The twist is that the dead woman was a spiritualist, a
medium with a life-long interest in the black arts. Having some inkling of her client’s interest
in the supernatural, it almost goes without saying the nursemaid should have…
well, known better. The grotesque
corpse of the withered and deceased sorceress – whose dead eyes refuse to stay
closed, no matter how much they’re prompted - should have been warning enough. The décor of the old woman’s home is, as one
might expect, as ominous and brooding as her lifeless body that rests in the
master bedroom. It’s a sullen and dank residence
with heavy draperies, dreary interior hallways, and an assortment of gloomy
toy-dolls strewn haphazardly about the house without explanation. The old woman appears to have retained a
housekeeper to look after her home, but the general disarray that surrounds her
death-bed clearly demonstrates she was not getting the service she’s paid for.
There is a scarcity of dialogue in all three episodes
of BLACK SABBATH; there’s just enough verbiage to propel each storyline
forward. The moments best remembered throughout
are almost entirely visual. Bava was a
stylist of the highest-order (he was a painter prior to working as a
cinematographer), and this film is an amalgam of assortment of haunting images. The corpse-figure of the late medium is so
plainly a mannequin that a more sophisticated modern audience might laugh at the
director’s intended deception. The
problem is the twisted face of the mannequin-corpse is truly the stuff of which
nightmares are made; the molded face with its crazed eyes provides an
undeniably creepy and iconic horror-film visage, one not soon forgotten.
As previously mentioned, the most radical and
controversial re-edits are found in the second segment of BLACK SABBATH, “The
Telephone.†The A.I.P. re-edit of this
episode, more giallo than horror, has
been almost completely shorn of an important red-herring sub-plot. Through their removal of any suggestion of
sexual deviancy, as it is, this capitulation to perceived American moral-sensibilities
of the era inarguably alters and dilutes the sense of mystery that Bava had so masterfully
conjured in the original cut.
In “The Telephone,†the comely Rosy (Michele Mercier)
is terrified by a series of telephone calls that are seemingly coming in from the
disconnected voice of a dead lover. The
mysterious caller is acutely aware of every movement the terrified woman makes
as she moves about her lush apartment - this despite the fact that her windows
are shuttered and blinds drawn. It’s not
explained with satisfaction why Rosy doesn’t simply call the police right away. There is a passing mention she suspects this
voice from beyond the grave is stalking her due to a betrayal: she, apparently,
earlier had turned her lover into the authorities, though it’s never specified
for what crime. Rosy does eventually alert
a seemingly sympathetic friend (Lidia Alfonsi) to the threatening intrusions, but
there is an unambiguous suggestion this called-upon-ally was a former lover who
may or may not have a vengeful agenda of her own.
Boris Karloff’s moniker was the only one in 1964 that would
have carried any marquee import to an American audience. In BLACK SABBATH,†the seventy-six year old
actor not only stars but also serves as a macabre master of ceremonies of sorts;
he bridges the three disparate episodes with his trademark sinister
intonations. He is also, fittingly, the
uncontested star of the film’s third and final (and anglicized) title, “The
Wurdalak.†This episode is a most gripping
and atmospheric entry, an imaginative and mostly original re-working of Aleksey Konstantinovich
Tolstoy’s 1839 short-story, “La Famille du Vourdalak.â€
As the menacing Gorca, Boris Karloff, the long-reigning
king of the horror film, plays – for the very first time in his lengthy and celebrated
career, a genuine vampire. Karloff,
of course, had played an assortment of ghoulish roles dating back to the
silent-era. He was, at any given time,
the Frankenstein monster, the Mummy, Fu Manchu, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde… even detective
Dick Tracy’s fabled nemesis Gruesome. Throughout a half-century plus of celluloid villainy, the off-screen
gentlemanly Karloff was cast almost exclusively as a heavy: he was the maddest
of mad scientists, the most ruthless of gangsters, and the most black-hearted
of executioners.
He plays to type here as well, though there is an
interesting twist to this Eastern European brand of vampirism. Though a vampire by any and all definition of
the word, a Wurdalak, we discover, feasts not on the blood of convenient strangers
but on the sanguine cells and platelets of his very own loved ones. This uncomfortable level of intimacy between the
vampire and his victim is used by Bava to great effect. There is one remarkably creepy moment when,
as his distraught son and daughter-in-law look on in understandable dread, the gaunt
and swollen-red-eyed Karloff chillingly embraces his barely post-toddler grandson
with the most evil of intent.
With apologies to goalie-masked Jason of the Friday the
13th series, this is the stuff of true horror. Kino offers the film in a 1:85:1 ratio, and
includes the aforementioned Tim Lucas commentary track as well as the original
theatrical trailer. Fans of Bava and
Euro-horror might be best served by sticking with the original continental cut of
BLACK SABBATH (available on Kino Classics K1162), but Boris Karloff fans will
need this version for their personal collections. It’s essential.
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