Die drei Gesichter der Furcht

Black Sabbath is one visually stylish flick, courtesy of one of Italy's finest; Mario Bava.

The first story, The Telephone, is light on suspense but heavy on looks. The first Giallo in color, I believe, to some extent, with sexual overtones featured very prominently. Although it only takes place in one apartment Bava's crazy color schemes work beautifully and thanks to the two stunning ladies this episode goes down very well.

The Wurdulak scores heavy because of it's visuals and it's magnificent Gothic atmosphere. This should give a good example of how Black Sunday might have looked in color. However, this episode feels stretched quite a bit, it's relatively short running time seems longer than it is and therefore, in my opinion, is the weakest of the bunch.

The Drop of Water is the final, and best, episode. Bava was fond of the kind of horror that deals with a person who's totally alone in his/her surroundings. He goes into supernatural territory and creates a highly stylish (again) and quite the scary episode.

Black Sabbath is not the best Mario Bava has to offer, it could have been more scary but thanks to studio involvement he had to keep things light and not too scary. Under such restrictions I think Bava did extremely well and Black Sabbath is most definitely a must for Bava fans.

"Tre volti della paura " is a movie made up of three sketches,linked by Boris Karloff's comments -he plays the lead in the second segment - and all dealing with death following a logical progression:fear of death in the first sketch,some kind of "night of the living dead"cum vampires in the second one and terror around a dead woman in the third.Mario Bava did not need any special effects that mar so many horror films today:his baroque settings (Michele Mercier's flat in the first sketch,the countess's Gothic mansion in the third,and the lunar landscapes in the middle one),his knowing lighting effects,his color research,his incredibly effective use of the depth of field (visually stunning in the final segment)are as impressive today as they were forty years ago and were a strong influence on other Italian directors such as Dario Argento.Worth the price of admission.

Boris Karloff is the host of three scary tales of terror: In the Italian version, the sequence is the following: 1) "Il Telefono" / "O Telefone" ("The Telephone"): Rosy (Michèlle Mercier) receives several phone calls threatening her life. She believes her former lover, who has just escaped from prison, is the man that is calling her. She denounced his crimes some time ago and he was convicted and imprisoned. She calls her lesbian girlfriend Mary (Lidia Alfonsi) to stay with her during the night. Soon a secret is disclosed and a tragedy happens in the middle of the night. In the ridiculous American version, Frank is a ghost and not a fugitive, destroying the tension. My vote is seven.

2) "I Wurdulak" / "O Wurdulak" ("The Wurdulak"): The young Vladimire d'Urfe (Mark Damon) is riding a horse in the night and finds a man stabbed on the back. He withdraws the dagger from the man and finds a house close to the place where he found the body. There, he meets a family composed of two brothers, one sister, one sister-in-law and one nephew, and he falls in love at first sight with the beautiful Sdenka (Susie Andersen). He realizes that the dead man was a criminal, probably killed by the head of the family Gorca (Boris Karloff), and he is advised to leave that place, if Gorca does not arrive until midnight. The family informs that there is a chance that Gorca might have been transformed in a Wurdulak, a kind of vampire who drains blood from the living persons. A few seconds after midnight, Gorca comes back home, and the afraid family does not know whether he was transformed or not. The family will discover later what happened in a tragic way. In the American version, there are modifications and the scene that Gorca takes a head from his bag is cut. My vote is nine.

3) "La Goccia d' Acqua" / "A Gota d' Água" ("The Drop of Water") The nurse Helen Chester (Jacqueline Pierreux) is summoned to prepare the body of a countess for her funeral. She steals the worthy ring from her finger. The countess comes back from beyond to retrieve her ring, scaring the frightened greedy woman. There are few modifications in the American version. My vote is eight.

These three tales are excellent. With the direction of Mario Bava, this film explores themes related to fear, anxiety, greedy and guilty in a splendid scary way. Unfortunately the American version is terrible compared to the Italian version. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil):"Black Sabbath - As Três Máscaras do Terror" ("Black Sabbath - The Three Masks of Terror")

I don't know if Sam Arkoff knows it, but the moment AIP renamed "I Tre Volti Della Paura" into "Black Sabbath" for the American release they were writing 20th century history. A couple of years later a relatively unknown band from Birmingham, inspired by Mario Bava's Gothic horror anthology, would name their band Black Sabbath and proceed to become one of the most well known and influential bands of the last 30 years.

Black Sabbath starts off wisely with the weakest story in the movie, "The Telephone". There's nothing incredibly exciting going on, and the interior setting doesn't allow Bava to fully exercise his usual flair in visuals and atmosphere, rendering this segment a rather routine affair. Any historical significance the segment might have in the shaping of the giallo is made redundant by the fact that Bava himself would go on to define the genre a few years later with Blood and Black Lace.

The patient viewer will be amply rewarded by the following two segments though. The Wurdulak, featuring a ghastly Boris Karloff in one of his best roles, and A Drop of Water, with Jacqueline Pierreux in the role of a greedy nurse, are both the epitome of Mario Bava's Gothic style in colour.

What makes Black Sabbath so vibrant and captivating is the use of colour in lighting. Going against every rule and defying every sense of historic realism, Bava employs colours from every end of the palette (from magenta to cyan) and lights his sets in the most imaginative ways. It may seem arbitrary, and it may very well be, but the effect cannot be dismissed. It works. Imagine Seijun Suzuki circa Tokyo Drifter doing Black Sunday in colour and you get pretty close to what Bava strives for lighting-wise. There's a pop art sensibility that contrasts beautifully with the stern tone of the movie. Combined with misty exteriors, long shadows and a baroque opulence, Bava mutates Gothic horror into a unique beast that is simultaneously very familiar and extravagantly exotic.

What's even more admirable is that Black Sabbath is actually scary. Well not in the traditional sense anymore, no. But there are genuinely chilling moments. I can't even begin to imagine how horrifying the ending of A Drop of Water or Boris Karloff's face seen through a smudged glass in The Wurdulak would have been to unsuspecting audiences back in 1963.

In conclusion; seek this movie out, but know what you're getting into. This is old school Gothic horror with a unique visual flair, a penchant for atmosphere and a great Boris Karloff. In the Gothic horror Bava scale, I would rank it somewhere between Kill! Baby! Kill... (Bava's other masterpiece) and Lisa and the Devil, if that means anything.

This is an anthology film with three stories, totally unrelated introduced by a rather aged, dignified Boris Karloff. Karloff introduces each with great savvy and a generous dose of wit and humour. All three stories were directed by Italian horror specialist Mario Bava, whose use of the camera was legendary and unique. The first story was based on a story by Chekov called "The Drop of Water" and it is the best of the three. This little story about a nurse that steals a ring off the body of a witch, having been warned not to, is one of the scariest scenes ever to be filmed. The second story about a killer and a phone is adequate. The third story, starring Karloff as a Wurdelak...or vampire..is very good. It has plenty of atmosphere, and is the only film in which Boris ever played a vampire. All in all, Black Sabbath is a good film. It shows the talent that Bava had for taking fairly ordinary situations in life into horriffic ones.