Les trois visages de la peur

Excellent horror anthology film from Mario Bava with three stories as well as linking segments with Boris Karloff. The first story is "The Drop of Water," about a nurse who steals a ring off the finger of a medium's corpse. If you guessed that won't end well for her, you're right. This is a suspenseful story with fine atmosphere. That corpse is one of the creepiest-looking things I've ever seen on film. The next story, "The Telephone," is about a woman receiving mysterious taunting phone calls. A nice-looking segment, and Michele Mercier is definitely attractive, but this is the weakest of all the stories. That isn't to say it's bad, though. It's interesting enough just not as good as the other two. The final, and best, story is "The Wurdulak," about a family awaiting the return of their father (Boris Karloff) who went out to kill a vampire. When the father returns, he's very different. Karloff is lots of fun in this story as well as the linking segments.

This review is mainly for the dubbed American version. The original Italian version differs from the American with the order of the stories changed as well as some violent and suggestive content that was cut for American release. I give both versions the same score because, to me, the differences aren't enough to make one better than the other. "The Telephone" has the most significant changes but remains the weakest story in both versions. The Italian version has a score by Roberto Nicolosi and the American score is by Les Baxter. I preferred the Baxter score personally but I can see where others would prefer Nicolosi's more subtle score. I recommend you try both versions if you have the time. It's a colorful and beautiful-looking film that ranks high on the list of horror anthology movies I've seen. Karloff and Bava fans will love it.

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.

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.

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")

This terrifying film with plenty of vampires , weird deeds and murders is formed by three stories proceeded in some memorably horrific set-pieces : 1) ¨The telephone¨ by author Snyder : A prostitute (Michele Mercier) terrorized in her flat by phone calls from a broken-out inmate (Milo Quesada) receives visit her lover (Lidia Alfonsi). 2) ¨The Wurdalak¨ by Aleksey Tolstoi : In a night of nightmare during the early 1800s , a Russian noble (Mark Damon, usual in Spaghetti Western) and a family (exceptional Boris Karloff, a gorgeous Susy Andersen, and Massimo Roghi) stumble vampires who must kill those love and go after their descendants ; the undead vampires of hell terrorize the house in a orgy of stark horror. 3) ¨The drop of water¨ by Chekhov : In the early 1900s , a nurse (Jacqueline Pierreux, mother of actor Jean Pierre Leaud, 400 blows) steals a ring from a medium dead and she seeks avenge , then a ghastly specter arises , exacting cruel revenge for past robbery.

Bava's second great hit (the first was Black Sunday or Mask of the demon) surprisingly realized with startling visual content and well scripted by Marcello Fondato and Albert Bevilacqua . This omnibus terror is plenty of thrills and chills in glimmer color and in lurid paste with sensational results . This genuinely creepy tale is photographed by Ubaldo Terzano and Bava himself with magentas , shades of ochre , translucently pale turquoises and deep orange-red reflecting paleness on the victims . Eerie and suspenseful musical score by Roberto Nicolisi , though in American version was composed by Lex Baxter , Corman's usual. The motion picture was stylishly and strikingly shot by Bava , filmed in parallel orbit to those Roger Corman ( Edgar Allan Poe cycle) and produced by American International (James H. Nicholson , Samuel Z. Arkoff) . Bava along with Riccardo Freda are fundamental kings of Italian horror , in fact collaborated deeply among them , as Bava terminated two films of Freda, ¨Il Vampiri¨ and ¨Caltiki¨ and they created the Giallo sub-genre. Rating : Good , acceptable atmospheric direction from genre master MarioBava , this is one more compelling horror ventures in which his camera stalks in sinister style throughout a tale with extraordinary visual skills . A must see for terror buffs.