And I thought '2001' had a crappy final reel

Crucible of Horror (aka "The Corpse") (1971)
Starring: Michael Gough, Yvonne Mitchell, Sharon Gurney, and Simon Gough
Director: Viktor Retelis
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Edith (Mitchell) joins with her teenaged daughter (Gurney) in a plot to murder the domineering, sadistic, obsessive-compulsive head of their family (Michael Gough). But something goes wrong....

"Crucible of Horror" is the most bewildering movie I've seen this side of "2001." And in the end, I hate it almost as much.

For most of its running time, it's a nice little gothic thriller that's a bit slow in the uptake and prone to abandon plot threats almost as soon as they are introduced, but it's a fairly solid film until the final 10-15 minutes. Then it all goes to crap.

Oftentimes, with a movie like this, I can say, "Stop watching after this or that happen... you'll still end up enjoying the movie, because you'll never experience the shit that spoils it at the end." That doesn't work with this one, because even if you stop watching, there are so many unresolved plot threads that you won't be satisfied. Sadly, those plot threads NEVER get resolved, and the film ends in such a baffling, nonsensical and convoluted way that even the parts you thought you knew what was going on end up not making any sense in context.

I try not to spoil even the crappy movies--because, after all, one man's trash is another man's treasure--but I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the mother and daughter do not successfully kill their tormentor; it a feature of this type of film--either the dead man isn't dead, someone is posing as him, or he's a ghost. At least I don't think they do. The ending is so messed up that I really can't say for sure, because it is so out of step with the earlier film. I kept holding out hope that what was happening in the movie was that the apparently dutiful son (played by star Michael Gough's real-life son, Simon) had also planned to murder his father and that their plans had gotten tangled in each other. That turns out to not be the case, but it would been a far better movie it had been.

The only thing that saves this film from being relegated to Movies You Should (Die Before You) See is the performance given by Michael Gough. He exudes evil in this rare starring role, and it's a performance that shows that he should have been given more chances to take center stage like this. It's a shame it was wasted on a turd such as this.

The rest of the cast is also decent, and the movies technical aspects for the most part solid... even if I could have done without some of the quick-edit flashbacks and the kooky, trippy dream-sequences.





Trivia: Simon Gough and Sharon Gurney, who play bother and and sister in this film, were actually husband and wife.

'Fangs of the Living Dead' has no bite

Fangs of the Living Dead (1969)
Starring: Anita Ekberg, Julian Ugarte, John Hamilton, Diana Lorys, Adriana Ambesi, and Guy Roberts
Director: Amando de Ossorio
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A model (Ekberg) is summoned to her ancestral home to receive her inheritance. She comes under the influence of her sinister uncle (Ugarte) and the cult of vampires that is forming around him.

"Fangs of the Living Dead" plays like a lobotomized version of "Dracula", with several scenes heavily inspired by the novel and with Ekberg's Sylvia standing in for Jonathan Harker, crossed with a "dark old house" movie and flavored with the graphic sensibilities and tight dresses of 1960s Hammer gothic horror flicks. If the filmmakers had stuck with this approach, the over-the-top acting, the melodramatic dialogue, and the dippy characters would all add up, whether intentional or not, to a hilarious send-up of the gothic horror genre. The overblown soundtrack music only makes it all the more funny. Unfortunately, it's all ruined when writer/director Amando de Ossorio tries his hand at a twist ending that tries to undo everything that unfolded in the film and reduces what was funny to a level of idiocy. And the twist on the twist doesn't help any. In fact, these are such misguided twists that one wonders if everyone involved with the production has severe memory issues, as it doesn't fit with much of what unfolded earlier. (That said, the "twist" itself could be a misfired attempt at spoofing horror movies, which would mean the movie was intended as a send-up all along; in the 1930s and 1940s, it wasn't uncommon for the supposed supernatural elements in a film to be written off through a revelation in the third act that it was all a hoax. The most blatant example of this can be found in "Mark of the Vampire".)

The film is further crippled by the fact that headliner Anita Ekberg is miscast. At 38, she was a bit long in the tooth to play the part of the "naive young heiress" and as a result she comes across more like a blonde so dumb that calling her retarded would be a compliment.

However, for all its weaknesses, the film features some nice cinematography, and the director manages to evoke a chilling atmosphere here and there, especially during the sequence when Ekberg is running around the castle in terror, and the one that riffs on the "Dracula" scene where the heroes wait for the undead Lucy in the graveyard. The drunken village doctor who stands in for the Abraham Van Helsing character is also a great deal of fun... and then there's the vamp-on-vamp battle to the death during the film's climax, one of the great cat-fights in cinematic history.

In the end, though, the bad far outweighs the good. The film rates the lowest possible Three I can give it, and it is only suitable for viewing as part of a Bad Movie Night.

Hammer unmasks the 'Phantom of the Opera'

The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
Starring: Edward DeSouza, Heather Sears, Herbert Lom, Thorley Walters, and Michael Gough
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

As if Harry (DeSouza), a young director and producer of operas, didn't have enough problems dealing with the massive ego of the creator and backer of his latest show (Gough), and the backer's unsavory designs upon the young, virginal diva (Sears), the production is plagued with mysterious disasters. Harry soon uncover darks secrets surrounding the production, but will he manage to placate the Phantom of the Opera (Lom) before it is too late for all involved?!

The Hammer version of "The Phantom of the Opera" is the fastest moving, most-visually interesting adaptation of the tale that I've seen. The watery lair of the Phantom is very cool, Heather Sears is a hotty and she also plays nicely off Lom, and Michael Gough is the perfect upper-class slime and wanna-be musical genius who only acheives that status when he steals the life-work of another man. All in all, the cast here is great, and it's another Terrence Fisher-helmed movie that's absolutely gorgeous to behold.

Meat Loaf's 'I Would Do Anything for Love'

It's a great video for one of his greatest recordings. (It was directed by Michael Bay.)

'The Secrets of Sinister House' revealed!

Showcase Presents: The Secrets of Sinister House
(DC Comics, 2010)
Writers: Michael Fleisher, Joe Albano, E. Nelson Bridwell, Sheldon Mayer, Jack Olek, Robert Kanigher, George Kashdan, et.al.
Artists: Tony DeZuniga, Alfredo Alcala, Dick Giordano, Don Heck, Mike Sekowsky, Rico Rival, Alex Nino, et.al.
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

In the early 1970s, DC Comics made numerous attempts to expand their market beyond the superhero titles that have always been the bread-and-butter of the American comic book industry; they'd already been enjoying tremendous success with war titles, so it was reasonable to take a crack at fantasy, horror, sci-fi... and romance.

First published in September of 1971, "The Sinister House of Secret Love" was one of the less successful experiments, be it on a commercial or artistic level. The series began as a vehicle for "book-length" tales of gothic romance that, despite the fact the covers implied a degree of horror content, were so close-hewn to genre standards that one could use them as teaching aids in a class on the subject.

However, it must have quickly been obvious to the editors and business folks at DC Comics that their foray into the gothic romance market was not setting the publishing world on fire. The first four issues have covers with an unadulterated paperback romance novel cover vibe (complete with the standard "women running from houses" motif), but starting with the fourth issue they started making obvious attempts to play up the horror aspect of the gothic romance genre, first redesigning the cover logo so "The Sinister House" was really large and "of Secret Love" was very tiny and describing the story within the covers as a "graphic tale of gothic horror" even though it actually contained fewer overt horror elements than tale in issue #2; and retitling the series "Secrets of the Sinister House" as of issue #5.

But it wasn't enough, so by issue #6 the book-length gothic romance stories were gone and the title morphed into an anthology book, joining the long-running "House of Mystery" and "House of Secrets" horror/thriller anthology titles in DC's line-up. Several of the stories presented still had more of a romance flavor than most of the tales presented in DC Comics' horror anthologies--possibly because some had been commissioned as back-up stories like the one featured in the first issue of the series. However, "Secrets of the Sinister House" didn't catch on the way the other titles had, and by issue #18, it was cancelled.

Thanks to DC Comics' low-cost black-and-white series of "Showcase Presents" reprint books, all the tales presented in this failed experiment can now be enjoyed by modern audiences. It's a book that might appeal for a number of different reasons, although given the shift in direction halfway through, not everything is going to be of interest to everybody.

Fans of the gothic romance genre in particular might want to give the book a read as "The Curse of the MacIntyres" (from issue #1), "To Wed the Devil" (from issue #2) and "The Bride of the Falcon" (from issue #3) and "Death at Castle Dunbar" (from issue #5) are rather decent efforts, both story and artwise.

The second half of the book is of interest to fans of short-format horror comics, as it contains a couple dozen tales of marauding monsters, vicious villains, and poetic justice. As was the case with all of DC Comics' anthology titles, the entertainment value of these short stories varies greatly but the artwork is universally top-notch.

In fact, the only group this entire book will appeal to are lovers of comic books as an art-form as well as an entertainment medium. For the first half of the book, we get to see great artists like Don Heck, Tony DeZuniga, Dick Giordano, and Alex Toth at their finest, and in the case of Heck working in a rare non-superhero environment. The short horror stories with art by Alfredo Alcala, Rico Rival, and other artists from the Philippines are visually gorgeous--even more so in the black-and-white reprint format than in their original presentation--no matter how wretched some of the stories. In fact, with the exception of the art by Tony DeZuniga, just about every story in this book looks better than it did back when it was first presented 40 years ago... and the only reason DeZuniga's work suffers is because a number of panels and layouts were clearly designed with coloring in mind. As a result some seem a bit vacant and sparse in appearance.

"Secrets of the Sinister House" may be an uneven collection, but it's the sort of offbeat material that I hope to see more of in the "Showcase Presents" series. I'd REALLY love a book collecting the myriad of characters that came and went with barely a ripple, such as Nightmaster, Kong the Untamed, Firehair, and Black Orchid. I hope this volume of obscure non-superhero comics sells well enough to encourage DC Comics to bring us more of the same.

Trivia: In reading this book, I realized that "The Secrets of Sinister House" #8 was one of the first comics I ever read. "Paying with Fire" (the story of a boy, awful parents, and a dragon) and "Moonlight Bay" (the tale of a werewolf astronaut) stayed with me in my imagination to this very day. It was great to be reminded of where they came from originally.

'The Reptile' is Hammer at its most gothic

The Reptile (1966)
Starring: David Baron, Jennifer Daniel, Noel Williams, Jacqueline Pearce, and Michael Ripper
Director: John Gilling
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A retired military officer and his wife (Baron and Daniel) inherit a cottage in a small Cornish village after his brother dies under mysterious circumstances. When he moves there with his wife (Daniel), he discovers that there has been a rash of deaths and that all of them can be attributed to a rare poisonous animal found only in far-away India. The obvious perpetrator behind these dastardly deeds is the reclusive doctor of theology (Williams) who has made a career out of studying obscure religions in the Far East and who keeps his daughter (Pearce) a virtual prisoner in their manor house. But throw in a mysterious swarthy fellow, the daughter’s strangely hypnotic effect on her father when she plays the sitar, and things are a little less clear. Will the newly arrived couple’s only ally in the area (Ripper) help them stop the spreading evil before it consumes them all?

“The Reptile” is the most strongly gothic-in-genre of all the Hammer horror flicks. There’s the ogre-like father and the oppressed daughter; there’s the mysterious Outsiders who are bringing a corrupting influence to wholesome British society, and there are curses and victims and victimizers who may not be what they seem. It’s a well-mounted film that contains several moments of genuine chills.

“The Reptile” would have gotten an 8-Star rating if not for the inexplicable over-acting displayed by all the principles in the first half of the movie; inexplicable because the leads in the film director John Gilling helmed immediately prior to this one (“Plague of the Zombies", which even used many of the same sets) was blessed with beautifully restrained performances that made the film even creepier and more believable. It’s even odder because Michael Ripper gives the same type of understated performance he did in “Plague.”)

As the film evolves, the over-blown performances start to fit with the tenor of the going-ons, but they seem so out of place early in the film that it’s an irritant. The movie’s resolution is also a bit weak, with the title creature going down without much of a fight. The combination of the overacting in the first reel and the shaky climax were enough to knock off a Star. Still, it’s an entertaining film if you enjoy Hammer-style movies or gothic tales.

'The Reptile' is Hammer at its most gothic

The Reptile (1966)
Starring: David Baron, Jennifer Daniel, Noel Williams, Jacqueline Pearce, and Michael Ripper
Director: John Gilling
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A retired military officer and his wife (Baron and Daniel) inherit a cottage in a small Cornish village after his brother dies under mysterious circumstances. When he moves there with his wife (Daniel), he discovers that there has been a rash of deaths and that all of them can be attributed to a rare poisonous animal found only in far-away India. The obvious perpetrator behind these dastardly deeds is the reclusive doctor of theology (Williams) who has made a career out of studying obscure religions in the Far East and who keeps his daughter a virtual prisoner in their manor house. But throw in a mysterious swarthy fellow, the daughter’s strangely hypnotic effect on her father when she plays the sitar, and things are a little less clear. Will the newly arrived couple’s only ally in the area (Ripper) help them stop the spreading evil before it consumes them all?

“The Reptile” is the most strongly gothic-in-genre of all the Hammer horror flicks. There’s the ogre-like father and the oppressed daughter; there’s the mysterious Outsiders who are bringing a corrupting influence to wholesome British society, and there are curses and victims and victimizers who may not be what they seem. It’s a well-mounted film that contains several moments of genuine chills.

“The Reptile” would have gotten an 8-Star rating if not for the inexplicable over-acting displayed by all the principles in the first half of the movie; inexplicable because the leads in the film director John Gilling helmed immediately prior to this one (“Plague of the Zombies", which even used many of the same sets) was blessed with beautifully restrained performances that made the film even creepier and more believable. It’s even odder because Michael Ripper gives the same type of understated performance he did in “Plague.”)

As the film evolves, the over-blown performances start to fit with the tenor of the going-ons, but they seem so out of place early in the film that it’s an irritant. The movie’s resolution is also a bit weak, with the title creature going down without much of a fight. The combination of the overacting in the first reel and the shaky climax were enough to knock off a Star. Still, it’s an entertaining film if you enjoy Hammer-style movies or gothic tales.

Sometimes, the murdered won't stay dead

Dominique is Dead
(aka "Dominique" and "The Avenging Spirit") (1978)
Starring: Cliff Robertson, Jean Simmons, Jenny Agutter, Simon Ward, and Ron Moody
Director: Michael Anderson
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

After David Ballard (Robertson) finally murders his rich wife (Simmons), he becomes the center of a series of ever-stranger events. Worse, his wife, Dominique, still appears to be roaming the halls of their mansion. Is it her vengeful ghost back from beyond the grave, or is something even more sinister unfolding?

"Dominique is Dead" is an atmospheric little gothic thriller that's not terribly original in the way it unfolds, but the cast delivers such good performances and the solid story moves along fast enough (with complications delivered at just the right moments) that it is still an enjoyable experience if you like this kind of stories.

'The Hearse' is a so-so ride

The Hearse (1980)
Starring: Trish Van Devere, David Gautreaux, and Joseph Cotton
Director: Gregory Bower
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Jane (Van Devere) is recovering from a nervous breakdown when she decides to spend the summer in a remote house she just inherited from her mother. Once there, she finds the townsfolk less than friendly, with the handsome and mysteriously alluring Tom Sullivan (Gautreaux) being the one exception. Worse, whenever Jane travels the road into town, she is pursued by a massive hearse that no one but she can see... and when its driver starts appearing in the house, it's clear that something strange and possibly supernatural is going on. Or is Jane merely coming unglued?


The flaws with "The Hearse" are many, but two major ones is that the script establishes a level of creepy tension early on and stays there instead of building, and the fact that Trish Van Devere is the only decent performer in the film. She out-acts everyone, partially due to script issues (Jospeh Cotton has nothing to do other than be an obnoxious old man, for example) but also because with few exceptions none of the other "actors" show any acting ability.

Perhaps the greatest problem with the film is the characterization of the sullen citizens of Blackburn town. It's a requirement of a gothic thriller that our mentally troubled protagonist be isolated from any possible help, but "The Hearse takes it a step too far, particuarly in its characterization of the town's sheriff. Even the most corrupt cop wouldn't behave the way he's shown as behaving. Finally, the film's ambigious non-ending leave the viewer wondering, "Hey, shouldn't there be at least three more minutes before those credits start to roll?"

The film does have some technical highpoints, though. The multitude of night scenes are genuine night scenes--no lame night-for-day blue camera filters here!--and they are expertly lit. (There are some issues with the climactic hearse chase scene, but otherwise the crew does a bang-up job.) Also, the sequence where the hearse driver appears in Jane's house for the first time is a genuine shock and fright. It is rare that I am surprised anymore by a "Boo!" sort-of scare in a film, but this one got me good.

The monster without a face haunts 'Nightmare Castle'

Nightmare Castle (aka "The Faceless Monster", "Night of the Doomed" and "Lovers From Beyond the Tomb") (1965)
Starring: Barbara Steele, Paul Muller, Lawrence Clift, and Helga Line
Director: Mario Caiano
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After psychopathic 19th century mad scientist Stephen Arrowsmith (Miller) tortures to death his unfaithful wife (Steele), and her lover, he uses her blood and a process he's developed to restore youth and beauty to his own mistress, Solange (Line). He later marries his first wife's mentally unstable half-sister, Jenny (also Steele) to retain control of the fortune that had been willed her... and to ultimately driver her insane and murder her for a fresh supply of blood for Solange's beautification treatments. He even cleverly invites Jenny's long-time doctor, Dereck Joyce (Clift) to stay at the castle, so there will be a witness to Jenny's unfortunate, tragic undoing. But even before Arrowsmith can put his evil schemes into motion, Jenny starts having strange visions and dreams, and Dr. Joyce becomes convinced that some outside force is wrecking havoc on her mind, and that these forces are ghosts haunting the castle. Has the first Mrs. Arrowsmith come back from the dead for revenge, to protect her half-sister, or both? Or is there a more rational answer to the unfolding events?


The above summary of "The Faceless Monster" (more often seen under the title "Nightmare Castle") may sound like its loaded with spoilers, but there's nothing there that doesn't come to light in the first half hour or so of this very creepy gothic horror flick.

Decently acted, well-photographed, decently staged, and full of shocking violence and interesting twists, the film suffers slightly from too leisurely a pace during its middle section, and from a villain whose motivations seem to change more often than most people change their underwear: He's motivated by greed... no, he's motivated by a devotion to science... no, he's motivated by love for Solange... no, he's motivated by spurned love for Muriel, the unfaithful woman he beat, electrocuted, and burned to death... no, he's motivated by... oh, who the hell knows?! Perhaps this is one character where just noting that he's a murderous madman is all the information you need, and it works perfectly, something that is rarely the case in fiction and films. Stephen Arrowsmith appears to be pure evil, and he's evil because he can be, with no need for justification or rationalizations. I still wonder if things in the nightmare castle might not have been a bit more horrifying if Arrowsmith had been better defined.

While Barbara Steele manages to enrich just about every film she's been in, I'm not sure I put as much stock in her dual role as half-sisters Muriel and Jenny as I've seen some reviewers do. The parts reveal the limitation in her talents rather than show her strengths. Steele simply does not have the range and flexibility to change between characters by shifting her facial expressions and gestures, something that's absolutely essential in a film of this kind, with situations like the one Jenny and Muriel are in during the film's second and third acts.

All my complaining aside, "The Faceless Monster"/"Nightmare Castle" is a fine gothic horror movie with a deliciously evil villain and some great ghostly twists (the final 10-15 minutes are truly grand, in a twisted way).

'House of the Living Dead' is soul-crushingly boring

House of the Living Dead (aka "Curse of the Dead" and "Kill, Baby, Kill!")(1973)
Starring: Mark Burns, Shirley Anne Field, David Oxley and Bill Flynn
Director: Ray Austin
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A South African plantation is haunted by a madman who starts killing animals but soon graduates to the butchering of people. Will the young lady of the house (Field) get to the bottom of the mysteries of this family she's marrying into... before she becomes a victim herself?


"House of the Living Dead" could have been a nice little gothic horror film if only its 85 minutes or so weren't so soul-crushingly dull. This is a film that takes "gradual build-up" to new extremes, but it does so without successfully building the sense of menace necessary. The last half hour, though, is great, spooky, 19th century mad-scientist/occultist fun... but it's not enough to make the misery of the film's early part worth sitting through.

Like so many bad horror films, "House of the Living Dead" has a great idea at its core, but its execution is completely botched. The actors all do a decent job, but the writer and director fail them. The end result is a movie that is best avoided... unless you're the world's greatest devotee of South African cinema.

Does evil or madness move 'The Blancheville Monster'?

The Blancheville Monster (aka "Horror") (1963)
Starring: Gerard Tichy, Joan Hills, Leo Anchorez, Richard Davis and Helga Line
Director: Alberto De Martino
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A young noblewoman (Hills) returns to her family estate to find her older brother (Tichy) has replaced all the familiar servants with newcomers, including a suspicious new family doctor (Anchorez). She soon learns that her brother is attempting to hide the fact their father has gone insane and is now bent on murdering his own daugther before she turns 21 in a few days. Can her lover (Davis) stop the madman, or uncover the even darker truths about the Blancheville family before it is too late?


"The Blancheville Monster" is a straight-forward gothic romance with horror overtones and just enough twists to keep it interesting. Fans of Edgar Allen Poe stories like "The Oblong Box" (read it here ) and Roger Corman films like "The Terror" (review here) and "The Pit and the Pendulum (review here) will find this film enjoyable. However, it is far from perfect, as it suffers from a great deal of padding in the form of long walks through the haunted grounds of the Blancheville estate.

I'm giving the film a generous Six Rating, based to a large extent on the build-up to the end. I thought i had the story all figured out before the halfway mark, but I wasn't quite right. While the twist was nothing earthshattering, it was clever enough and in perfect keeping with the genre and everything that had happened previously in the film.

The film that rightfully made a star of Barbara Steele (and her eyes)

Black Sunday (aka "The Demon's Mask", "The Mask of Satan" and "House of Fright" and "Revenge of the Vampire") (1960)
Starring: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Enrico Olivieri, and Arturo Dominici
Director: Mario Bava
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A devil-worshipping witch and her consort (Steele and Dominici), executed 200 years ago return from the dead as a strange breed of vampires after a traveler exploring her tomb (Checchi) callously damages the specially built sarcophagus that was supposed to keep them interred forever. The witch sets about claiming revenge against the descendants of those who executed her, as well as trading the body of her last living female relative (also Steele) for her own time-ravaged one.


"Black Sunday", Mario Bava's directorial debut and the film that established Barbara Steele as a horror movie icon on par with Vincent Price and Boris Karloff, has been hailed as a masterpiece in many quarters, and I have finally gotten around to seeing it.

I feel a litle bit like I did when I saw Universal's original "Frankenstein"--I don't think the film is quite worthy of the reputation it has. It's a decent horror flick in the gory-gothic mode that Hammer Films and director Terence Fisher brought to the fore with "Horror of Dracula" and "Curse of Frankenstein", but I did not find this film to be the masterpiece I'd been promised. (I'd even argue that Bava's "Hercules in the Haunted World" and "Diabolik" are both superior to this effort.)

The first and biggest problem the romantic subplot between Our Hero, the dashing Dr. Gorobec (played with perfect blandness by John Richardson) and Damsel-in-Distress Katia (Barbara Steele) falls completely flat because of a near-complete lack of chemistry between the two performers and because it's one of those Insta-Romances that even less believeable than average.

The film also suffers from number of unintentionally silly moments where Bava goes overboard to drive home a dramatic point or to make something clear to the denser members of the audience. The worst (or best, if you're watching the movie for its badness) is when a vampire is sneaking invisibly through the castle halls. Apparently, Bava wanted to make sure we knew the vampire was sneaking invisibly and he didn't feel some ruffled wallhangings or shifted chairs was enough to show it, so he has the vampire knock down everything he passes, including several suits of armor that go clattering loudly to the floor. I found myself wondering what the point of being invisible is if you're so drunk you can't walk straight... and moments later I was laughing when members of the household were claiming they'd been awakened by a terrible scream, but none had apparently heard all overturning of furniture and knocking down of armor that the drunken, blind and/or spastic vampire had been engaging in moments before.

There's also a hilarious bat attack that has got to be among the worst creature effects ever put on film.

That's not to say the film doesn't have some truly scary or cool moments. The opening sequence of the witch's brutal execution is fabulously done, with the hammering of a spike-lined mask onto the woman's face being especially squirm-worthy. The ressurrection sequence of the witch is also very creepy, with lighting, camera angles, and sound effects all being deployed with perfect precision to make it a great scene. Finally, the film's ending is perfectly done (and I can't say much more without spoiling one of the movie's most shocking moments), so, while there are flaws, Bava does get the movie's finale exactly right, a rare feat. Bava's ending is also more modern in nature than many films of this vintage, with a denouement after the main action has concluded.


And, of course, there is Barbara Steele's dual performance as the evil witch and the innocent young woman whose body she is intent on possessing. Steele does a fine job of portraying both characters, undergoing a transformation that almost rivals that the great Boris Karloff did in his great dual role in "The Black Room" (review here.)

While "Black Sunday" may not be the masterpiece some claim it is, it's worth checking out, particularly if you're a fan of Hammer Films-style horror or an admirer of the exotic beauty that is Barbara Steele.