Touches You

Sorry, this movie sucks

Captivating movie !

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Two centuries ago, two Satan worshipers (Princess Asa Vajda and her lover) are captured and crucified. But, the ritual fire was interrupted by an unexpected rain. She challenges to wipe out the entire family of her brother who did this. After two centuries, she wakes up and wanted to regain her life through her exact replica, Katia Vajda.Some of the effects in the film was really unbelievable. It's hard to think how they pulled out those effects in 1960.It's really a nice film for horror film lovers. #KiduMovie

A tad too graphic for its time, Mario Bava's Black Sunday is an incessantly Gothic, chilling & eerie example of horror filmmaking that is now counted amongst the greatest examples of its genre, and although it was deemed too extreme for the filmgoing audience during its time of release, its lasting influence on horror cinema cannot be downplayed.The story of Black Sunday concerns a witch who was condemned to death for sorcery by her very own brother but, in her final words, vows revenge and puts a curse on him & his descendants. Her resurrection is triggered when two doctors inadvertently awaken her two centuries later, following which she attempts to possess the body of a lookalike descendant.Directed by Mario Bava in what's his directional debut, Black Sunday remains his most revered film to date and despite being over half a century older, it is still capable of startling a few viewers. The prologue alone contains imagery that's gonna evoke visceral reaction from its audience, and Bava's direction is commendable, for this Gothic chiller is crafted with passion.Shot in black-n-white, the images are sharp, crisp & finely detailed. Camera-work is expertly carried out with Bava making use of different styles & techniques to amplify the effect of a given segment. The Gothic vibe is consistently maintained and its 87 minutes runtime is splendidly paced but there were a few moments that felt unnecessary plus its background score isn't seamless either.Coming to the performances, the cast comprises of Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Ivo Garrani & Arturo Dominici, with Steele impressing the most. Playing both the witch & the descendant, Steele pretty much nails it in the role of the former while as latter, there are few instances when she goes overboard, possibly because her character is written that way. Nevertheless, she is well supported by the rest of the cast.On an overall scale, Black Sunday is a masterwork of expressionist horror that's not just notable for launching the careers of Bava & Steele but is also notorious for pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable on the film screen. Technically accomplished & narratively engaging, Mario Bava's labour of love retains much of its potency after all these years, and the aura of its meticulously constructed sets are so rich & dense that it will keep the viewers hexed throughout its runtime. Highly recommended.

Inadvertently brought back to life two centuries after she was crucified, a seventeenth century witch tries to avenge her death and possess the body of a near identical descendant in this Gothic horror film starring Barbara Steele. The film is directed by Mario Bava and making his solo feature film debut, Bava does well directing the material. His camera almost never sits still, the sets are appropriate eerie and the lighting choices are excellent, with many effective stark black and white images throughout. This is especially true of the unsettling opening scene with point-of-view camera-work as a mask with spikes on the inside is nailed into Steele's face. On the minus side, the opening is easily the most horrific and memorable sequence in the film, with the rest of the film gradually losing momentum. The film also features too many dialogue-heavy scenes for its own good and the plot is overly complex with vampires as well as witches thrown into the mix. Flawed though 'Black Sunday' may be as a narrative, it is never less than an absolute triumph of atmosphere and style, and the film is worth watching for the imagery (and spooky sound effects) alone. Bava even manages to make the smallest of moments atmospheric through subtle techniques like using a tracking shot from the back of a carriage. Some regard this as Bava's finest film achievement. That might not be true, but the reputation is understandable.

When "La maschera del demonio" was released in 1960, cinemas displayed a warning to those who could be affected by its strong images, right from the first sequence when Asa, a Moldavian witch or noble ascent, is sentenced to death by the Inquisition, and the title mask is nailed to her smooth, peculiarly beautiful face, with big eyes, high cheekbones, and fleshy lips. Director Mario Bava, who for the first time was in complete control of a motion picture, was subtle and graphic at the same time, in this adaptation of Nikolai Gogol-s long tale "Viy". A reading of the source against a screening of the motion picture would reveal the resorts of film adaptations: for a more faithful version, one should see the Soviet film "Viy" (1967). But the writers of "La maschera del demonio" opted for distancing from the original, and the result was an autonomous product, that still had potent echoes of Gogol's story, illustrated by two examples: one, the ominous vacation trip of the seminarists in the original, becomes the fateful journey of Dr. Kruvajan and his young assistant, Dr. Gorobec, key figures in Asa's resurrection; and two, Gogol's passage of a young novice who kills a witch in a cemetery, is reworked in three lines of action: a girl reluctantly milks a cow in a stable adjacent to the town's graveyard, where simultaneously Javutich (Asa's cousin, lover, and assistant) is raising from his grave, and not too far Dr. Kruvajan is picked up by a ghostly carriage to take him back to Asa's crypt. Moreover, the dead witch —who in "Viy" is first killed in the cemetery and later turns out to be a landowner's dead daughter— has accordingly a dual visual resonance: the face of witch Asa is the same as Katja's, daughter of one of Asa's relatives, both played by British actress Barbara Steele. Other resources and images are strictly Bava's: Asa's dead, wax-like visage, intact for centuries, except for empty eye-sockets; Katja's first appearance with a black mastiff, her languid expression as Asa vampirizes her with a touch, or the revelation of Asa's putrid body... Bava was also his own cinematographer (assisted by Ubaldo Terzano), excelling himself with striking, Gothic, black and white images; and the film was cut by classic film editor Mario Serandrei, who also contributed to the script. Roberto Nicolosi's score is effective in general terms, with the possible exception of the piano romantic theme, which sounds too contemporary for the visuals. (When the film was bought by American International Pictures for distribution in the United States, Les Baxter wrote a new score). Besides Steele (who was immediately crowned Queen of Horror) and British leading man John Richardson as Katja's suitor, Dr. Gorobec, three prestigious Italian character actors completed the main cast: Andrea Checchi as Dr. Kruvajan; Ivo Garrani as both the Inquisition leader and Katja's father; and Arturo Dominici as the tall, sinister and frightening Javutich. Although since the release of "La maschera del demonio" motion pictures have augmented explicitness and reduced suggestion, Bava's first film won a place in the history of cinema for giving new breath to the horror genre all over the world, in a time when it was overlooked by most film critics and audiences.