"In the name of Satan, I place a curse upon you!"
La maschera del demonio (1960) [literally: The Mask of the Demon], also known as The Mask of Satan and Black Sunday, is an Italian horror film directed by well known Italian horror director Mario Bava. Long ago a Satanic witch is being executed by having a metal spiked mask nailed on to her face, but before she's killed she places a curse on her accusers. Two centuries later a Dr. Thomas Kruvajan and his assistant Dr. Andre Gorobec happen upon the witch's tomb while traveling though a forest en route to a medical conference. Through a fluke series of events the doctors end up releasing the witch's soul from her infinite prison and bringing her and her curse back to life.
[Note this review is about the un-edited, English-dubbed version of the film.]
This is a movie with a nice simple story that's very interesting and exciting throughout. It also isn't bound by most of our American storytelling rules, so there's some very interesting twists and turns along the way.
The sets in this film are very beautiful. And with such a small budget, I bet a majority of the budget was spent on them too!
Over all the film is a little slow to today's standards. Most of this is to build the creepy mood but now a days this movie would have probably been half as long.
Also the English dub is pretty bad at points, they do the thing where they over explain things or word things strangely to fit the lips better, which can be awkward at times.
Like many low budget films, the film uses very simple practical effects which today seem very dated (namely the giant bat that attacks the professor at the beginning), and a lot of the makeup throughout looks pretty bad by today's standards... (Especially in Hi-Definition!) But this is one of those things the directors skill kind of makes up for, he doesn't dwell on the horror for too long at all so it doesn't give you a lot of time to stare at the makeup or the fake bat on a string.
The cinematography and direction in this film are really amazing. I can see why this film made director, Mario Bava an international star. The opening scene with the people nailing the mask on the witch is particularly awesome, the cinematography drags you right into the story. What a great way to start a film!
And the whole film makes use of light and shadow, I swear you could teach horror lighting based on this movie alone.
The mood of this film is completely unmatched. There's all of these great really creepy slow scenes in the tomb that can be combined with simple trick photography and putting actors in shots suddenly really adding great jumps almost subliminal suspense.
4.5/5 Stars.
Happy watching!
The 31 Nights of Macabre Movies is off to a great start! We continue tomorrow by jumping to a brand new Satanic horror film, Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem (2012).
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