Black Sabbath (1963) (Blu-ray Review)
Directed By: Mario Bava
Starring: Michèle Mercier, Lidia Alfonsi, Boris Karloff
Rated: UR/Region A/1:77/1080p/Number of Discs 1
Available from Kino Classics
A beautiful woman is terrorized by call from an ex-lover who has escaped from prison for the pleasure of killing her…a family becomes a feeding ground when their father returns home wounded after ridding the countryside of a hideous vampire…a nurse is haunted by reproaches from the Beyond after stealing a ring from the finger of a dead medium! Join Boris Karloff as he hosts (and stars in) this trilogy of terror tales – presented in its original aspect ratio and remastered in HD for the first time, with every shock intact! This is the original Italian- language version with optional English subtitles. Movie only edition.
Black Sabbath is a dated film by today’s standards, but for it’s time you could do a lot worse. Clearly this is type of gothic horror tale that Mario Bava was known for, but I was never THAT big of a fan of this style of Bava. I appreciate it, but I don’t care much for the pace of the stories or the seemingly dated material. I did, however, really enjoy the first tale and at least the creepy ways of the last one. The one in the middle had Boris Karloff who also serves as our host. You can never go wrong with Boris and while his story might be the least enjoyable, is performance is great as usual.
I think you really just have to have a taste for old school horror to really appreciate something like this. I did enjoy such works as Black Sunday, but Black Sabbath didn’t always work out that well for me, mostly due to the pace. The movie did go above and beyond expectations when it comes to the transfer of the film. The movie doesn’t have anything that pops off the screen, but details are there and it surpasses some films that came much later. If you love Bava and Karloff feel free to give this a chance, but don’t expect to be blown away.
– None
