Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Black Sunday (1960)

0:04 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb, and today we have for you a classic, Mario Bava's Black Sunday, a blood-chilling tale of witchcraft, punishment, and revenge from beyond the grave. It originally published, did I say this already? Well, you're gonna hear it again if I did. 10, 24, 20, 25, that's when it came out. This is a classic film.

0:25 If you haven't seen it, highly recommend it. And if you're not familiar with it or you're overly familiar with it, well, now's a great time to see what Joe and I have to say about it. Let's do it.

0:36 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

0:46 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

0:50 And this is Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be talking about Mario Bava's 1960 gothic horror classic, Black Sunday. And I selected this movie for this week because it is Halloween season. We're in October. And I think if you're looking for a very just core Halloween viewing experience and you've never seen this one before, it's about as good as you can do. Please take my recommendation and check out Black Sunday. It is, I think, simultaneously about as good and as close to the bullseye of the gothic horror target as you can get. It's got pretty much everything you could want in terms of gothic horror texture, gothic horror themes, but it also has added dashes of weirdness.

1:39 It kind of cuts harder and goes harder than most movies of this type. But as far as the texture, you've got searing, raging, very hate-oriented witchcraft. The core witch in the movie is constantly selling the virtues of hating and Um, it's got surprise vampires in the second act that I don't think I really expected. There's sort of like one line about vampires at the very beginning, but, uh, I don't know when you get to them, I'm like, oh, I didn't realize this was going to be a vampire movie. Um, it's got undead paramours, you know, roaming the hills. Uh, it's got ruined castles, roaring fires, secret passageways and trap doors, uh, canopy beds, silver crucifixes, some menacing dopermans. I like that,

2:25 that detail. In the prologue, it's got the Inquisition, hooded executioners. It has bat attacks. It has moldy tombs and coffins with windows. It's got beautiful deep black shadows, great high contrast lighting and photography. A lot of scenes with this, you know, kind of frightening quality of being lit only by fading candlelight. this unique concept, I would say, of a spiked bronze torture mask. Rob, maybe we can get into if there's really any precedent for this. I'm sure it's come up before, but imagine just an Iron Maiden, but only for your face.

3:06 I have some notes on this.

3:08 Yeah.

3:09 And then also maybe one of the film's defining visual features, Barbara Steele making laser eyes and giving monologues about the exquisite pleasures of hate.

3:20 That's right. Yeah, it really does have it all. Funeral shadows, black-headed figures, the whole nine yards. This is a film that everyone loves, and we're not going to really pull any hot takes here. We love it as well. It is a masterpiece. It holds up exceedingly well. And, you know, it's one of those films that's kind of surprising that I took so long to see it myself. I've kind of come to it late in my viewing of Mario Bava films because... When I think of Bava, I think of his, you know, those bright technicolor pictures, the phantasmagorical color schemes of like Planet of the Vampires or Blood and Black Lace. And so whenever I would be in the mood to put on a Bava film, I often find I watch them on airplanes, by the way. And

4:08 I watch this one on an airplane. I'll often just sort of navigate to the color ones. I'll like, OK, how about Lisa and the Devil or whatever? We'll try this one out. and I'll just skip over Black Sunday because I'm like, well, that's black and white. I don't know if I want to see a Mario Bava black and white film, but to no one's surprise, it is absolutely gorgeous in black and white, and as we'll discuss, this was his intention as well. He intentionally chose to make this film his first solo directorial credit in this splendid, deep, black and white, gothic format.

4:40 I know exactly what you're talking about because, yes, also I admire Bava uh, as a filmmaker on many levels. But one of the first things I think about when I think Mario Bava is like colored gel lights, I think of, uh, or just strange kind of non-realistic, but very intuitively powerful uses, uses of color in his films that, you know, uh, his supernatural films often have this feeling where there is magic in the air and that magic is signaled by the fact that the light is purple when there's no realistic reason that it should Or, you know, or is green or some other strange color. So yeah, I love those colors and also, you know, the colors in his sets. So the black and white energy is a very different thing than I'm used to with Bava.

5:25 But it is so strong. And I like, to be clear, I like Black Sunday on pretty much every level. I like the story. The script is very good. The acting is mostly pretty good. You know, there's some kind of creaky acting that you would get in a lot of, especially mid-century dubbed horror films.

5:42 Yeah.

5:43 But it's got very good editing, strong, propulsive editing that drives the story and heightens the horror and the tension. But the best thing about this movie is the way that it looks. The black and white cinematography is gorgeous. It's got clever shot framing, beautiful use of shadows and light, great set design and locations. And also, I have to single out a surprising, even shocking quality of gore for a black and white film from 1960. And when I say that, I don't mean that there's a lot of gore.

6:16 This is not a splatterfest. But what little gore is there is just much more disturbing and visceral than you would expect.

6:25 Absolutely. Those moments of gore actually make you a little thankful that it's not in color. There's more than enough to disturb you in the black and white. Yeah.

6:34 And also in terms of the film's visual appeal. I would have to call out Barbara Steele's face as an important part of the visual palette of the film. I don't mean that just in the sense that like, oh, she's a beautiful actress, which a lot of people do say. But I mean that the faces she pulls for the camera are like a distinct part of what this movie is trying to do in terms of imagery. And it's no accident, I think, that most of the posters and the artwork for the film are just like a sort of almost caricature-level drawing of Barbara Steele's face, making those wide, horrifying eyes. She is a unique-looking actress, naturally, but in this movie, she makes faces that could peel garlic. It's absolutely unreal.

7:19 Yeah, because as we'll discuss, it is a dual role. She plays a long-ago-executed witch who has now, in the course of the film, come back to life in unnatural, undead form, and she also plays that character's great-granddaughter. So she gets to play a normie, and then she also gets to play, you know, queen of the dead, essentially.

7:43 So it is in that role as this undead witch that she really gets to just shine with manic energy.

7:50 Yeah.

7:50 And actually, you can combine two of those things I singled out in some of the film's most striking frames. The gore and the Barbara Steele eyes. There are some times where she's in witch mode and she's making the witch face, but also she has holes in her face from this torture mask, and they look like barnacles. It's disgusting.

8:10 Yes, yeah.

8:11 We'll have a lot to say about this. But yeah, it makes perfect sense that this film would be absolutely stunning and beautiful in black and white. Take Mario Bava's additional color palette away from him, and he still is a master cinematographer. And at this point in his career, as we'll allude to, he had served as cinematographer on numerous films. He was not a newbie, even though this was his first solo directorial effort. And for listeners to the show, you have heard us talk about Mario Bava before.

8:40 This is actually our fifth Mario Bava selection for Weird House Cinema, following episodes on 63's Black Sabbath, which was essentially kind of a sequel. Not really a sequel, but... a spiritual successor to this film in some ways.

8:56 An anthology film in that case, yeah.

8:58 Yeah, Boris Karloff, of course. 65's Planet of the Vampires, essentially like the granddaddy of sci-fi horror. 68's Danger Diabolic, an excellent supercrime movie. And 61's Hercules and the Haunted World, that rare horror peplum film in which Hercules and a tragically dubbed Christopher Lee go at it in the underworld. Oh, yeah.

9:23 I can sometimes forget Christopher Lee is in that one. That is not one of Christopher Lee's greatest roles, but the movie is pretty fun. Yeah.

9:31 And as of this recording, the only other director whose work we featured five times on the show is Roger Corman. So, yeah, Bob and Corman are right there at the top as of this recording. Maybe we'll do a bunch of other films by another director and they'll equal and surpass them, but we'll see. I will allude to some other facts about this film's release. There are some different versions of it, depending on where it was released, but I was looking in some of my favorite film volumes for a for a few tidbits about the movie. And Michael Weldon, in one of his Psychotronic film guides, points out that when the film premiered in Cleveland at the Allen Theater, I believe this would have been the AIP, the American International

10:13 Pictures release, as a promotionary tactic. they handed out cards to the patrons that featured a protective chant, I guess. So when the film gets too scary, you can just look down at your, your chant card and start reciting it in order to protect you from the evils on the screen.

10:32 Oh, it's like the tingler. It's like you have to scream in the theater to protect yourself from the tingler getting you. But in this case, there, there are words you got to memorize or not memorize. You can read off the cards.

10:42 Yeah.

10:42 I mean, if you really are concerned, you can memorize it, but, uh, Yeah, I wish we did more things like this. There are all these bells and whistles with going to the theater, and theaters are doing all sorts of things to keep theaters going, as they should. I think it's an important part of the film viewing experience. But we need more gimmicks like this. We need protective amulets. We need death clauses.

11:07 I don't know, all the bells and whistles.

11:09 Smell-O-Vision.

11:10 Yeah, bring back Smell-O-Vision.

11:12 Okay, were you able to find any good trailer audio for this one?

11:15 Yeah, there's a little bit here. This is a U.S. trailer. I guess this is the AIP trailer. So let's hear a little bit from this. It does have some nice old-fashioned narration. Maybe we won't listen to the whole thing. We'll just listen to a little bit.

11:33 Horror Anguish And terror are powerful words, but more than words, the chill language of living images shows that the mask of Satan is a picture of unparalleled emotion. It tells a tale of a strange, dark fascination set in a spine-chilling atmosphere of fear.

11:57 A demon.

12:04 It's death.

12:06 I've just seen death.

12:14 Suspense and the unexpected combine to create an impression beyond any imagination of an indescribable fantasy coupled with an unmentionable reality. But it's impossible, Father. He moved. He even spoke to me.

12:50 Then he ran away.

12:54 Sometimes Satan, with his capacity for doing evil, even plays tricks with the dead. All right.

13:08 So if you would like to jump out and watch Black Sunday for the first time, or just to refresh yourself before continuing on with this episode, or you want to look it up after listening to the whole episode, that's also okay. Well, I think the most important, well, there are two things that are important to realize about it.

13:26 First of all, it is the 1960 Black Sunday film you want to find, not the Black Sunday film about the blimp Um, that's, that's a different picture entirely and has nothing to do with vampires or satanic worship.

13:39 Yeah.

13:39 I've never seen that one. That's like a crime thriller, but is it John Frankenheimer?

13:44 I know it's, uh, what is based on a Thomas Harris book, but it's not one of the Thomas Harris books that I ever read. Uh, maybe Thomas Harris was a coauthor on that one. I'm a little foggy on it, but it does not contain witches. So that's your first step. Make sure you're watching the right black Sunday. Yeah. And then on top of that, um, there have been a few different releases. There's that American international pictures cut of the film that was originally released in the U S and I believe that one cut down 87 minutes of screen time to 83, uh, cutting out a little bit of gore, a little bit of sexuality, uh, also adding in different dubbing and a different score. Uh, more details on that in a minute. Uh, it was released as

14:23 the mask of Satan, which I think is actually the translation of the original Italian title. And there have been at least two other versions released as well, including a UK Revenge of the Vampire release. Not a good title, I'm going to go ahead and say. But yeah, a lot of American viewers grew up with that AIP version, and it has an important place in their heart. But I think the more widely available version right now, especially via streaming, is an 87-minute cut restored from the original camera negative. And I believe this is the version with the original Italian score. and the original English audio that was recorded in Rome as opposed to the AIP audio.

15:05 But going back and forth on some of these details, I was a little bit confused about which version I saw and heard because, I don't know, it's like, as we'll discuss, there are these two distinct scores, but it's not like a legend situation where one is Tangerine Dream and one isn't, and therefore you can hear a startling difference between the two. It's perhaps more of a subtle difference between the two scores, but one certainly more. You can see where Les Baxter's score was maybe a little more palpable for the American audience. But the 87-minute version that I watched, I believe this is also the version that is sometimes called the international version, one that's currently widely available from Shout and Scream Factory via their Black

15:54 Sunday Collector's Edition, also their Mario Bava Collection box set. And outside the U.S., I think Arrow has also put out a nice Blu-ray of this as well. But just look for the 87 minutes. I think if you get the 87-minute version, you're going to get all the good stuff. You're going to get the right amount of gore. As far as the sexuality, it's like there's a single kiss in the film that I believe was cut out, that sort of thing.

16:18 It's not the sexiest film in history.

16:20 No, but it was maybe a little too sexy for 1960s America.

16:25 Regarding the score, I actually meant to check out the Les Baxter score to make sure that wasn't the one that I heard. I don't think it was, but I'm interested in that. From what I've read, the Les Baxter score is actually considered more bombastic and kind of like high energy, and the Italian score is thought to be more subtle.

16:46 Yeah, that's my understanding as well. And interestingly enough, it's the exact same individuals involved with the score of 63's Black Sabbath. So the original score is by Italian jazz band leader Roberto Nicolosi, who lived 1914 through 1989. And then it's Les Baxter, who lived on the American version, 22 through 96. The king of exotica, and also later a dabbler in minimal electronic synth scoring. We have discussed him multiple times on the show before. I've listened, I tried to compare a little bit, and yeah, I did get a sense that Baxter's score is a little bit more brassy, you know, and a little bit more in your face. But also, you know, I don't know. I think I wouldn't really have paid that much attention. I

17:32 feel like either score is probably pretty good.

17:41 All right.

17:42 Should we talk about the Connections?

17:45 Yeah, yeah. I guess we did skip ahead and went ahead and talked about the music. So we'll come back to the top and talk just a little bit about Mario Bava, the director, the cinematographer on this one. He lived 1914 through 1980. We've discussed him before. Legendary Italian director with an unmistakable, just obsessive, phantasmagorical emphasis on visual composition.

18:09 Even already, you were talking about this is a film in which the casket has a window in it. And I think that's such a great Mario Bava touch because I feel like any film that I see of his, there is a fascination with or even an obsession with portals and windows and doors, seeing things through other things, through other frames.

18:32 Yes, yeah.

18:33 Yeah, so you see a lot of that in his work. This is a guy who took it all very seriously. So he'd worked as a cinematographer, special effects artist, and co-director for decades at this point. But again, this was his first solo directorial credit in 1960. He previously worked on several films by Italian production company Galatea. And this was his chance to make a film aimed at the foreign market. A gothic horror film patterned on the recent success of Terrence Fisher's Dracula in 1958.

19:02 Oh, interesting. So this is kind of a response to Early Hammer, right?

19:08 Exactly. Yeah.

19:10 Those early Hammer films were making a lot of money. And so the studio's like, let's do it. Let's get in on this action. But turn it up. Turn it up. Yeah.

19:20 Turn it up to 11. Yeah.

19:21 Yeah. So Bava got to pick the story and he made his choice reportedly based on a scary bedtime story that he had read to his own children. This being V by Nikolai Gogol. which had already been adapted for film as early as 1909 in what was, I'm to understand, the first Russian horror film, a short silent picture, and would also later be adapted more notably in 1967 in a film of the same name, Black Sun. however, is ultimately only loosely based on that Gogol story. Bava apparently, as I alluded to already, had the chance to film this one in Technicolor, but pushed for black and white.

20:01 He said, you know, this is going to be the better fit. This is going to fit the mood. This is gothic horror. It needs to be black and white.

20:06 I think it's a good choice.

20:07 Yeah.

20:09 He also has apparently did some uncredited work on the screenplay. He also did paintings and matte paintings and special effects for the for the picture, just as is often the case, hyper involved in the visuals. And I should also point out that Mario Bava was the son of cinematographer and special effects artist Eugenio Bava, who lived 1886 through 1966, who is credited on this film as sculptor of masks and faces.

20:35 Oh, I wonder if that includes the titular, in some versions, Mask of Satan.

20:40 I assume that has to be the case, yeah. All right, there are some additional screenplay credits, and I'm going to focus on the ones that are definitely credited here. We have a screenplay credit to Ennio Di Conchini, who lived 1923 through 2008. Italian writer, director, and producer, whose other scripts include 1963's Divorce Italian Style, which earned him and his co-writers the 1963 Oscar for Best Writing, Story, and Screenplay, written directly for the screen. Other scripts include 56's War and Peace, 63's The Girl Who Knew Too Much, 69's The Red Tent, 76's Salon Kitty, and 78's Just a Gigolo, that's the David Bowie film, among many others.

21:25 I was about to say that I thought The Girl Who Knew Too Much was another Mario Bava film that I'd seen, more of a Jallo-style film, also in black and white. But then I was like, wait a minute, or am I confusing that with another movie called The Evil Eye? I guess I was and I wasn't because they're different cuts of the same movie known by different titles.

21:45 Oh, man. Yeah, I haven't seen this one. This one has John Saxon in it.

21:47 Yeah, John Saxon plays an Italian hunk. So the main character in it is an American tourist played by Letitia Roman, who she's in Rome and she witnesses a murder, I think, and then believes that somebody's coming after her. So she's running around Rome trying to do murder investigation.

22:09 I don't know.

22:09 It's been a little while since I've seen it, so I forgot some of the details. But John Saxon is the local hunk who she ends up having a romance with.

22:17 I need to see that one. I mean, I put that one on the list. Let's see, another screenplay credit goes to Mario Sarandre, who lived 1907 through 1966. A film editor who worked with Bava on several films, I believe, including this one and the excellent 1964 Blood and Black Lace. But he was also an occasional writer. And then on top of that, we have George Higgins, 1917 through 2005, credited with English dialogue. I'm a little, now I have to stress, I'm a little... uncertain if we're dealing with the original English dub recorded in Rome or the AIP dub.

22:54 But at any rate, he was an American writer, actor, and voice dubber. So, yeah, of note, it's my understanding that everyone is dubbed here, even the English language actors in the English language dub.

23:07 Feels that way. All the dialogue feels dubbed.

23:09 Yeah.

23:10 And, you know, this... As was the custom, I think. As was the custom, yeah. Regarding films that were presented with an international cast for international release, but also even, as we've discussed before, you'll have Spanish films for a Spanish audience, and everybody's dubbed anyway, because that's just how you did it.

23:26 Yeah.

23:27 All right. Let's get into the cast here. Starting with Barbara Steele. We've already been talking about her. Born 1937, and as of this recording, still with us. Has the dual role here, playing Princess Azavida and Katia Vida. Again, dual role. Barbara Steele is an English actress who can't help but be best remembered for this film. It was only her ninth screen credit occurring during just the first few years of her film career. But it helped to cement her status as one of the original screen queens and ultimately a familiar face in gothic horror for decades.

24:03 Subsequent films include some big ones here. 61's The Pit and the Pendulum. This is a Corman Price Poe film. We haven't talked about this one yet. But we may well get to it here on Weird House Cinema in the future.

24:16 I believe she plays a deceased character in this who's like a phantom, a spectral kind of character who appears in visions.

24:24 Yeah. Yeah.

24:25 I mean, she, you know, she created a type for herself here. Yeah. Let's see. There's also 62's The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock. Oh, and then there's 63's Eight and a Half. That's the Fellini film.

24:36 63's The Ghost.

24:38 64's Castle of Blood.

24:41 I just watched that one for the first time a few weeks ago.

24:44 Yeah.

24:45 That one also has a lot going for it. It's a very, very strong black and white Gothic cinematography, you know, all the same kind of stuff, ruined castles, candelabras, that sort of thing. That one, I will offer a bit of criticism in that it truly is quite slow moving. There are some parts where it's like, you know, even I really, I enjoy bathing in this kind of texture, but like, You are walking too slow as you approach the coffin. You could be moving faster.

25:16 Let's see, a few other titles include 64's The Long Hair of Death, 65's Terror Creatures from the Grave, 66's She-Beast, 68's The Crimson Cult, and then later on in the career, we have 1975's Shivers, the David Cronenberg film, 78's Piranha, that's the Joe Dante film about killer fish, And then very late in her career, she did a voice acting role in the 2020 Castlevania series.

25:44 Oh, that's fun.

25:44 Which I only watched a little of that, but it has a great voice cast for sure.

25:48 I did not even know that existed. But I'm glad if somebody was making a Castlevania adaptation and they're voice casting, it's like, let's call it Barbara Steele.

25:56 Yeah.

25:56 That gets my respect.

25:57 We got the Netflix budget. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Her last IMDb credit was 2023. TV credits from throughout her career include Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the original Night Gallery, and the 1990s Dark Shadows series.

26:12 So like you said, Rob, she's got a dual role here. She's playing both a good character and a bad character. The main villain of the film is... And the young princess who's sort of the target or the victim who is being attacked for her life force by this ancestor. And she's good in both roles, but she, I think, especially excels when playing the witch. I said this earlier, but it is unreal the kind of evil, malevolent faces that she manages to make for the camera here.

26:47 Yeah, yeah.

26:48 She just does a terrific job here. Great, haunting, intense dual performance. So she's undeniably the star. But if we have a protagonist, really, I guess it is Dr. Andrzej Gorubek. This is our handsome doctor character who's going to be venturing into the world of the supernatural and hopefully surviving it.

27:11 He's the love interest.

27:12 Yeah. Yeah.

27:13 He's the handsome guy who shows up in town to, you know, like she needs a hunk in her life. And here he is.

27:18 Yes.

27:19 Played by John Richardson, who lived 1934 through 2021. English leading man, actor best known for such films as 65. She 1956 is one million years B.C. That's a caveman movie. And you may you may. recognize him more from this, you know, posters and publicity shots for this where he has the big shaggy hair and the big full beard.

27:43 Let's see, 1970s, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, and 1977's War of the Planets. He also had a late career appearance as the architect in the 1989 Italian horror film, The Church.

27:55 Oh, is that the one by Suave?

27:57 Yeah, yeah. That's one that I have a lot of fondness for, but I haven't seen in a while. But it very much at the time felt like, you know, a sort of horror, a very well done horror schlock cinema response to The Name of the Rose. Features some of the same actors.

28:15 Ooh, I'd almost say that. I hadn't thought of it till now, but that's a candidate for next week.

28:21 No, okay. So Richardson worked quite a bit in Italian genre cinema. Two other films of note include 73's Torso and 75's Eyeball. I guess all the rest of the body parts he didn't get around to, but he got torso and eyeball out there. Yeah.

28:37 Spleen, the motion picture.

28:39 Spleen.

28:40 He was reportedly up for the Bond role that ultimately went to George Lazenby on Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969. So he's that sort of actor, you know, handsome British leading man sort. And so in this film, yeah, predictably, you know, he is a solid leading man in this film. He doesn't do anything bad. amazingly out of the ordinary. Uh, but he does a really good job at what he does.

29:04 Yeah.

29:04 Uh, I mentioned earlier that I think the, the acting in this movie is mostly good. I would say if there is a, a weak link, I think it's in some of the dialogue delivery by this guy, though. I actually, I don't know if that's actually John Richardson. I think that would be whoever's dubbing him sometimes has some kind of dull, uh, line deliveries that I don't know what Richardson himself actually, actually sounded like, but his, visual presence on screen is good.

29:32 I'll also note that it was a little surreal watching this guy. I'm not going to be so vain as to say that I look really all that much like Clark. handsome British actor John Richardson, but at certain angles, like watching this on the airplane, I was thrown off a little bit because he would look enough like me, at least in some profile shots, that I kind of got that uncanny looking at myself in photos feeling.

29:56 Oh yeah.

29:57 Yeah.

29:58 So you told me this and I wouldn't have caught that myself just watching the film, but after you said it, I could see it. I was like, Oh yeah, there's Rob.

30:05 Yeah. Yeah.

30:06 But in like in a weird way, like that's not actually me and I'm not supposed to be in the horror movie. So, um, so it probably added like an extra like personal creep factor to the viewing of the film, but it only applies to people who look more or less like, like me. So there you go. Um, Let's move on to the rest of the cast, though. We also have the character of Krubion, Professor Krubion. This one I know how to pronounce because they say this name so many times in the picture. Everyone's looking for Krubion and they are calling for him through ruins, through castles, out in the field, you name it.

30:45 He gets name-checked a lot, yes.

30:47 And he is played by the Italian actor Andrea Checchi, who lived 1916 through 1974. Italian award-winning actor who was pretty prolific, yet this is one of only two horror films he ever did. The other being the bizarre-sounding 1964 War of the Zombies that seems to have Roman centurions battling the undead, a rare additional example of horror peplum, but one that's not as celebrated as Bava's Hercules in the Haunted World.

31:20 It sounds more like a movie that would have been made in the past decade than one from 1964.

31:26 Yeah, yeah. It's kind of crazy to think that here we have an early example of a zombie film that feels like a more recent zombie overexposure picture. So, fascinating.

31:39 Maybe not the past decade, actually. Yeah, it sounds like a movie that came directed to DVD in 2014.

31:44 Yeah, yeah. That's exactly where it would be. All right, let's look at other cast members here. Let's see. Oh, we have Prince Vida, played by Ivo Garani, who lived 1924 through 2015. Italian actor whose other credits include 58's The Day the Sky Exploded, 1960's Adam Age Vampire, 77's Holocaust 2000, and the year 2000's Zora the Vampire, as well as numerous Italian historical dramas that I'm sure are much better than the schlock that caught my eye.

32:16 Yeah.

32:17 This guy's good in that he's an actor with I would say physically robust presence. Like he looks like somebody who's like strong and healthy, but he manages through his performance to convey that he is in shriveled and weakened by the way that he has been haunted by the, the knowledge of this curse and his family.

32:38 Yeah, definitely a haunted figure. Uh, but Oh, not as, not as haunted in another way as the next character. And that is, uh, Igor Javich, uh, This is our satanic warlock, and ultimately, I guess, kind of like vampire underling of our central vampire princess.

32:56 Yes, the lover and the servant of the witch, Asavida. So he is interesting. Rob, I wonder if you know what I mean. In some shots, he goes within the same shot from looking a little bit funny to looking scary.

33:16 Yeah, yeah.

33:17 Yeah. Yeah.

33:19 He like his look is not naturally menacing. Uh, he almost has a kind of like, he could be a comic actor with the mustache and the haircut and stuff. Uh, but he like the stare goes on a little bit too long and then it hardens and then he moves towards you and it, and it has this extra chilling effect for that.

33:39 Yeah. It's ultimately a great presence. And, and you're like, yeah, of course this guy fell into worshiping the devil.

33:45 Yeah.

33:46 But, uh, Played here by Arturo Domenici, who lived 1916 through 1992. Italian actor who worked in numerous Peplum films, as well as 64's Castle of Blood. I don't know if you remember him from Castle of Blood or not.

34:00 I don't remember who he was in that.

34:01 Yeah.

34:02 He's also in 59's Caltiki, The Immortal Monster. This is the black and white Italian Mayan blob movie that Mario Bava served as cinematographer on and also co-directed.

34:14 Haven't seen that.

34:16 It's been on my list because it's supposed to be, I mean, how can you not be interested in a black and white blob movie with like Mayan elements involved in it that is co-directed by Mario Papa?

34:27 Yeah.

34:28 It has my attention.

34:29 All right.

34:29 We have another character of note and that's Konstantin Vaida. And he is played by Enrico Oliveri. He lived 1939 through 2022. Italian actor who did a little more than a dozen pictures. And this was seemingly his only horror film and also one of his last I'm to understand he retired from acting and became an accountant. Oh, okay.

34:50 Sometimes that's as boring and as everyday as the story needs to be.

35:04 Okay, are you ready to talk about the plot?

35:06 Let's jump into it. Let's jump into the fire.

35:08 That's right. We open on a fire. In fact, a big fire. roasting fire in a brazier in the center of a dark field with dead trees all around. And the air is full of smoke. There is a menacing figure in a black executioner's hood, shirtless and muscle bound with leather bracers on his wrists. And he's turning an iron brand in the fire pit. And then we get voiceover narration, which says, in the 17th century, Satan was abroad on the earth. And great was the wrath against those monstrous beings, thirsty for human blood, to whom tradition has given the name of vampires. No appeal for pity or mercy availed.

35:52 All right, there you go. Vampires from the get-go.

35:54 Yeah, and I think that's talking about the punishers of vampires, that no pity or mercy availed if you have mercy on the vampires. It's like, no, nothing doing. Because it goes without saying that, you know, there's no mercy from the vampires themselves, right?

36:11 Right, right.

36:11 It would be a little more complicated if that were the fact.

36:16 So here the camera pans over and we see more hooded muscle boys looking on and then more figures lined up behind the branches of these dead trees. These guys are wearing black robes from head to toe. Their faces are shrouded in black with little slits over their eyes to look out and they're holding torches. And the narration continues.

36:36 Brothers did not hesitate to accuse brothers, and fathers accused sons, in the frantic attempt to purify the earth of that horrible race of blood-devouring assassins. And now we see the whole scene in frame. The hooded inquisitors, they stand in a great mass in the field between the bare trees. They're holding up torches in the light, and before them are two prisoners, one man and one woman, bound to large wooden pillars. And the narrator says, before putting them to death, human justice anticipated divine judgment by burning into the flesh of those damned ones the brand of Satan.

37:19 And then here we see the executioner approach the woman with the iron that he had been turning in the fire. He holds it up away from his body and then he plunges it against the flesh of the woman's back. And we get a close up of the scar there. And I was thinking, what's it going to be? Is it going to be a pentagram, an inverted cross? It is a big letter S, I think, for Satan, like property of Satan.

37:44 Well, you know, maybe that was just a brand they already had ready to go. They didn't really have time in their persecution of devil worshipers to really create a brand new brand. And then they had to stick to it. You know, you want it to be consistent across your brandings.

37:59 Nasty effect, too.

38:01 Oh, yeah.

38:01 This looks super gross. This is definitely the scene where I was thankful for the black and white. Did not need to see this in a thousand colors.

38:08 Yeah.

38:09 So after the branding, the woman who's tied to the pillar, she turns to look at her captors and it's Barbara Steele. She is pale with long, dark hair and these wide, intense eyes. And one of the inquisitors says, Asa, daughter of the house of Vida, this high court of the Inquisition of Moldavia has declared you guilty. I, the second-born son of Prince Vaida, as Grand Inquisitor, do condemn you.

38:35 And as your brother, I repudiate you. Too many evil deeds have you done to satisfy your monstrous love for that serf of the devil, Igor Yavuditch. So, you know, I'm almost getting a little feeling of Horror Rises from the Tomb about this. A cursed witch and warlock power couple... who are being sentenced to death by the Inquisition hundreds of years ago because not only did they do things for Satan, they did things for Satan for each other.

39:08 It's like love that made them drink blood.

39:13 I would imagine that this film was one of the key influences on Paul Nashie for Horror Rises from the Tomb. There's another example we'll get to here in a minute where you can see a clear connection between Black Sunday and the gothic imagination of Fault in Ashy.

39:30 Totally, yeah. I don't know if it's the same one you have in mind that I do, but I was thinking of one as well. But anyway, so here we see the other prisoner, Yevuditch, the one they just talked about. This is the man condemned with her. He's tied to a pillory in some kind of hideous bronze mask with a large nose and a grotesque mouth with a forked tongue and a big fin running down from the forehead down the middle of the face to the nose. I assume this is one of the masks made by Mario Bava's dad.

40:00 Yeah, yeah. And it looks incredible. Definitely in its design mirrors a lot of the European devil masks and also some of the devil masks that you would see in parts of Central and South America that were influenced by European traditions.

40:19 Yeah.

40:20 So the brother says, may God have pity on your soul in this your final hour. Cover her face with the mask of Satan. And what's this? Well, she's about to get her own metal mask, just like her accomplice. And so we see another mask like the first. It's lying in the dead grass. And the Inquisitor says, nail it down. May the cleansing flames reduce her foul body to ashes so that the wind will obliterate all trace of her existence. Then we see an executioner lift the mask up from the grass and we see inside the mask, the inside face of it. And it is an Iron Maiden mask. So the inside of the mask is all pointy nails turned toward the face.

41:07 Yeah, yeah. Ghastly, yes. And I was looking into this a little bit. This mask was seemingly very much an invention of Mario Bava's, or the Bava's father and son in general, though clearly based on, first of all, Iron Maiden fictions. I think we've discussed in the show before, the Iron Maiden is one of those artifacts that did not originally actually seem to exist as a physical torture or execution device, though that may have changed much later in its history as people were inspired by its design.

41:43 You do have various face shackles from throughout the history of human torture and punishment. You know, there were, you know, sometimes, you know, some sort of thing that was locked on the head to mock the individual. Scolds bridle or something. Yeah, scolds bridles and the like. And then there's also a bit of the man in the iron mask to this, I'd imagine. I mean, that's a pretty big literary footprint to ignore. But what a creation.

42:06 Yes.

42:07 This mask is just incredible. And the way it's presented. I mean, this whole opening sequence is just incredible. Like there's, you know, a lot of these older films that we watch, you can easily imagine people walking out during the opening sequence because sometimes it takes a little while to get going.

42:23 But this one is just off to the races right away. And it's just brutal in its execution. I mean, literal execution.

42:30 Yeah.

42:30 Yeah.

42:31 So the executioner comes up to the witch, to Barbara Steele, and he's holding the mask outstretched to Asa's face. And we see from her perspective as like the mask is sort of lowered down over the camera. And, ooh, it's shocking.

42:46 Yeah, absolutely. Terrifying sequence here is that mask is lowered into place. And we, the viewer, are experiencing it. We have the POV shot. of the spiked mask of Satan closing over us. And I can only assume that this sequence helped inform a key moment in Revenge of the Sith. There's the sequence towards the end of that where the mask of Darth Vader is closed over Anakin's face for the first time. And it's a terrifying visual in Revenge of the Sith. I think it's often overlooked in the evaluation of the film's final moments. There's a lot of A lot of fun is made of the no moment, you know, once he is fully Darth Vader. But that moment where the Vader mask is being lowered onto his face and we see through Anakin's eyes and we see

43:35 his world change as it comes to encase him, I think is a really haunting moment. And I think it had to have been inspired by this moment in Black Sunday.

43:45 That seems quite likely to me. Strange connection. You mentioned the no from Revenge of the Sith, the very time. Next thing Barbara Steele says when they lower the mask over her face is she screams, no.

43:55 I mean, that's the thing about the whole no thing is like people scream no a lot in films, certainly the films I end up seeing. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes it's hard to decide exactly why it works and why it doesn't work. You know, I guess it comes down to the nuances of performance and how everything's shot. But also sometimes it just seems to be like a case of, yeah, it worked there.

44:20 I buy it. In other cases, I'm like, oh, it feels a little hokey.

44:23 So in this case, after shouting no, Barbara Steele says to her brother, Gryabi, that's his name. It is I who repudiate you. And in the name of Satan, I place a curse upon you. Go ahead. Tie me down to the stake. But you will never escape my hunger, nor that of Satan. And then lightning strikes again. And we hear her say, the unchained elements of the powers of darkness are lying in ambush. Beware, Gryabi. My revenge will strike down you and your accursed house. And in the blood of your sons and the sons of their sons, I will continue to live immortal. They shall restore to me the life that you robbed from me. I shall return to torment and destroy throughout the night of time.

45:11 It's quite a curse.

45:12 Yeah. Yeah.

45:13 So as she's saying this last part, the executioners fix this. They fix the spiked mask against her face. And then, oh, my God, the big guy executioner, he approaches with a huge wooden mallet and he draws back. And on the command of the Inquisitor, he hammers the mask.

45:32 Oh, my God. This is just absolutely brutal. And this is another moment where the gore is, you know, not over the top, but just highly effective.

45:42 Yeah. So we hear the princess scream and then dark blood trickles out from every hole in the face of the mask. And the music swells and we see the title, The Mask of Satan. Though now, of course, the movie is more often known as Black Sunday.

45:56 Again, incredible sequence here. And it would go on to influence various other weird execution masks in horror cinema. To go back to Paul Nashy, there's the Mask of Shame sequence. that his, uh, Voldemar Daninsky wears in 1980s Night of the Werewolf, uh, as part of his execution.

46:15 That's right.

46:15 Yeah.

46:17 And, uh, another one, oh, this is a, I think another clear connection. Uh, we have the powerful warlock Nix in Clive Barker's 1995 film, Lord of Illusions, uh, that great performance by Daniel Von Bargan as the warlock. Uh, that, that, that mask in particular, the Nix mask seems especially based on the mask of Satan, uh, because, uh, The warlock in that film, once he's freed of it, he bears the scars, like intense scarification from where the mask had been locked in place.

46:47 I've actually never seen Lord of Illusions.

46:50 Oh, it's been a long time since I've seen it, but I remember it having some great elements to it. It's a tremendous undead warlock character, for sure. I was also reading, it's been a long time since I've seen this film either, but Tim Burton's Sweepy Hollow from 1999 begins with a sequence that features not a mask of Satan, but an actual Iron Maiden. And I believe in interviews, Tim Burton has pointed directly to Black Sunday as an inspiration on that sequence.

47:22 That wouldn't surprise me, yeah.

47:24 So again, amazing opening already. I mean, it would be difficult to screw this up. And as we all know, Mario Bava is not going to screw up Black Sunday. It is a classic. it is often considered the grandfather of Italian horror cinema.

47:39 Yeah, I still remember, actually, the first time I saw this movie, how strong of an effect the opening had on me. It's great. So, of course, after this, we get the credits. And then after the credits play, we sort of pick up where we left off. Asa and Yevudich are dead. But just when the Inquisitors are setting about to burn their bodies with the purifying flame that they talked about, a rainstorm breaks out, as if by command of the devils. And it quenches all of their fires.

48:07 So instead, the body of Yevuditch is buried in the graveyard, but covered in unconsecrated earth in the place reserved for murderers. So I like that this graveyard has an exclusive murderer's way.

48:21 You gotta bury him somewhere.

48:23 Yeah. And then Asa is buried in her family tomb in the family's chapel. along with her ancestors.

48:30 Because again, her burning, it was rained out. And they're like, well, what are we going to do? I thought we were going to have her burn and her ashes are distributed by the winds. And they're like, well, it's raining. Let's just bury her.

48:42 Isn't this like that story of St.

48:43 Swithin?

48:46 Like they were going to move the body, but then it just kept raining. And they're like, must be magic.

48:50 Yeah, yeah. Rain has spoken.

48:53 So text tells us it is now two centuries later. I think we're going from the 17th century to the 19th.

49:00 Yeah, yeah. Though, as is often the case in Gavigar films, it's not like you're going to really see that much of a difference, except there's no longer like an active Inquisition present. That's about the main difference.

49:11 So the action reopens with a horse-drawn carriage clattering through a crossroads. This is in the countryside of Moldavia, which... would be, I believe, in modern-day Romania. The passengers are two medical doctors. The elder is Dr. Choma Krubayan and his younger assistant, Dr. Andrei Gorabek. They are traveling cross-country to make their way to a medical conference in Moscow. Uh, Gorabek says that if they stop at the nearest town, a place called Mirgorod, quote, we'll never be able to reach Moscow by evening. I was like, what? I don't know if they have some hidden rockets on that carriage, but I did a little math. This has got to be a roughly 2000 kilometer journey or more. They're not going to make Moscow by evening. Um, but either way,

50:02 the older Dr. Krubayan is not concerned with reaching Moscow. He wants to stay the night at the inn in Myrgarod, where they have good smoked salmon. And he says they have excellent vodka.

50:15 Yeah, they're very excited for this vodka. And later on, we will see that the vodka here is served in pitchers at the table, like tap water is served at restaurants today.

50:27 That look like water pitchers.

50:28 Yeah, it's just that much vodka. There's like a stream of it here, I guess.

50:34 So the difference between them, the young Dr. Gorbeck, he's handsome, energetic, and earnest. He's keen to learn things at the conference that they're going to go to. He's going to make himself a good physician. And then the older Dr. Krubayan is a bit more seasoned. He's kindly, but with a cynical sense of humor. He's like, don't put too much salt in what you hear at medical conferences. I don't know why. Are they going to a half-scam medical conference?

51:04 Krubayan at one point calls out to their coachman to ask him to take a shortcut through the woods. I guess he wants to get to that vodka faster. And the coachman tries to argue that he can't do that because the road through the forest has fallen into disrepair. It's too dangerous. And the doctor is like, nah, you're just afraid of the witch. Here's a gold coin to motivate you. And it turns out, yes, the coachman is afraid. But, you know, the gold coin, he wants that. So reluctantly, he takes the dark road through the woods. At one point he talks about how he fought against Napoleon when he invaded. He says, I'd rather come face to face with a cursed Frenchman than meet a ghost. So the woods are full of darkness and mist and yowling, cackling wolves,

51:49 bassoon music and trees that reach out and try to choke your coachman or so he claims as he's like tucking the vodka bottle back into his vest. And eventually, as they're going through these haunted woods, there is a carriage wreck. The wheel comes off. The driver gets out to repair it. And as he does so, the two doctors go for a walk and end up investigating a nearby ruined building that is emitting strange whistling noises.

52:16 And they're men of science. So what are they going to do? They're going to investigate.

52:20 Right.

52:20 This is the Colossi of Mimnon or something.

52:22 Yeah.

52:23 So they creep through the overgrown ruins until they finally come across the answer. It is an old church organ with the wind blowing through the pipes. Krubion knocks down the pipes with his cane and the wailing stops. So, logical explanation for everything.

52:37 Yeah, fixed.

52:38 But then the two doctors are startled when a nearby door slams shut, seemingly on its own. It is a heavy wooden door. They go to investigate, and then inside the door, there is a staircase leading down into a dank subterranean crypt underneath a chapel filled with cobwebs and deep shadows. And so the doctors descend. And Krubayan says, more than a thousand years of conflicts, hates, and loves, all reduced to dust in these tombs. Nothing remains of the ancient princes of Vida but the dead shadows of their former glory. The history of ancient Moldavia is carved in these stones. And so they approach one entombment in the crypt, and Krubayan realizes that it is the grave of the famous witch. He knows the story. The sealed

53:28 coffin has a glass window on the lid, as we were discussing earlier, so strange, which allows the two doctors to look inside the coffin and see below the mask of Satan. the bronze face nailed in place over the flesh face of the condemned witch. Now, why is there a glass window on the coffin? Well, they explain. There's a crucifix mounted on top of the coffin lid, and the belief was that by keeping the cross in the corpse's view through the glass, they could prevent the dead body from returning to life and terrorizing them once more.

54:09 You could ask a lot of questions about this. Like, why not just put the cross on the inside lid of the casket? I think you have to come back to the realization that this is a Bava thing. Like, again, fascinated by windows and apertures. So, of course, there's a glass panel in the top of the casket. And I guess if I wanted to lean into it, I would say, well, this would also allow the viewer to check and make sure that the mask of Satan is still in place.

54:36 Yeah.

54:37 Well, actually, there's another rational reason. There's no light inside a coffin. So if the corpse needs to be able to see the crucifix, it needs a window to let the light in so it can see. So if you're going to put a window in there anyway to let the light in, why not just put the cross on the outside instead of on the inside?

54:54 Well, that's true. Like in D & D terms, even if the corpse comes alive again and has dark vision, it still needs some amount of light.

55:02 Yeah.

55:03 It totally checks out. You're right.

55:05 So Krubion is fascinated. Gorbeck gets called out to help the coachman place the wheel back on the axle of the carriage. In the meantime, Krubion is left alone in the crypt and there is a bat attack. Classic gothic horror movie bat attack. A giant bat flies out of a hole in the wall and the good doctor starts like swinging and bashing at it with his cane. He eventually draws a gun and shoots this little Derringer pistol.

55:32 Why has he got a gun?

55:33 Well, for moments like this. That's why he can so confidently walk into ancient crypts to check things out for science, because he's packing heat. But I like the bat attack here. You know, it's a flappy bat, like we see in a lot of gothic horror films, but looks pretty darn good, as you would expect from Mario Bob.

55:53 Yes.

55:54 Now, in the process of bat smashing... He inadvertently smashes the glass on the witch's coffin lid and smashes the cross on top of the grave.

56:06 Uh-oh.

56:08 Exactly what you shouldn't have done. So Gorbeck comes back, and when Krugayan explains what happened, Gorbeck is like, odd bats are usually peaceful creatures. He almost says like, you know, they're more afraid of us than we are of them.

56:31 Peaceful creatures is, is a, is an interesting stretch perhaps, but okay.

56:36 Uh, but he also, uh, he says that they need to get back outside. Otherwise, a quote, otherwise the coachman will be convinced that he's right. Like we can't let him have that. I guess right about what? I don't know, about the forest being haunted, maybe.

56:51 Yeah, and I guess the implication there is that he might leave.

56:54 Oh, yeah, that's true. Oh, fair enough, yeah. So we've got to get back, because this guy, we can't depend on him. He's getting into the vodka and the vest, so we've got to go to the carriage. But Curbion's attention is drawn to the coffin. He realizes the damage he did in his bat-smashing frenzy, and he's looking at it, and it's like, yeah, well, The glass is broken anyway.

57:16 Don't mind if I do.

57:19 This was hilarious. Like at this point, we'd had a pretty logical reason for our characters to venture this far into the crypt and then interfere with the various magical protections in place here. But at this point, he's like, well, I've already half violated the grave. I might as well just keep going.

57:38 Yes.

57:39 So first he reaches in and removes from the coffin a little triptych icon. with images of a saint and some inscriptions covered in dust and cobwebs. And this will become important for the plot later. But then beyond that lies the body itself, and Krubayan can't resist his curiosity. He reaches in and he removes the mask from the face.

58:03 There is some good sound design here, kind of a sucking, squelching sound as he does this, like trying to pull a boot out of mud. And then, you know, it's not exactly what you would expect it to look like. After 200 years, you would expect nothing to remain of the witch except bones. But under the mask, there is flesh.

58:24 And there is a pale face pierced all over with holes from the spikes in the mask with empty dark sockets where the eyes should be. And then all over the face, into and out of the holes, crawl scorpions. Live scorpions, real scorpions.

58:43 Live little black scorpions. I have to say, one of the flaws in watching films on your iPhone on a plane is that sometimes you do miss the little details. So when I rewatched portions of this film this morning, I did get to notice that they were scorpions for the first time. And I was very excited.

59:01 Krubayan says, no comment on the scorpions, by the way, but he says, those empty eyes seem to be looking at us. And yeah, it is. gross. But Krubion, while they're messing around here, he accidentally cuts his hand on the glass of the coffin window. And as the two doctors are leaving, we see that some of Krubion's blood drips down into the coffin and stains the face of the body inside. I think we can all tell where this is going to go. And you know what? This is also a plot point in a Paul Nashie film that would come later. And have you seen this one, Rob, the werewolf versus the vampire women from 1971?

59:41 I have not. It's not in either of the Nashie collection volumes that I have. So it's, it's still on my list.

59:48 Yeah.

59:48 So I've got the, the, uh, the 4k of that one in that film, there's an ancient vampire queen who is revived from her, her, her burial place when a scholar cuts her hand and drips blood into the grave onto her. Also in that movie, the vampire queen is played by Patty Shepard, who kind of looks like Barbara Steele.

1:00:11 Yeah.

1:00:12 Yeah.

1:00:12 Yeah.

1:00:12 You're right. I can see it.

1:00:14 Especially the design. If you look up the way she she's dressed with like the black veil is the vampire queen in that movie. It's a very Barbara Steele in this movie look. So I, I, think Paul Nash he had Black Sunday on the brain a good bit.

1:00:29 Yeah yeah I mean it this this film inspired just about everybody.

1:00:33 So once the doctors get back up to the surface bam they come face to face with an extremely unsettling lady played by Barbara Steele who is out walking her to hell in the ruins yeah now you might think like whoa the witch is already resurrected like how how'd she beat them up to the top but no the witch is not resurrected yet Barbara Steele is as we said earlier a playing two roles in the film. She is the long-dead witch Asa, but she is also in the present that family line's unwitting descendant Katya. So Katya lives in her ancestral estate with her father, Prince Vaida, and her brother, Constantine. And here Katya is out walking her two dogs. The doctors introduce themselves, and Katya explains

1:01:20 that she was out walking her dogs when she heard the gunshot. So they explain what happened and they apologize for entering the chapel without permission. And then she says she's significantly, I want to say, more weird and ominous here than Katya is in some later scenes.

1:01:39 Yeah.

1:01:40 Like when they first meet her here, she's an odd lady. She says in this dreamy voice, everything is going to ruin. My father, Prince Vida, refuses to repair even this old chapel. This place in his eyes is a curse. And suddenly the dogs start barking and the coachman calls out that the carriage is repaired. So Krubayan begs Katya's pardon and says that they have to leave. But Gorubek is clearly, he doesn't want to go. He is smitten with Katya's beauty and he's just got Vita fever. He's like, I live here now.

1:02:17 Plus, he's a dog guy, and she clearly has two dogs that she loves a lot. So, you know, instantly, it's matchmaking in his head.

1:02:26 Yeah, this is my dog. These are my dogs, Kerber and us. And so he tells her, like, well, I have to leave now, but I'm going to be spending the night at Myrgorod, and I really hope I will see you again. He has no reason to think he would ever see her again.

1:02:41 Right, yeah. I mean, we, the viewer, know that, yeah, that's probably going to happen. But why would he think he would.

1:02:46 Run into her? And then she says, in a kind of ominous way, I didn't know if this actually had any significance. She says, I trust you will have a good night at Myrgorod. Did that ever mean anything? I don't think there's anything all that spooky about Myrgorod.

1:03:01 No, it's like, I guess just the nearest town. I don't know. I guess this whole sequence with her does feel, like you said, more dreamlike than what is to come with this character. And I don't know, maybe Baba's leaning in a bit. He often has these sequences in his pictures that feel very dreamlike. And so maybe he's indulging, oh, I don't want to criticize, but maybe he's indulging almost too much in the dreamlike qualities of the sequence.

1:03:29 It's more feeling than logic, I think. The doctors, so they go on their way and Katya is left alone, making these sad, glassy eyes at them as they leave. Her face is like literally sparkling in this shot, by the way. The I don't know how exactly they achieve that effect, but it's crazy. And Gorabek looks back at her out the window of the carriage as they leave.

1:03:52 Also worth noting that they take the little triptych icon with them. So Grubayan's just like, yoink, that's mine now.

1:03:59 Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and steal that from the grave. But not knowing that that's a load-bearing artifact.

1:04:04 Yes, exactly. So meanwhile, back inside the chapel, we see the grave of the witch festering. And some frightening music swells. And then inside the black socket of the witch's eye, a dark, creamy liquid begins to froth.

1:04:24 Again, it's almost amazing how disgusting the gore is in this picture, despite being black and white.

1:04:29 Yeah.

1:04:29 So that night at the castle, we meet the rest of Katya's family. A fire is roaring in the hearth. Katya is sitting at the piano, playing music by herself. Her brother, Constantine, who is, he's kind of a young, high-spirited guy. He's a hunter. He's busy cleaning an antique rifle. And her father is seated before the fire in a high-backed chair, just staring into the blaze, looking haunted and depressed.

1:04:55 Your typical gothic horror family, really, in many respects.

1:04:59 Yes.

1:05:00 So Katya at one point stops playing the piano when she hears a distant wailing coming from outside the castle. Everybody stops to listen. Constantine believes it is a pack of wolves, which explains why he found no deer in his treks through the forest lately. But Prince Vida, however, he looks troubled and he says, those are not wolves.

1:05:21 Then he looks up at the painting on the wall and he gasps in terror. He says, the griffin, it has moved. Up on the wall, we see a painted portrait of a Vida family ancestor, a young woman who looks exactly like Katja, dressed in a regal gown, looking mysteriously toward the painter. And underfoot in the painting is a griffin. Griffins seem to be a motif here. There are monstrous carvings on either side of the fireplace, and I think these are griffins too. Prince Vida and Katja agreed that the painting has somehow changed. The griffin is different.

1:05:57 It was once depicted as dead, but now it appears alive. How could it have changed in the painting? Constantine is skeptical. He notes that the painting has always had a strange effect on Katya. She says, it's like a flame that can't escape. There's something alive about it, something different about the eyes, the hands, as if it were hiding something.

1:06:17 Sometimes I'm afraid to go near it. And then Prince Vaida is like, well, we'll say no more about it. Yeah. But the prince is so he's like frightened and exhausted and he just needs to be alone. I think he complains that instead of warmth, a chill seems to be coming out of the fireplace. And there's actually a reason for that. We will discover later. But he says his spirit is weary and he must say goodnight to his children.

1:06:44 So they leave him alone. And there is a scene here where Prince Vida describes to well, he talks to his butler, Ivan or Yvonne. And he describes the curse upon his family. So he says, you know what, today is the feast of St. George. And I had to look that up for when that is generally celebrated April 23rd.

1:07:04 And I kind of hate that this goes against the otherwise seasonally perfect setting of this film. It's like so Halloweeny. But like a lot of these other stories, you know, what is it with, there's so many old world horror stories set in the spring set at the feast of St.

1:07:20 George.

1:07:21 Or on Walpurgisnacht, you know, like late April or the beginning of May, really seems to have been a powerful, spooky season.

1:07:29 That's fascinating. We may have to explore that later on and stuff to blow your mind, because it seems counterintuitive when you think of, you know, the change of the seasons, right? Like spring is upon us. The cold winter of death is passing away. The sun has returned to us. Shouldn't it just be all feasts and preparation? Like, why are there still threats afoot? It would be interesting to dig into that.

1:07:57 Maybe this year, toward the end of April, we should do like a half-tober week where we figure out what it is that's spooky about spring.

1:08:06 Yeah, absolutely. Spooky spring.

1:08:09 Anyway, Prince Vida explains, okay, it's St. George's Day. And on St. George's Day, 200 years ago, his ancestral relative, the witch Asa and her consort Yevuditch were put to death for being in league with hell. And 100 years later, on the same day of the year, the Feast of St. George, an earthquake rocked the chapel where Asa's body was laid to rest under the mask of Satan, and it split her tomb asunder as if she were trying to break out of death itself to accomplish her revenge. And that very night, his ancestor, Princess Macha, who looked exactly like Asa, died mysteriously. She was only 21. Now the prince's daughter Katya is 21, and she too is the image of Asa.

1:08:54 So he's terrified of what is going to happen to her and to them all. But Ivan reminds him even if what you say is true, the cross will protect you. Quote, these monsters are terrified by the symbol of Christ. Always have it near you and you'll be safe. Drink your toddy, sir, before it gets cold.

1:09:13 I like the inclusion of the toddy. Do you think it's a vodka toddy? Because you can make a toddy with various spirits or, I mean, even without a spirit. I think if you just have some hot water and some lemon juice and some honey, that can qualify as a toddy.

1:09:30 Okay. I actually didn't know what a toddy was. I assumed, I just knew it was hot and that it had alcohol in it.

1:09:36 Yeah. Yeah.

1:09:37 I think it's, I don't know, some people out there may be a little more specific about about toddies, but it's, it's my loose understanding that there are a wide variety of, of hot spirit drinks, uh, that can be referred to as toddies.

1:09:52 Okay.

1:09:53 Without getting, you know, full on into like hot butter grum and so forth.

1:09:58 Uh, so anyway, he goes, he's like, yes, yes. Uh, Yvonne, I will drink my toddy. He goes to drink the toddy and in the liquid, he sees reflected the mask of Satan.

1:10:08 Oh, fabulous.

1:10:09 And he says, it's death. I see death. But he resolves that they cannot win against the symbol of Christ. So once again here, we see elsewhere. We're back inside the tomb in the chapel. And the wind is whipping outside in the world above. And in Asa's grave, we see a close-up of her face. And last time, her eye sockets were kind of pooling with that thick fluid.

1:10:33 Now they are surging with a white vitreous jelly forming pale, empty orbs without pupils.

1:10:40 Mm-hmm.

1:10:49 Meanwhile, at the inn at Myrgorod, the two doctors are enjoying the local vodka. So everybody's having some alcohol tonight. Gorbeck, by the way, he is drunk and it is a swinging party. They got a guy playing a tuba. It's all over the place.

1:11:04 I mean, it's gothic horror. And as we've seen in our discussion of the universal horror pictures, you got to have some sort of a beer hall, right? Like that's, you know, I guess if you're going for some sort of a like a Germanic or Romanian, Moldovian, whatever, setting. Like, yeah, given the time period, it makes sense for there to be some sort of a pub-type environment that's at the center of local life.

1:11:26 Yeah, so Gorbeck is enjoying that pub life. He is thoroughly grodable here. He is revealing how obsessed he is with the princess. Like, he's telling Krubayan, I'm about ready to go back to that castle right now and ask her to marry me. But Krubayan convinces him, no, you should go to bed instead. And he's like, okay. And he goes to bed. The older doctor, meanwhile, he's going to go out for a walk in the night air before he turns in. And there's a very nice creepy little segment here where we follow the innkeeper's daughter as she is sent out alone to milk the cow. She doesn't want to go because the barn is creepy. It's right next to the haunted cemetery and she's afraid, but she's forced to go milk the cow anyway. And she

1:12:11 really has to walk through some kind of thick woods to get there. I was thinking, wouldn't there be a path to the barn?

1:12:16 Well, for zoning reasons, the barn was built next to the abandoned cemetery where all the murderers were buried two centuries ago.

1:12:25 Maybe she's cutting through the forest as a shortcut, and that's why she's pushing through all this vegetation. And along the way, she's startled by bats and by a toad hopping in a puddle. She gets there to milk the cow and the cow is named Irina, by the way, we learned the cow's name. I don't think they ever say the innkeeper's daughter's name. But there is a wonderfully creepy little set here where, where crew by on goes out to smoke his pipe by a pond in the moonlight.

1:12:53 And we hear the frogs croaking and the insects buzzing. And then the surface of the pond in our view dissolves. And we see the face of the witch lying in her grave, still disfigured with the holes in her face. and demonically wide eyes now quickened with undead eyeballs. And she opens her lips and begins to speak. And she's got a voice like a snake. And she says, rise, Yevuditch.

1:13:19 And so in the cemetery across from the barn, a storm breaks out. The innkeeper's daughter, she's in there milking the cow, and she kind of watches through the window as lightning strikes in the grounds beyond. Then in an awesome sequence, we zoom slowly on the unconsecrated grave of Yevuditch, which is sort of eroded now over all the years.

1:13:42 And the earth in front of the grave slowly swells from below with the damp soil pushing up and kind of unfolding outwards in clods from the void where the cursed body rests. And then we see a hand. It's slimy and pale. with nails like the claws of a beast reaching up through the mud, and the body climbs out of the earth. And so the body stumbles through the haunted cemetery with the mask of Satan still nailed to its face. And then finally, Yevuditch comes to a stop beside this eroded table of tree roots, and he pulls the mask off of his face, revealing a fleshy but diseased-looking form with a sunken left eye.

1:14:24 Yeah, incredible sequence here. I would argue on par with any dead rising zombie sequence from any film of any decade. Just looks superb.

1:14:34 So Yavudich has demon work to do, and he does get right to work. He goes to Castle Vida, where the prince is sleeping fitfully. The prince, we see him wake from nightmares and sit up in his bed. And then a cold wind blows through the room, scattering music from the piano stand. And a secret door behind the fireplace hinges open slowly.

1:14:56 Oh, it has the griffin on it, too. It looks amazing.

1:14:59 Yes.

1:15:00 And then standing in the doorway is Yevuditch, looking half alive and half zombie with a mottled, crust-covered face, half hidden in shadow. And Yevuditch creeps toward the bed as the prince lies there, frozen in terror. But at the last moment, the prince remembers what can save him. It is the image of Christ. So he raises a silver cross and And Yevuditch is repelled. He snarls and he disappears from the room. Now here, the prince's family, they hear him crying out and they come running. And when he tells them what happened, they decide they have to send for help. Katya is like, oh, I happen to know there are two doctors staying at the inn in Mirgorod.

1:15:41 Let's send for them. She doesn't mention that one of them is her prince charming. So they send the groom of the castle to go retrieve the doctors. But what do you know? When the carriage arrives outside the inn to get Dr. Krubion, it is not the groom from the castle. It is Yevutich who's there driving the carriage.

1:15:59 Oh, yeah, this dark, elegant carriage here, looking like this is the carriage that would take you away to hell.

1:16:06 Yes, yeah. You pass as Cinderella is headed toward the ball. You're going the opposite direction into hell, and Yevutich is driving. And Krubion is just standing there beside the pond smoking his pipe. And Yavudich is like, you've got to come at once. You've got to come check on the prince. So off they go. And this scene is reminiscent of the carriage ride at Borgo Pass in Dracula. They go a little too fast. It's like the foggy haunted landscape.

1:16:38 Yeah, yeah.

1:16:39 At the castle, Yevuditch leads Krubion inside, but quickly starts to run ahead of him in the dim passageways, eventually disappearing. And so Krubion's like, what's going on? And he's trying to find his way. He sees the lantern down the hallway, but then he comes upon it and it's just hovering in midair. And then Krubion wanders around lost until he comes into a room that is somewhat familiar because it is the Eerie Chapel where he was earlier the same day.

1:17:08 with the tomb of the witch Azza gaping open as before. And Krubayan is drawn to it. He approaches and looks inside to see eyes staring back at him. Her eyes are open now, and they have pupils, and they see him. The witch is living. So he tries to run, but the doors to the chamber are locked. And then while he's trying to get out, he turns back and he sees the witch's tomb shaking and rattling, and then it explodes again. The rock walls go launching to the corners of the room, and the witch is lying there, and she gasps for breath. She turns to look at him, making one of the most alarmingly evil expressions in film history.

1:17:48 This is one of the screenshots you may have seen from the film.

1:17:53 Yes, absolutely. Just this maniacal grin on her face, bright eyes, and of course, tremendous makeup and lighting also adding to this effect.

1:18:04 She says, Krubion, Krubion, I've been waiting for you. And she bids him to look into her eyes and to come closer. She says, just a few drops of your blood brought me to life again. All of your blood will give me the strength to accomplish my vision. Come, kiss me. My lips will transform you. So powerless, he walks toward her and she says, you will be dead to man, but you will be alive in death. And slowly he leans over her and he brings his lips to hers and they kiss and she sort of reaches up and touches his hair. It's weirdly cold and passionate looking at the same time. It's weird. Yeah.

1:18:47 And I think this scene was was one of the scenes it was too hot for. aip at the time and they they cut it a little.

1:18:53 Bit it's not very sexy.

1:18:55 No no but it's just too yeah probably just too a mix of weirdness darkness and sexuality uh there was just a little bit too much for the censors.

1:19:05 Yeah So in Prince Vida's room, Dr. Krubayan arrives now, but he has a much changed demeanor. He is gruff and curt. The doctor checks out the prince, and he calms him apparently with some kind of hypnosis. He kind of wipes his hand over his face and calms the prince. At one point, Constantine tries to explain what his father said had happened, and he holds out a cross to illustrate it. And Kurubayan recoils. He says, take that away.

1:19:34 He mustn't see it or it could provoke another attack. And then elsewhere, we see Yavuditch in the chapel with Asa's body. And Yavuditch is speaking to her. He promises that he will help her live again. And he explains what they need is Katya. Asa will steal her youth and her beauty, kill her soul and live in her body.

1:19:57 So that's the plan. We basically know what the bad guys are going to do now. The plan is to make vampire thralls, to get revenge on the entire Vida family, and to steal Katja's life force so the witch can live again through her.

1:20:11 There you go. Yeah. Three-step plan. They seem perfectly capable of pulling it off. We noted that the narration made reference to vampires. I do feel like that narration hit the nail on the head a bit too hard because what we have in this is like a form of vampirism. Like vampirism is more like the method or part of the resurrection scheme. And it doesn't seem to be like a clear monster identity so much in this picture once you get into the actual plot and the pacing of the thing.

1:20:44 I agree. And that's what I was sort of talking about earlier with the fact that the vampires, when they show back up again more than halfway through the movie, it feels like a surprise.

1:20:52 Yeah, yeah.

1:20:53 Uh, something doesn't, even though they did say vampire earlier, it was at the very beginning, but yeah, it almost just feels like one of the tricks in the witch bag.

1:21:02 Yeah.

1:21:04 Like the full array of, of, of nightmare and horror are their toolbox. And this just happens to be one of the things they can draw on.

1:21:11 Yeah.

1:21:12 Uh, so, uh, during the sequence, Katja is very concerned for her pro for her father, uh, Prince Vida, and she prays for him. But Dr. Krubayan puts her mind at ease and asks to be left alone with Prince Vaida. So she leaves, and the doctor then turns to his patient, his victim. And the next morning, the family is awakened to discover, to their horror, that Prince Vaida is dead in his bed with horrible scars on his face, and Dr.

1:21:40 Krubayan is nowhere to be found. And at this point, I might now transition to recounting the movie in a little bit less detail and we can discuss in a kind of summary way. Uh, but, uh, the next big thing that happens is we get Goreback back in action because now some heroism needs to happen, right?

1:21:59 Right. And, and Cruveon has to be found. So there's a lot of calling for him, calling his name, looking around for him. And also like just as discussing, um, his bedside manner, because like they're discussing the fact that like, he seemed to just up and leave. And now, The prince is dead because of it. And he's like, that doesn't sound like him at all. He would not do that.

1:22:20 He would not just run off into the night. Something serious must have happened.

1:22:23 Exactly.

1:22:24 So, yeah, Gorbeck, who we must assume is quite hungover, he goes to the castle to find Krubion. And, yeah, he has this kind of conflict with Constantine when he arrives. Also, we should note at the same time, as he's traveling to the castle, there's a very creepy scene where children are playing by the rushing river in the valley beside the castle. And they come across a dead body and there's a cool trick in this shot where we don't realize there's a dead body in frame until after it's already in frame because we are following a shirt as it like flows down the river and the children are chasing it. And we're watching the shirt move through the water.

1:23:02 And so the camera follows it and then there's this dead body in frame and then somebody screams and points to it. And then you realize like, oh, there's, yeah, there's a face right there.

1:23:12 Yeah.

1:23:13 Creepy sequence.

1:23:14 And of course it was, uh, the body of Boris, the groom at the castle, who was supposed to be driving the carriage. Uh, but yeah, like you, you mentioned Goreback, he arrives at the castle, gets an icy reception because of his association with crew by on, uh, they're like, yeah, he just left and, and our father is dead now.

1:23:31 So that's not very cool. Uh, but he sort of talks his way into coming up to see the body of Prince Vida and, And while looking at it, Katya faints. And then here, Gorbek begins tending to her, and he's obviously just head over heels. I guess he already was, but in this scene, he's trying to help her recover her senses, and he's just overwhelmed by her beauty. The scene also makes a point to show Katya wearing her father's silver crucifix around her neck, dangling on her chest.

1:24:00 And Gorbeck looks at that, why his eyes are drawn there. They don't specify one way or another. Is it the symbol of Christ or is it just Katya? But then later, we will be reminded of that because he's going to come across a body wearing the same crucifix. And it's like, wait, who is this I'm looking at?

1:24:20 Right. Right.

1:24:23 News of the discovery of Boris's body is brought to the castle by a crowd of locals, and this leads to an interrogation of the innkeeper's daughter. She explains that when she saw the carriage arrive the night before, it was not Boris who came to pick up Dr. Krubayan. It was a man she'd never seen before. And it turns out as they're walking by a painting of Yevutich hanging up on the wall in the castle, she's like, that's him. That's the guy from the carriage. And I was thinking, why is there a painting of Yevutich hanging up in the castle?

1:24:53 Yeah, he was like a dank outcast warlock that one of their ancestors had a doomed romance with that ended with them both being executed. And he was buried in a murderer's grave. So, yeah, why is there a commissioned painting of him here? I'm not sure.

1:25:14 Yeah, somewhat confusing. But anyway, so Constantine and Katja end up asking Gorbeck to stay with them at the castle, especially Katja likes this guy. So, you know, stay at the castle and help us out. So here Gorbeck goes into investigation mode. He investigates the body of Boris in the company of a local priest. This priest will become a kind of sidekick for Gorbeck for much of the rest of the film. Uh, and, uh, you know, uh, he's like looking at the punctures on the neck of the corpse. Uh, he's hearing the stories about crew by on strange behavior and Gorbeck is very, it's in a familiar scene. He's like, I'm a man of science, but none of this makes logical sense.

1:25:53 Right.

1:25:53 So we get our, you know, kind of like our buddy cops here. One is logic. One is religion.

1:25:57 Yes.

1:25:58 One is science. One is, uh, the dark lore. And they're going to figure it out. They're on the case.

1:26:04 Yes.

1:26:04 And here we sort of launch into the third act. So we see Krubion in vampire mode and Yevuditch sneaking around the castle, menacing people. They're creeping on Katya because ultimately, you remember, they're going to bring her to the witch so the witch can steal her life force. At one point, there's a scene where one of these figures, we don't know which one, is lurking until she takes her crucifix off for the night. Uh, and, uh, the, the figure starts to reach a hand out from around a curtain and Gorbeck and Constantine come to check things out when she screams for help. And she's saying, I saw the hand.

1:26:38 I saw it.

1:26:39 I saw it.

1:26:39 And Gorbeck's like, I'll get her a sedative. Okay, dude. But then after the scene, uh, there is an encounter between crew by on and Gorbeck. This is interesting. Krubion comes into his room and Gorbeck's like, oh, I thought you had left. I didn't understand the stories people are telling me. Like, why did you leave? And Krubion's just like, you need to get out of here. This is none of your business. Leave the castle. And Gorbeck shows him the triptych icon that they found in the grave and says, you know, I've been trying to decipher this. But when he shows the icon to Krubion, the older doctor is just like, ah, and runs away. Can't look at this thing.

1:27:19 Yeah, but it's an interesting sequence. We see shades of this in various tales of the supernatural where somebody is turned, but there's like some bit of their humanity left enough that they want to, in this case, warn their friend to go away. That may or may not align with the master evil scheme in play here.

1:27:39 I didn't take his warning here as particularly benevolent. I feel like you could read this as just like he's trying to get rid of him. Just like, get out. You know, you've got nothing to do with this. Get out of our way. Yeah, yeah.

1:27:52 He's too quick with a crucifix to kill, right?

1:27:55 Yeah, yeah.

1:27:57 Also in the scene, we get the hounds of hell we met earlier. There's not on-screen dog gore, but it's kind of obscured in the black and white, but the dogs are found with their throats slashed here, presumably by Krubayan.

1:28:11 Sad day for the dogs.

1:28:12 Yes.

1:28:13 And so later, Gorbek and his priest sidekick, they translate the icon. And also, at the same time, Gorbek is busy courting Katya, And they go walking through the gardens and the ruins together. And there's a long exchange for them where they sort of, they sympathize with each other, where Gorbeck offers her comfort because she's really despairing. She says, what is my life? Sadness and grief, something that destroys itself desperately. by day and no one can rebuild it.

1:28:42 Here is the image of my life. And she's pointing at the, the ruined gardens. She says, look at it. It's being consumed hour by hour, like this garden abandoned to a purposeless existence. Uh, and, uh, He tries to give her encouragement that she, you know, that he'd like to help her. He encourages her to leave this place if it makes her unhappy. Uh, and while he, so like he gives a speech about trying to dispel her worries about how sunlight touches even the darkest corners of this garden and the ruins. And she begs for his help and they embrace clearly he loves her and she loves him too, but she's, she's like too busy being cursed to date anyone right now.

1:29:19 Yeah.

1:29:19 This is, uh, This came up in House of Usher last year. Oh, yeah. A similar plot where your dark, depressed Gothic girlfriend clearly needs to leave her doomed household, but it takes a bit of convincing.

1:29:36 Yeah, yeah.

1:29:38 In this case, it is a very, like, it's not you, it's me. Like, I really do like you, but I'm cursed.

1:29:42 Yeah.

1:29:51 Anyway, meanwhile, the human inhabitants of the castle are starting to put some things together. Yvonne accidentally uncovers some machinery and the secret passageways in the castle while trying to put out a curtain that catches fire. And so the good characters start investigating the secret passageways. Constantine and Gorbeck find paintings of the witch, like the naked witch. She looks just like Katya, except she's standing there naked and evil, you know, eyes blazing at the painter. And they start to kind of put the pieces together. They find the body of the witch in the chapel once again. And they're like, wow, remarkable how fresh she looks. Oh, she's breathing.

1:30:34 And she is breathing. And they say, we're in the presence of an unnatural mystery. So Gorbeck runs out of the castle to go get the priest to figure out how to fight this evil. While Constantine goes to protect Katja. In the meantime, Gorbeck and the priest are They finally figure out a method. They go to the haunted cemetery to hunt for the grave of Yevuditch to quench his demonic spirit. And they find the grave. And inside the coffin, they find not Yevuditch, but Krubayan. But how? And the priest proves it. He says, this is no longer your friend, but a servant of the devil. And he demonstrates this by touching the doctor's face with a cross and it sizzles and burns. So the priest has determined from the

1:31:19 inscription in that icon, the triptych, how to stop these evil spirits. You have to pierce the left eye of the vampire. So they like get a needle-like thing or a stylus kind of, and they pierce the eye and it kind of squirts everywhere. And then the being is defeated. That was a new one to me. I mean, I'm familiar with, you know, stake through the heart.

1:31:41 Yeah.

1:31:41 Now I have a question here. So are we to understand that Krubayan, who we saw earlier pleading with his friend to leave, that was not Krubayan at all?

1:31:53 No, I think that was Krubayan.

1:31:54 Okay, that was Krubayan.

1:31:55 He's just come back. I guess maybe that was in, I don't know, was that in the nighttime? And now he's come back to lie in the coffin during the day?

1:32:02 Fair enough, fair enough. That would make sense.

1:32:05 But yeah, I think that was him.

1:32:07 Okay.

1:32:08 But now he's defeated. No more demon Krubayan, no more vampire mode. He's had his eye pierced. And so the priest explains to Gorbeck what the witch's plan has to be. She's going to possess the body of Katja to have new life for herself. And the only way to stop it is to pierce the left eye of the witch.

1:32:25 So armed with this knowledge, Gorbeck heads back to the castle. I think the priest is going to assemble an angry mob.

1:32:33 Got to have one.

1:32:34 Yes. Meanwhile, back at the castle, it's just a slaughterhouse. You get a lot of creeping going on. Constantine gets frightened into a pit trap by Yevuditch in one of the secret passageways. Ivan gets hanged by the neck. And then while Katya is crying over her father's coffin, the body of Prince Vaida, her father, rises again. And he says, I am no longer your father. My blood is no longer your blood. The spirits of evil have rent that tie between us forever. And then a cursed poison flows in your veins. And then Katya faints. But before Prince Vaida the vampire can drink her blood, we get vampire on vampire conflict. Yavudich appears and he says, no, she is not for you. She's for our demonic mistress. And

1:33:22 then he sort of strangles the Prince Vaida vampire and throws his body into the fireplace. And we get to see the vampire's face melting in the fire.

1:33:31 Oh, yeah.

1:33:32 Gross gore. It's like a wax face that they actually show melting. Nasty effect. So anyway, so now Katya, we're getting to the climax. Katya's body is left unconscious next to the witch's coffin. And then we see the witch stirring. She reaches out and she touches Katya's arm and through evil magic, she saps Katya's life force. So on Katya, we see the sort of vitality draining from her face, wrinkles and lines forming on her flesh. Meanwhile, the witch grows increasingly young and beautiful, like a drooping plant that has been watered.

1:34:08 This was an interesting effect. It seemed to me that much of this was created just via the lighting. Or at least if it was created another way, it was subtle enough that it didn't feel janky at all.

1:34:19 Yeah, I think it was a combination of lighting and makeup and editing transitions. But you're right, it's incredibly smooth. Um, and, uh, uh, the, uh, the witch Asa says to her, she says, uh, you did not know that you were born for this moment. You did not know that your life had been consecrated to me by Satan, but you sensed it. Didn't you?

1:34:41 You sensed it.

1:34:41 Didn't you?

1:34:42 That's why my portrait was such a temptation to you. You felt like your life and your body were mine. You felt like me because you were destined to become me a useless body without life. The love that young man had for you might have saved you. Do you know that? You could have been happy together, but I was stronger. And now you shall enjoy a beautiful life of evil and hate in me. Meanwhile, Gorbeck comes back to the castle to save the day. And there's a great, there's a fight scene between Yevudich and Gorbeck. It's a real punch out. There's different kinds of fighting. There's striking and grappling.

1:35:20 Yeah.

1:35:22 Is that the MMA terminology?

1:35:23 Yeah, I think so.

1:35:24 Yeah. Okay.

1:35:24 They're both. And it ends up near the pit trap that Constantine fell into earlier. And so Gorbeck, he like gets pushed over the edge and he's hanging on the edge there. You know, it's your classic, like the heroes dangling over a pit or a precipice and the villain is standing above him. But actually Constantine comes to the rescue.

1:35:45 We thought he fell to his death earlier, but he did not. It seems he was wounded but must have stayed hanging there somehow. And now he's here and he's alive just long enough to grab Yavudich and throw him down into the spikes below. But then it seems like right after he helps Gor back, he's like, I've got to die now.

1:36:05 The spikes would seem to do it, though.

1:36:07 Yes.

1:36:07 Yeah. So I think Yavudich is done. I mean, at least one of those must get in on his eye.

1:36:13 Yeah, you stand a really good chance of it.

1:36:15 So finally, Gorbeck makes it to Katja in the chapel where the witch's tomb was. And he gets there and it seems that Katja is there and conscious. And he says, thank God I made it in time. And she says, yes, she wanted to kill me. And he's pointing to the body lying there on the witch's grave. But uh-oh, Gorbeck doesn't realize that Asa already made the switch. And so he says, we must destroy her forever. And I know how it can be done. He says, don't look, Katya.

1:36:47 It's horrible, but I must do it. And he doesn't see that Asa is behind him grinning with insanity. Like, yes, poker.

1:36:55 She's like, I can't believe it. I'm about to pull this off. He's going to do it.

1:36:58 It's great. But then just before he stabs the eye, he sees on the corpse of the woman he believes to be the witch, the crucifix necklace.

1:37:07 Which shouldn't be possible.

1:37:09 Right.

1:37:10 And then he picks it up and presses it to her flesh to make sure. And nothing happens. And then he understands. And here's where we get a great moment where he's like, wait, come Katya. But he knows who she really is now. And he pulls aside her cloak for the bone reveal. Her body underneath, like below the neck, she looks normal from the neck up, but below the neck, she is some kind of bone monster. Like she's a skeletal sort of creature.

1:37:39 Yeah.

1:37:39 Yeah.

1:37:40 She's like mostly rotted flesh and bone underneath. So we get a, a glimpse of her rib cage. And it's like rib cage first. So we're like, oh, this is definitely the Dark Queen.

1:37:53 Yeah.

1:37:53 So she says, no, I am not your love. She's caught. She admits it. She says, I am not your love. There she lies, dead, forever, forever. And she just, again, she's a real, just a hater to the bone. She loves, loves pointing out your suffering. All her family is destroyed. All her, And then Asa, she's like, now I'm going to take care of Gorbeck. So she tries to hypnotize Gorbeck like she did with Krubion. She said, look into my eyes. And she gives this speech where she says, don't you feel the joy and the beauty of hating?

1:38:26 I love this line. We were chatting a little bit. about this off mic because reading about it, like apparently in some versions of it, perhaps the original version, she says Hades instead of hating. But I actually love it more as hating because I feel like it gets down to the emotional core Satanism in this picture, you know, yeah, it is about it is about hating the world and hating those around you and that's what they That's what that's what makes them thrive.

1:38:55 This which is hate incarnate. She's just malice She wants she hates and she wants to hurt.

1:39:02 Yeah, and she wants to share that hate and her shirt with everyone.

1:39:06 But just when you think she's about to hypnotize Gorbeck, the priest arrives with a mob of angry townsfolk. And, you know, that will just really solve your witch problem, right? It's kind of a weird feeling to think, oh, we're going to end with a witch burning, and that's the happy ending.

1:39:21 Yeah, it is interesting to reflect on this film. In the early goings, we have the Inquisition at work, and they're seemingly, like, doing a good job. They don't finish the job, but they're... They're in the right because the supernatural threat in this film is real. And likewise, the angry mob is up against an actual supernatural natural foe.

1:39:44 They they their suspicions are correct. So they are also in the right.

1:39:49 Yeah, it is a kind of I mean, I guess we're used to more often the modern perspective, like recognizing that this mob violence is bad or that there was something, you know, something perverse and wrong going on in the witch trials. But no, in this case, just within the world of the movie, this witch is really about as bad as it gets. So they're doing a good job today.

1:40:10 Good day's work burning this witch. So they take away the witch. They burn her at the stake. And, well, they get it done really quick. The fire blazes, and she's tied to this pillar, and she burns up. And on one hand, it's like, well, so the evil is defeated. But it seems like a real downer ending, because Gorbeck and the priest... Watch the witch burn while Katya lies dead behind them. And, you know, we're almost hearing ringing in our ears that just bitter, malicious speech that the witch gave. It says, I'm not your love. There she lies dead forever, forever. But there's a happy twist. So Gorbek goes back to her and she comes to life.

1:40:49 It seems almost, did you understand it that when the witch is destroyed, that sort of rebalances the life force in some way? and that allows Katya to come back to life.

1:41:00 I guess so, yeah. I guess that would be my interpretation of it. Or that she was lying about her being dead anyway, because she seemed really excited about tricking him into stabbing his girlfriend through the eyeball, as if that was going to perhaps kill her.

1:41:16 I don't know.

1:41:18 Again, we kind of get into the dreamlike qualities of things here, and maybe we don't We don't have to lean too hard on a logical interpretation of it.

1:41:25 Yeah.

1:41:25 So it is a very, very dark film and a very dark story, but it does have a happy ending, sort of happy. I mean, there's a lot of carnage along the way, but in the end, Katya is saved and Katya and Gorbeck, they can live on and they can be together.

1:41:39 They can move to the city away from the cursed castles and graveyards.

1:41:44 Yes. I'll take it. And that's Black Sunday.

1:41:49 Yeah.

1:41:50 Yeah, absolutely. Just a real treat of a film, as great as anyone has ever told you it is. And we're going to join the chorus by saying, yeah, Black Sunday is tremendous. It has more than stood the test of time. Definitely check it out. It's a great film. If you want some dedicated, focused Halloween viewing, tremendous. If you just want something on in the background while you do other Halloween things, this is a fine choice as well.

1:42:16 Agreed.

1:42:17 All right. Well, we're going to go ahead and close out this episode of Weird House Cinema. We will remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But we do a short form episode on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. We have, I believe, one last Weird House Cinema episode to put out in October this year. So stay tuned to see what that's going to be. Sometimes you'll get a peek ahead at what's coming up if you go over to our Letterboxd page. Our username there is Weird House, and we have a tremendous list of all the pictures we've covered over the years.

1:42:54 Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

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