Exactly what it sounds like, the Pick of the Week column is written up by the Cinapse team on rotation, focusing on films that are past the marketing cycle of either their theatrical release or their home video release. So maybe the pick of the week will be only a couple of years old. Or maybe it’ll be a silent film, cult classic, or forgotten gem. Cinapse is all about thoughtfully advocating film, new and old, and celebrating what we love no matter how marketable that may be. So join us as we share about what we’re discovering, and hopefully you’ll find some new films for your watch list, or some new validation that others out there love what you love too! Engage with us in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook! And now, our Cinapse Movie Of The Week…
Yes, this is where Ozzy got the name.
On to the matter at hand: Black Sabbath. What you must first understand is that Mario Bava did not make sane films. If narrative cohesion and believable human behavior is what you crave, then for the love of all that is holy stay away from Mario Bava, and especially stay away from Black Sabbath. No, what Bava was after in his writing, directing, and cinematography was submerging the audience into a waking nightmare, crafting films that were delightful in their inventive insanity. Bava was a true artist, and his every frame is worthy of pulling out of the film and preserving as a work of art. That he seemed to delight in filling that frame with the creepiest and most unnerving of images is just a benefit.
Released in 1963, Black Sabbath may in fact be the best horror anthology ever assembled. Anthologies are usually sunk by maddening inconsistency from segment to segment, whether the film is from a single mind (like Creepshow or Trick ‘r Treat) or assembled by a team (like Dead of Night or the V/H/S movies). There’s always at least one dud that drags on for forever and stalls the whole enterprise (for example, the Ti West short in V/H/S almost made me rage-quit the movie).
Not Black Sabbath. Bava attacks each segment with a painter’s eye for his compositions, and with a showman’s drive to keep topping himself. Every time you think Black Sabbath has peaked, that the film has exhausted its supply of freaks and creeps, Bava produces a fresh new ghoul to crawl out of the mist before your trembling eyes. He bathes the frame in fog and bold colors, conjuring a thick layer of unreality over the film, allowing dread to build up over even the simplest and most mundane of scenes. There’s no barrier safe from the encroaching forces of the malicious supernatural, and Bava dangles that knowledge over your head for the entire runtime, just waiting for the right moment to drop the motherload of terror.
He very nearly comes close to overwhelming the audience right out of the gate. The first story ‘The Drop of Water’ is a masterclass in simplicity.
(Note: There are a number of cuts of Black Sabbath, which means there are multiple orderings of the stories. I am going with the Roger Corman/AIP cut, simply because that is the one I have seen. If you have a problem with this, please feel free to send me your DVD and I will watch that. Also send cash, as I have student loan payments and them ain’t cheap. Also send brownies. Brownies are delicious.)
‘Water’ is the story of what happens when a nurse is called to attend the body of a wealthy old woman who died mid-séance. The close-up on the inhuman mask of death on the old woman’s face is a nice indication of exactly what sort of tone Bava is going for with this movie, and you either take the ride or jump off.
The old woman has on her a very fancy ring, which the nurse can’t help but pocket. While stealing the ring, she upsets a bowl of water and is buzzed by a fly. The nurse quickly leaves back to her apartment, only to discover that both the fly and the incessant drip of the water have followed her home.
And then it turns out that the old woman has followed her home as well.
Next up is ‘The Phone’; a nifty little proto-slasher story in which a French call-girl begins to receive mysterious phone calls from an angry ex. That would be bad enough, except that the angry ex has been dead for quite some time…
And finally there’s ‘The Wurdalak’. Starring Boris “You Know Who the Fuck I Am” Karloff, ‘The Wurdalak’ plays out like a condensed version of a classic Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe chiller. A young lord is travelling through the countryside when he comes across a beheaded corpse with a knife stuck through its heart. Turns out there’s a special breed of vampire loose in the hills, a vampire marked by their insatiable thirst not only for blood, but for the blood of the people that the vampire loved most in life.
There’s a family holed up in a little cottage, waiting desperately to hear from their father, played by Karloff, who went out to do battle with the Wurdalak. He left explicit instructions for his family to refuse him entry should he return after a set time, as the delay would all but guarantee that he had been waylaid by the beast and transformed into a member of the thirsty dead. The deadline comes, the deadline goes, and it is only then that Karloff arrives.
But it’s so close… surely it’ll be safe to let him in… surely there’s no danger… surely…
You’ve seen similar riffs on the vampire legend, but I can’t think of one off the top of my head that is this lean, this mean, and this determined to bowl you over with the creeps. There’s an undead child that appears to have come stalking out of the pages of Stephen King a decade before The Master began publishing his novels, while Karloff lords over the entire endeavor as a glowering horror god, able to terrify with just a glance.
But what makes Black Sabbath such a worthy watch is its sense of fun. Mario Bava’s horror films all contain truly transgressive shit, but Bava’s playful touch undercuts the misery that such material would seem to necessitate. That same unreality that draws you in and freaks you out is also what protects you when the bodies start stacking up and the ghosts come moaning. A trip into Black Sabbath is like a ride through a particularly exciting haunted house: You’re screaming one moment, laughing the next, and at all times luxuriating in the craft and care that went into the spooky good time.
If you’ve already exhausted your Halloween supply of Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and, you know, Halloween, throw on Black Sabbath and spend a little time with the creeps and crawlies that reside within. They don’t bite.
Much.