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With an introduction by Boris Karloff, as well as an unnatural feel headlined by his presence, Mario Bava and Bava’s triple anthology of horror, Black Sabbath, is considered a classic in the world of horror. It has also been crowned one of the greatest horror movies of its time. It’s Epic. It’s Fantastic. One weak leg in this tripod makes me pump the brakes at that statement. That said, you cannot brush aside how each piece of these short films is expertly crafted and designed to stand out and stay engraved in one’s memory.
Before offering my critique on each of the shorts, it is essential to pinpoint this I viewed the English-language version of Black Sabbath which has a runtime of 95 minutes (as opposed to the Italian version which is 93 minutes), alters some of the stories, and mixes the order of how they are shown. Upon further investigation, I realize watching this version might have been a mistake. That being said, the reviews of the shorts will be given in the sequence they play in the original Bava version, starting from, “The Wurdulak” and ending with “A Drop of Water.”
“The Wurdulak” takes place in Serbia during the 19th century, and it focuses on a young nobleman D’Urfe (Mark Damon) who finds a headless body with a dagger stabbed in its chest. He takes the blade to a farmhouse which is near a small village where a man called Girogio (Glauco Onorato) meets him and says the dagger belongs to his father who is currently missing. D’Urfe invites Giorgio inside his house which he shares with his wife, young son, Giorgio’s brother, and his sister Sdenka (Susy Anderson). The rest of the family awaits Gorca (Karloff), the father of Giorgio and Sdenka, who finally arrives after midnight looking haunted and dishevelled.
At over forty minutes long, “The Wurdulak” is the most extensive of the three short films in Black Sabbath, and honestly, it feels every minute of it. It is also the driest when it comes to performance. Its misty gothic visuals are reminiscent of the Evil Dead set two decades later, so Bava captures some interest in this rather grim countryside setting. That said, it does not save the film from the usual wooden acting and the sluggish pace of the narrative. In The Wurdulak, the pacing is rather clumsy and does not seem effortless like the other shorts, whether they came before or after it’s the version you are watching.
One side note At one moment, Gorca makes a gesture toward D’Urfe’s wife Maria (Rika Dialina) that suggests he wants to grab a grandson she’s holding. When she gives him a frightful look, Karloff delivers his line “Can I not fondle my own grandson?” Certainly, over fifty years and multiple generations, the meaning of some words has drastically changed, so something that used to result in fright now emerges as an uncomfortable, yet lighthearted chuckle.
“The Telephone” follows the story of Rosy (played by Michèl Mercier), a French prostitute who starts receiving creepy phone calls after coming back to her apartment one evening. Frank, Rosie’s ex-pimp who recently escaped from prison, starts calling her. Rosy testifies against him in court, which is the reason why Frank was put in jail. Her only source of comfort is Mary (Lidia Alfonsi), her ex-friend, but the two of them have grown estranged. She hopes that she will show up to her apartment and keep her safe from Rosy’s eventual handler.
In his film “The Telephone,” Bava and Ubaldo Terzano’s soft-focus photography shines through. With the incorporation of deep reds, gauzy whites, and padded interiors showcasing Rosy’s posh apartment, Italy’s design philosophy is clearly on display. Alongside those sharp synths triggered by Roberto Nicolosi’s active score, it feels as if the viewer is placed in a daze. This is a lesson in extremely careful slow-burn tension that invites you to hear attentively to the dreadful phone conversations and the dreadful silences that come after.
With “A Drop of Water” being the last short film for which Black Sabbath is known, it definitely is the most important piece of cinema today.
In the 1910s London, a nurse (Jacqueline Pierreux) gets a call from a maid (Milly Monti) regarding her service to find an elderly woman (Harriet Medin credited as “the Concierge”) who is actively rotting. Her corpse is in the process of decomposition, having a facial and a body structure that one could only see in their worst nightmares. During the burial, the nurse attempts to dress her up and notices a ring on the corpse’s finger. She forcibly tries to take it and instead knocks over a glass of water. After that, the corpse surfaces and other strange phenomenon starts, with the first being a fly being present and disturbing her and the last one being the lights in the apartment turning off and on.
Saddle up, people! It is time to complain about whether “The Drop of Water” has sufficient conflicts or gives us enough suspense to make Black Sabbath entertaining. The short film’s narrative unfolds in a vast, ornately furnished apartment that seems almost surreal. What’s more, the brief conversations do not play a pivotal role in the viewer’s curiosity as the nurse played by Pierreux becomes more attentive and purposeful in her actions as the situation escalates. By the end of the short which runs for ‘approximately’ twenty-five minutes, an unsettling red and green strobe light within the apartment accompanied by eerie music starts to pulsate. I say together with Bava, “Try to escape from reality.”
Starring: Jacqueline Pierreux, Milly Monti, Harriet Medin, Guestavo De Nardo, and Alessandro Tedeschi. Directed by: Mario Bava.
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