Absolutely the worst movie.

A Disappointing Continuation

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

"Black Sabbath" is, as far as I can tell, the only horror anthology film Mario Bava made.The movie features three stories, as they generally do, introduced by none other than Boris Karloff, who also acts in the second part.The first story, "The Telephone", is about a beautiful woman receiving threatening calls that always start sexual and then turn threatening. The young woman believes the calls are coming from a man she helped put behind bars who has allegedly escaped prison and may be out for revenge, so she calls am estranged friend for help.The second story, "The Wurderlak", set some 100-200 years in the past, and has a young man travelling through an eerie village where he finds, and isn't really that shocked to see, a headless corpse with a dagger sticking in its heart. He removes the dagger, as you do, and stops at the first house he comes to, where he is told that the village is menaced by a vampire-like being called a "wurderlak", and the old man who lives in the house, played by Karloff, is out fighting it. The final, and probably best story is called "A Drop of Water". It's about a nurse who is called to the house of a cat lady who has died. Arriving on the scene, she steals the ring off the corpse's finger, and is then haunted by spooky sounds and apparitions when she returns home."Black Sabbath" is beautifully shot, particularly the second part, with its gothic scenery that reminds the viewer of Bava's previous movie, "Black Sunday". The first two tales are too hard to follow, however, and may bear the marks of studio interference: apparently the girl in the first story is a prostitute and the escaped criminal was her pimp, but those details are absent from this version. The second story starts well, and then suddenly seems to cram a bunch of plot details into one or two scenes, leaving you wondering how you got there so quickly. For example, at first it seemed the young man didn't know any of the people in the house, but about ten minutes later, he behaves as though he has been betrothed to marry her. The ending also didn't really make that much sense.Perhaps because of these details, the first two stories don't really generate any suspense or fear in the viewer. I believe "The Telephone" was edited to remove any mention of prostitution, and "The Wurderlak" had scenes of violence taken out, hence they are confusing and uneven, but it may not be Bava's fault.The last story is the best, and the only one that really made me feel anything like tension. It could be because it's the simplest one.The ending, in which we see Karloff back in his role as master of ceremonies, has one of those shots where the camera pulls back so that we can see the set, other cameras, and stagehands, which is an interesting way to end a horror movie.

This is the best movie I've seen by Bava. I didn't like Black Lace. Bay of Blood had some decent scenes, but a mess of a story. Five Dolls, was a mess, except for Fenech.I saw the American version, and have not seen the original Italian, which I've read has different plots and scenes. The best story here is the first, The Drop of Water. The acting and suspense is all there. The dead witch/old lady was great.The Telephone, 2nd piece was decent, but was also slow. Maybe the Italian version was much better.The 3rd, "The Wurdalak" with Karloff as a vampire was creepy and had some decent scenes, but it was mostly slow and it died like the undead.I'll rate this as a B-, or 5 or 6 stars. It's worth checking out for a few scenes. I hated the intro of each segment with Boris Karloff, all this takes you out of the movie and into documentary nonsense. I'm not a fan of trilogies. Better to make one long movie. The Drop of Water should have been the movie. Maybe adding some of the telephone nonsense and the vampire tones. Jacqueline Pierreux was the best actress here. Karloff was decent as the vampire, but take out the stupid intro segments. The other actors were decent.I don't know why Bava is praised so much. What is missing from this film is a director. His job here looks like he delivered a product, very mechanical. But where was the direction of the actors, and their interactions? Not much. The reason The Drop of Water works so well here is because it's mostly one actress. A truly great director would have gotten more performance from the actors, not just put up set pieces, add color, set cameras, and yell action.

Yes this is the film that the famous rock band took their name from after they saw how people enjoyed being frightened. An Italian horror movie with a low budget but an international cast, so a different flavour to the British horror anthologies. This film was also one of the first horror anthologies I do believe, before the likes of Amicus and Hammer got the idea.The stories are introduced by Boris Karloff who is simply standing in front of a dated psychedelic-esque background and giving a speech about all things creepy basically. The funny thing is he is dressed quite normally in a simple suit and is hammering on about vampires and spectres as if this were a Vincent Price movie. The stories you see aren't really in that classic vein though, these tales are actually much more grounded and genuinely creepy (well two are).The first short story revolves around a young French call-girl who starts getting terrorised by phone calls from her ex-pimp (spoiler alert). This pimp has just broken out of jail and is threatening her life because she was responsible for putting him away. The young girl calls her female friend around to help and comfort her, little does she know the threatening calls are from her friend who is simply trying to reunite with her. The friend figures this is the only way the young call-girl will allow her back into her life...pretty extreme way of making up isn't it! In the end the real pimp shows up and kills them both just as the friend was writing a note to explain what she has been doing.This first tale is quite poor I think, its in no way scary or remotely thrilling, especially when you discover the friend is behind it all. The thing is this revelation gave me a better idea, they should of made the pimp the one behind the calls as originally expected. Then in the end when the call-girl discovers this it would have been cool to also find out the pimp was killed in his prison escape attempt so all along the calls were coming from beyond the grave. The fact that the pimp merely turns up and kills both young women is a complete anticlimax, just a basic murder. Its very glossy though, it actually looks like a high production porn flick at times.Next up is a more kooky traditional tale of ghoulies in the night...well a spin on vampire lore actually. Set in 19th century Russia a young man stumbles across a small family in the wilderness who are battling against a breed of creature known as Wurdalak. These things are undead zombie types that feed on the blood of the living, especially relatives they once knew strangely enough. Karloff plays the father of this family that ventured out to kill a Wurdalak but has returned one himself, naturally the story plays out as a battle of survival for all the living. Definitely the best looking of the three stories, the sets and props are really sumptuous in this and could easily be part of a full length movie. Great atmosphere with the swirling mist and bleak locations but the actual tale is pretty daft really. Karloff is wonderful as the pale grizzled bearded undead nightstalker but end of the day he's merely playing an unkempt Dracula. Everything goes as you might predict admittedly but thinking back I just can't fault the production values on this one.The final act sees a woman stealing a fancy ring off another woman who has recently passed away. This sets off all manner of supernatural occurrences such as a mysterious dripping of water, a mysterious fly that won't leave her alone and eventually the dead woman's corpse actually appearing before her. Now this short vignette is the jewel in the crown for this movie, its actually incredibly spooky and very atmospheric with the dripping water echoing around the woman's house. It really does give you the chills...that is until the finale where the corpse appears and really does freak you the f*ck out! The dead body has this God awful twisted expression on her face which is enough to keep you up at night I kid you not, that on top of the whole 'Ring-esque' sequence where it moves towards the terrified woman. The final twist in the tale here is again predictable but oh so delicious.There is no way an American movie in that era would or could pull off something this scary, at the time this was hard core stuff, the Italians were bold and brave. The mix of half naked ladies, the image of call-girls (hookers), blood and the surprisingly scary final story gave this film a real edge rarely seen in British or American horror anthologies. What's more this entire production clearly has so much class, skill and polish, every segment looks great, sounds great and could work as an individual movie in its own right. The first is standard murder fare, the second is standard ghoulish fare and the third is possibly the inspiration for many modern horror movies ('The Ring'!)...but they are all done very stylishly making other examples look crap in comparison.Its such a shame Bava chose to end the movie by revealing Karloff astride a fake horse and with all the cameras and crew. The main camera pulls back to reveal the studio floor as Karloff finishes his spooky speech. Not too sure why he's in his Wurdalak character get up either. Can't deny its a fun little ending and very interesting to see how they did that effect, but at the same time I can't help but feel they kinda extinguish everything they managed to created and visualise so well prior to that.8/10

Black Sabbath (1963) - The Good, the Bad and the Cinematic BeautySynopsis: A trio of Italian cinema giallo/horror shorts: "Il Telefono" - the story of a woman driven to madness by disturbing phone calls, "I Wurdelak" - a period piece of a family driven to destruction by a vampire-like being, "La Goccia d' Acqua" - translated as a "A Drop of Water", it centers around a nurse who steals a ring from a corpse who comes back for revenge.The Good: A beautifully crafted set of films that each show unique qualities, yet somehow feel cohesive. All three shorts are set in different time periods, yet the atmosphere of the film in its entirety feels familiar and establishes continuity, so you never feel like you're starting a brand new movie. It's a quality that is rare, so I am endeared to few anthology-type movies, but this one succeeds. As for each of the shorts independently, for me, "La Goccia d' Acqua" was by far the best and most effective. Few movies created in the 1960's hold any sort of true scariness to them in present day, but this segment does just that. It's a very creepy piece and can challenge most modern horror in its ability to raise the hair on your arms. It's something about the look of the corpse and how the suspense of the scene builds to a fever pitch and ultimate reveal. While I enjoyed the other two segments as well, this segment really made the movie for me. It finished the film on a high note and made me momentarily forget a few of the things that were lacking in the first hour of the film.The Bad: While the entire film is good, I felt that the first two segments didn't quite hold up as well over time. "Il Telefono" is a very straight up giallo, which I felt that Bava perfected over time, but is somewhat lacking in it's bite here. The piece is relatively tame and the ending was predictable. I found it rather boring in spots as well. "I Wurdelak" is a step in the right direction for the film, but it drags on a tad too long (which is not something you should feel with short films). Karloff is good in the part of Gorca, but otherwise, the acting is period-piece over-the-top. This is fine if the story is grand in scale, but with roughly a half hour of screen time, there simply wasn't enough material for the "Gone with the Wind" dramatic acting. The tale is essentially a love story, but with so much happening so fast, it loses its believability and that takes you out of the story. I feel like these are minor gripes in the grand scheme, though. The Cinematic Beauty: The film in its entirety is gorgeous. For what the "I Wurdelak" story lacks in depth, it makes up for in its beautiful set pieces. The Old World ruins and the chilling brutality of the winter landscape embraces the viewer. Each segment has excellent use of lighting and color, specifically "La Goccia d' Acqua". A simple strobing green light outside a window gives this segment ten times the atmosphere and sets up a very suspenseful ending. In addition to the light, the dripping water effect is palpable, heightening your senses and creating massive tension in a very simplistic way. Bava always had this sort of attention to detail and it is what makes his films so easy to watch. Sometimes it is hard to pinpoint exactly why you like to watch a movie. On the surface, the individual segments of Black Sabbath are not ground-breaking in concept at all (aside from the last possibly). The vampire concept, even in 1963, has been done hundreds of times. The difference is Bava's superior attention to detail and the creation of an atmosphere within each of the films to draw the viewer in. In doing that, you create a movie that is successful in its execution.