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Rating:  -
When I was about 9yo, I used to wait 'til my parents were asleep on Friday nights, then creep downstairs to watch the late-late-night TV horror movies. These were usually classics like BRAINIAC, HORROR OF PARTY BEACH, or INVASION OF THE SAUCERMEN. One night I crept down only to witness Bava's BLACK SABBATH w/ Boris Karloff. This movie terrified me! I was haunted by it's images for literally years afterward! Now, I was only a kid, so some allowance must be made. Well, I just watched it again last night, and though it didn't scare me, it did bring a huge smile to my face. SABBATH is a perfectly ghoulish horror anthology in 3 parts, introduced by Boris. In THE TELEPHONE, a woman (Michéle Mercier) is plagued by a sinister caller who threatens her life. This one has a bit of an ironic twist. THE WURDULAK is a vampire tale w/ a rather surprising level of dread and doom! It stars Boris Karloff and Mark Damon. Finally, THE DROP OF WATER has a sticky-fingered nurse (Jacqueline Pierreux) who steals a saphire ring from the hand of a dead medium. Not a smart plan! The medium returns in unforgettably terrifying fashion, causing the nurse to regret her actions in the extreme. This third segment was the one that really got to me as a youth. I kept seeing that dead medium's face w/ it's glaring eyes and clenched teeth. Brrrr! BLACK SABBATH belongs among any true horror-fiend's fear-gear...
Rating:  -
I had seen this movie a number of times on tv...It is a few different stories...I love the old B-movie scary, vampire legends...only when I viewed the movie on tv, it was dubbed in english...I had no idea this would be in Italian with subtitles...disappointed with that...I really think the voice of Boris makes the whole vampire story stand out...oh well...thumbs down on this version....
Rating:  -
Mario Bava's entry in the Cormanesque compilation horror stakes, The Three Faces of Fear aka Black Sabbath suffers the format's common problem - the variable quality of the individual stories. In this case, in the Italian cut at least, that's somewhat exacerbated by having the best of the three in the middle of the picture, leaving it somewhat anticlimactic. The stories' heritage isn't in doubt, based on stories by Chekhov, Tolstoy and Maupassant, but neither opener The Telephone, about a woman harassed by phone calls that may be from the lover she betrayed to the police, or A Drop of Water, about a nurse who finds herself terrorized by her imagination after stealing a ring from a dead woman she laid out, offer much in the way of surprise or chills. Neither, it's true, does the central and longest story, The Wurdalak, yet that tale of a family gradually picked off by vampires cursed to drink the blood of those they love most in the world is executed with enough panache, striking visuals and unexpected nastiness (a child is the first to die) to keep you intrigued even though you know exactly where it's going.
A dubbed Boris Karloff provides the star power for this sequence as well as the introduction and epilogue, which features an initially inept shot that turns into a truly delightful in-joke by the time the end credit is ready to appear (the new intros he filmed for the US version of the film are not included on Anchor Bay's DVD of the original Italian version, although they can be glimpsed in the disc's US trailer, part of an actionably misleading US advertising campaign that included a poster of a headless horseman that doesn't appear in either version of the film!).
Rating: -
OK.. so the movie is really good.. A really good watch, but buyers should be aware, the language is not always in English.. Some versions of the movie are only subtitled in English.. You spend more time reading than you do watching the movie..
Rating:  -
BUYER BEWARE! Although the Product Details are specific, the language part in not correct. This DVD version is the Italian with English sub-titles. If you are like me and remember seeing the U.S. release in the
Theatres or on TV as a kid, and would like to have the English version for your collection - DO NOT order this DVD from this seller. If you do want the Italian with sub-titles, then go ahead and place your order from this seller. You'll be very happy with this DVD.
Good, now that I got that out of the way. I really like this 3 tales of suspense and horror flick. I remember seeing this film on a Friday late-night TV show called Creature Feature back in the late 60's. My Dad would wake me up minutes before Midnight to watch the movie of the night and "Black Sabbath" would be the regular film in the weekly rotation of Horror and/or Monster movies. So, this film made an impact on me and has sentimental value as well.
The first tale "The Telephone" was my least favorite of the 3 stories in this film. Since the U.S. version was heavily edited for American audiences, I found this story more fasicinating with the vengeful Lesbian twist in the original Italian version. Of course, Michelle Mercier is a delight to watch and easy on the eyes. Boris Karloff plays a Wurdulak (vampire who drinks the blood of his loved ones) in the second tale of the film called "The Wurdulak" - of course. Even though there are no graphic scenes of biting or blood spurting everywhere (like todays vampire movies), this story still has some eerie and chilling atmosphere and Mr. Karloff does a wonderful acting performance as a vampire hungry for blood. The last story "The Drop of Water" is the one that made the most impact on me. For the time when this was filmed, it really scared me as a child. The face of the dead medium was enough to give me nightmares and make it hard for me to fall asleep...I was 8. I never forgot that pale, scary and frightening look with the wild white hair floating across the room to kill the woman who stole her valuable Jeweled Ring near the end of the film.
If you like old horror flicks like this one, get both versions. I did and I'm glad they still make copies of this movie for us fans of Old School Horror. Great memories! - Roland Gonzales
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