BLACK SUNDAY 1960
I watched “Black Sunday” for free on youtube, January 11th, 2026, for the first time ever. I had heard of the movie in the past from other people, and it wasn’t until it randomly popped up in my youtube recommended, that I decided to watch it.
I was drawn in from the get go, the beginnning of the movie starting out dark and spooky, with the men in the hoods getting the fire stoked, and the iron ready for branding. I imagine this was probably very creepy for audiences at the time, when the movie was initially released in the early 60’s.
For reference, “Black Sunday”, also known as “The Mask of Satan” (La Maschera Del Demonio), is an Italian horror film released on August 11th, 1960. The film wasn’t released in America until 1961, and because of censorship, it was banned in the UK until July of 1968; released under the name “Revenge of The Vampire”.
The movie is inspired by the story “Viy” by Russian author Nikolai Gogol. The plot of the film is that Princess Asa Vajda is supposed to be burned at the stake in the 1630’s, for being a Satanic Vampiric Witch, for committing “too many evil deeds to satisfy her monstrous love for the Serf of The Devil: Igor Javutich”. Condemned by her own brother, he orders for the Mask of Satan to be nailed down onto her face. This is done so by a big scary executioner, but not before Asa cursed her brother’s bloodline. The mask is then hammered on to her face in what was surely a completely gruesome and unseen show of violence, likely not seen in movies before.
The opening credits reveal that this was a Galatea film, and it made me curious if this was ever seen by Anton LaVey. I wonder if Anton named his daughter Zeena Galatea as a partial nod to the film company, among other things. From what I’ve read, Anton was a rather avid horror/creepy movie fan.
The beginning part of the film reminds me “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, though the original story “Viy” actually predates it by about 60 years!
Even though Princess Asa was to be burned at the stake, she is saved from the rain that pours down. Still dead though, her body is buried in the family crypt, where the movie moves forward 2 centuries. In the 1800’s, we see a carriage with 2 doctors traveling the area of Moldavia, when one of the wheels breaks off. The driver starts to fix it, when the 2 doctors, Andrej Gorobec, and Chroma Kruvajan, come across an ancient crypt. Andrej is supposed to be the younger, handsome doctor, with Kruvajan being the older experienced one. The two investigate the burial tomb of Asa, creeped out, but curious.
In the crypt, you really start to see the beautiful filmograpgy that the movie has to offer. The scenes in the crypt show beautiful angles of black and white, with the lighting perfectly accentuating the characters’ expressions. I loved how the simplicity of it really helped emphasize what we, as the audience, were supposed to look at.
The crypt was quite open and bare, not a cluttered set, but the surrounding effects of cobwebs, stone ruins, and trinkets so easily conjured the creepy Halloween type of vibe, the movie was going for. Though the budget of the movie was never revealed, from what I understand, I think it might have been on the lower budget side, as some of the set seems to have cheaper effects used in clever, if not silly, ways.
One of the examples of this was the bat Dr. Kruvajan fights at the beginning of the film. While in the crypt, him and Andrej look at Asa’s tomb, to see a window displaying the Mask of Satan over her face. The cross on her tomb was positioned in front of the window so it would keep her in place, if she awoke. The beginning of the “Cross That Scares Demons” trope, in movies. Dr. Andrej leaves to hang out with the scared coachman, and Dr. Kruvajan stays alone in the crypt when the bat appears.
The film shot right before shows a human skull and bones, and I wondered if the remains were real or not. It wouldn’t be the only time real human remains would be used in a movie, if this were the case. I’m unsure if the crypt was part of the studios at Scalera Film, or possibly shot at Castle Massimo, where other scenes were filmed at.
The bat attacks Dr. Kruvajan, and we never fully see it, the audience simply seeing a typical bat shaped shadow, and then shots of Dr. Kruvajan beating into the air. I think that you can see some of the strings to the bat, thought I might be mistaking that with the spiderwebs.
Dr. Kruvajan eventually just shoots the bat, and beats the shit out of it on Asa’s crypt, breaking the cross on it in the process. This breaks the window, exposing the mask, and Dr. Andrej runs back in. They look through the grave, partially robbing it of some sort of tablet, that’s written in Ancient Cyrillic. Once again, this was inspired by a Russian folktale, so I suppose this was a small nod towards that. Initially, I thought that the tablet would have had more weight in the movie, but it was nearly useless. I originally thought that the Asa or Javutich would have chased the main characters to get it back, but it’s mostly forgotten about, barely seen. Near the end of the film, Dr. Andrej gives the tablet, or icon, to the main priest, who takes it to be translated, but it’s not until another scene that the Father says in passing what the icon was for.
It happens to fast, that I easily missed it, especially with the strange dubbed dialogue. Apparently, it had said that you had to put a stake through the Satanic Vampire’s eye in order to kill them. This isn’t really made clear, we just see the priest do this later in the movie, while mentioning the icon, as he drives a stake through the “evil” Dr. Kruvajan. The actual vampireyness isn’t as strong or emphasized as a theme, as it might seem. There’s vampire elements to the movie, but what we think of in modern day, isn’t seen so much in this film. There are neck bites, and a few other vampiric things, but “Black Sunday” doesn’t seem to truly explain what made the antagonists vampiric, witchy, or Satanic. I supposed part of it might have been a way to interchange the words, as many people have considered “Witch” and “Satanic” as the same thing, And off the top of my head, I believe the general lore of vampires is that people sold their souls to the Devil for immortality, or eternal youth. The movie doesn’t really say why Asa and Javutich were evil, it just says that they were.
Dr. Kruvajan cuts himself on the broken glass to the window of Asa’s tomb. This small bit of blood, plus the destruction of the cross, starts to awken her. And thus, she starts the process to gain her corporeal form, it being implied that she’ll take over the body of Princess Katia, her current living descendant, that just so happens to look exactly like her. Because of the blood spilled by Kruvajan, Asa summons Javutich back to to life, and he rises from the grave.
Javutich comes back to life, with the Mask of Satan on his face, in a clear, and amazing shot. I appreciate the detail that went into the mask, plus the dragon emblem on the costume. It looked really good, and technically well done. It reminded me of the Dragon Priest Masks from Skyrim, and I wondered if there was any possible influence of that movie on the game. Granted, when Javutich took the mask off, he looked like a slimy member of Jethro Tull, and not all that scary.
I found the pace of the movie to be slow at times, and would sometimes lull. I understand that the film was dubbed for the English speaking audience, but sometimes the dialogue would look so off and unbelievable from what the actors were saying, that some scenes were just silly. In general, I don’t take the film that seriously, but I find it to be an essential piece to gothic movie horror. I understand though, that the film was recorded in English, but because of some of the actors’ thick Italian accents, it had to be dubbed. I’m assuming Barbara Steele dubbed her own lines, but even hers looked off when watching the movie. Whoever dubbed her character made me laugh at times, with the way they would put so much emphasis on “Mirgorod”. It would make the dialogue sound out of place at times, messing up the flow of a scene.
The romantic sub-plot was superfluous and shoehorned in. I laughed at the notion that Dr. Andrej would have serious feelings for Princess Katia, after only meeting her less than 2 days before. Surely, something forced into the plot. It had no bearing on the movie at all, and could have not existed. The movie wouldn’t have suffered if the romantic plot didn’t exist.
“Black Sunday” was recorded and released in 1960, still very much in the “Old Hollywood” or “Golden Era” style of film. It follows much of the 1950’s type of movies, where the big bad guy loses, the handsome young man gets the girl, and everything is happy at the end. Asa ends up being burned at last, and Andrej gets to kiss Princess Katia. There’s no discussion as to what would happen next, which I think would be interesting to think about. During the course of the movie, Katia’s remaining family dies, so I suppose we can assume that she finally leaves the castle with Andrej.
From a historical type of perspective, I think that this movie is necessary in some ways. If you’re into the Horror genre, this surely opened up some avenues for later films. I wonder if the creators of the movie “Viy”, which came out in 1967, saw this movie first, and decided to do a more faithful rendition. The effects used to make Katia look younger and older were very clever, where apparently they used red and green lights that would show or hide the makeup. Because they recorded in black and white, the viewer can’t see this, we just see the “aging process”. I think that the overall Dark theme to the film definitely inspired the generations that came after this.
Looking through the Newspaper archives, I didn’t see too many reviews about the movie when it came out, though the few that popped up were short, but recommended it. I think what really got people to watch the movie was the art for majority of the ads seen in newspapers. The freaky woman’s face is eye capturing, and surely entices people in.
I wouldn’t recommend the film to the general person, but if you’re interested in older creepy films, I think it’s worth watching at least once. It’s not the type that I’d purposely choose to watch over and over, though it’s perfect for a Halloween marathon.
My video: https://youtu.be/UT0tGSlIdw4
