Black Sabbath (1963)

Black Sabbath (aka I Tre Volti Della Paura—The Three Faces of Fear) (Mario Bava, 1963) One of those Italian horror film omnibi that contracted for distribution with American International Pictures for the drive-in crowd, and one of those that eked out more than passing interest. AIP was under some condition to bowdlerize the thing to make it their own—of course, they dubbed it into English and their lab, Pathecolor, put a different tinge on things (the screencaps of the original are much more vibrant and beautiful), and Boris Karloff served as "host" (just as he'd been doing for the TV series "Thriller"), as well as appearing in one of the three segments. They also changed the order of the three stories, starting with "A Drop of Water" and ending with Karloff's turn in "The Werduluk" and made significant changes to one of them that somewhat confused the issue.

The origins of the three stories are a bit controversial, supposedly in the public domain, but not definitively. They resemble what producers would do with the later "Night Gallery" series, having the same "vibe" and conciseness to keep the shooting costs low.

The three stories were a mixed body-bag of settings and plot (although AIP did some judicious editing to try to give one of them—"The Telephone," which was a psychological thriller piece—more of a supernatural slant like the others. The one thing that unifies them is Bava's beautiful color cinematography and an elaborate production design that, at times, takes one's breath away.

"The Drop of Water"—London, 1910: Jacqueline Pierreaux plays a nurse who is called to the mansion of a medium who has died that night to prepare the body for burial. Noticing a large sapphire ring on her finger, she pockets it and notices strange things begin to happen. The medium's corpse eyes open and freaks the nurse out—the weird woman is dead but her eyes seem to be accusing her. The sound of dripping water (she has knocked a glass of water over in fright) becomes a steady rhythm and she is constantly being pestered by a fly. She goes home. The drips start again. A pestering fly appears. The lights go out. The medium's corpse appears in the bed. SHRIIIEK!

"The Drop of Water" leads the American AIP version, but it was the last of the trio in the original Italian version because it has the creepiest concept and has a steadily increasing amount of tension that finishes with a nicely open-ended coda.

"The Telephone"—Modern day, France: A high-class call-girl (Michele Mercier) —she's not acknowledged as such in the American version—returns to her apartment and gets ready for bed. The phone rings. No one's there, not even heavy breathing. She hangs up hesitantly. The phone rings again. There's someone on the other line. She hangs up. 

The phone rings again. This time the caller identifies himself as "Frank" (and at this point, the two versions diverge—in the Italian version, Frank is her former pimp who she testified against, landing him in prison, and in the American version, he's a former lover who's dead). He calls her, threatening her, and she worriedly calls her friend Mary (Lydia Alfonsi) to come over and help. Mary does so, but what Rosy (the call-girl) does not realize is that it is Mary who has been making the phone-calls, disguising her voice.

At this point, things get very confusing—the Italian version has Rosy and Mary as former lesbian-lovers, which isn't mentioned in the AIP version, and the American version has some chicanery with a letter that appears and manifests some ghostly writing. The ending remains the same, but slightly confused given the departures from the original. But, one gets the impression the main reason to have the story is to allow a lot of shots of Mercier in a negligee.

"The Werduluk" 18th Century Russia: Vladimir Durfe (Mark Damon) is on a long journey and comes across a body, with a large knife in its chest and missing its head. He secures the knife and continues on his travels.

He stops for the night at a rural inn, which is in chaos. Giorgio (Glauco Donorato) explains that the family is upset because his father Gorca (Karloff) has been missing for five days, having set off to kill a "wurdalak," a living corpse who feasts on the blood of the living. Durfe notices that the kitchen knife set is missing one piece, the very one that he recovered from the body on his travels. Giorgio offers Durfe a room for the night and begins to ask questions about what he knows, but before they become answered when Gorca enters the room, with the head of the wurduluk, which he then leaves hanging on a post in front of the cottage to warn others.

Well, that's great for outside, but what about inside? Gorca's manner is different than what his family members expect and they begin to fear that before he killed the vampire-creature, he might have been set-upon himself. Gorca's return may be the ultimate good new/bad news scenario.

Karloff displays more energy than he'd had in years and doesn't depend on his reputation to play the old vampire-hunter. In the meantime, Bava's cinematography is at its most flamboyant, letting go of realistic touches to bathe the story in experimental lighting and exotic color schemes.

The music scores differ, also: the Italian version has a more moody score, and the AIP score (by Les Baxter) "mickey-mouses" a bit, over-accentuating the shocks and surprises. If one has seen the original, the music might reduce one to giggles.

And, oh yes, speaking of music, it's where "the band" got its name.