7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 2.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A Bavarian princess, burned at the stake with her lover for being a witch, comes to life after three hundred years to enact the curse of revenge on her remaining family members.
Starring: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani, Arturo DominiciHorror | 100% |
Foreign | 53% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.69:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM Mono
48kHz, 16-bit
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The son of a special effects artist and cinematographer, Mario Bava followed his father into the Italian film industry, working
as an assistant D.P. and eventually getting his own lensing gig on two of the first shorts by the great neorealist Roberto
Rossellini. For the next twenty-odd years, he developed his own cinematographic style, and on several occasions in the 1950s
he ended up ghost directing or co-directing films—uncredited—when the primary directors dropped out. His saves-the-day
spirit didn't go unnoticed, and in 1959 producer Lionello Santi offered to fund any project the 46-year-old Bava wanted to
make.
Bava's resultant solo directorial debut, Black Sunday, is among his best, up there with 1966's chilling Kill, Baby,
Kill! and the lurid, slasher-inspiring violence of Blood and Black Lace and Twitch of the Death Nerve. Like
the low-budget gothic fright films being put out concurrently by Hammer Horror, Black Sunday is essentially a bridge
between the grand black and white Universal monster movies of the 1930s—creaky, darkly Romantic, hung with spiderwebs—
and the more gritty, violent and sexualized strain of terror that would emerge in the 1960s with Psycho and Night
of the Living Dead and Rosemary's Baby. In a sense, it's arguably the dying gasp of the former and the first
breath of the latter, which puts it in a unique position in horror cinema history.
Black Sunday is resurrected on Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that does justice to Mario Bava's mesmerizing visuals. First off, as you've comes to expect from Kino releases, there's no digital manipulation here at all—no detail-smearing noise reduction, no halo-inducing edge enhancement, no excessive contrast boosting, or any other unnecessary filtering. No compression/encode issues either. On the flip-side, there's been no frame-by-frame restoration, but we've lucked out here; the source print is in very good condition. You'll notice intermittent white and black specks and the occasional small scratch, but no major damage whatsoever. In one scene near the end of the film, a vertical white line does appear at the far left edge of the frame for a few seconds, but this is the only real anomaly. The 35mm picture often commands an impressive amount of depth, and Bava's chiaroscuro lighting is reproduced wonderfully, with deep blacks and crisp but never overblown whites. In between is a rich array of grays. Clarity is much improved from previous home video releases, and there's plenty of newfound detail, especially in close-ups, like the gnarly views of Asa's hole-riddled face. Bava fans should be pleased with this significant picture quality upgrade.
Kino brings Black Sunday to life with an uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 mono track that sounds as good, I suspect, as this film will ever sound. Like many Italian movies from this era, the dubbing is incredibly obvious—not even Barbara Steele's real voice was used—but the dialogue is at least cleanly recorded and always comprehensible. Bava makes great use of occasional sound effects—a low wailing coming from the mausoleum, a spooky wind that clangingly blows over suits of armor—and these are all as potent as can be expected. Binding everything together is a superbly creepy old-time horror movie score, with snaking bassoon lines and quivering strings. The high-end can be a bit fuzzy and muddled at times, but this is probably the best Kino had to work with. Unfortunately, there are no subtitle options on the disc for those who might need or want them.
One of the last great black and white gothic chillers, Mario Bava's Black Sunday marks the end of one era and the beginning of a new, more explicitly violent one. Although the film's story now seems rather routine, Bava's sustained tone of unease and impressive cinematography make it essential viewing for devoted horror fans. Kino's Blu-ray release makes that viewing even better, with a new high definition remaster that presents the film in its best state yet. Recommended for all lovers of creaky, mouldering horror stories!
AIP Cut | 60th Anniversary
1963
Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga
1972
I vampiri
1957
Lisa e il Diavolo / The House of Exorcism
1973
Operazione paura
1966
1980
E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldilà | Glow in the Dark Cover | Limited Edition to 3000
1981
1972
4K Restoration | La chiesa | Cathedral of Demons
1989
1971
Reazione a catena
1971
1997
1970
Featuring The Girl Who Knew Too Much / La ragazza che sapeva troppo
1963
I lunghi capelli della morte
1964
1970
Il lago di Satana
1966
Collector's Edition
1970
Paura nella città dei morti viventi | Standard Edition
1980
1971