Growing up, my Saturday afternoon horror movies were catch as catch can. I never really had a plan and I’m sure that there are several films I saw that I have forgotten. I’m sure one of them wasn’t Black Sunday. I knew nothing of directors and their reputations then and I was unaware that Mario Bava made quite a splash with this moody movie. I can now understand why (thanks to Amazon Prime). This is an unusual vampire and/or witch story, and one which had quite an impact on future films, including one of my favorites, Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. Indeed, Black Sunday is about as gothic as they come. A witch is murdered as the film opens, along with her lover. Two centuries later a couple of doctors stop for the night in the Moldovan town where this happened. They find the corpse of the witch and accidentally reanimate it.
The monster the witch raises (her lover, initially) attacks people like a vampire does and the victims become vampires themselves. The best (but not only) way to kill them is by driving a sharp spike through their left eye. This is quite violent for a 1960 film, but it certainly cemented Bava’s reputation. In any case, the younger doctor falls in love with the local princess, but the witch has designs on her too. The older doctor and the princess’ father both get transformed into vampires and get killed off. By the end, only the young doctor and the princess remain, along with an Orthodox priest who helps with deciphering how to take care of occult monsters. The plot is more complex than that, and the film is now understood as a landmark.
At the time and place where and when I went to college, courses in horror films were not on offer. (I was rather preoccupied with religion, in any case, and might not have taken one anyway.) By the time I was in college, however, I viewed monster movies with nostalgia, but I was trying hard to be respectable. You always have to be proving yourself when you grew up poor. Learning how these early horror films fit together is a form of self-education. And it’s fun. And horror movies offer an escape from a world where you know you’re having trouble fitting in. Many of the movies I watch are still catch and catch can, but I think it pays to be more intentional about them. And I’m glad I caught Black Sunday at last.