Boris Karloff serves as M.C. in this trilogy of ghoulish stories... The Telephone deals with a high class call girl (luscious Michele Mercier) who is being terrorized by phone calls from her ex-pimp; The Wurdalak tells the tale of an elderly farmer (Karloff) who returns home from a trip, having been turned into a vampire; and A Drop of Water is about a nurse (Jacqueline Soussard) who steals a dead woman's ring and soon comes to regret it.
One of the most distinctive and individualistic artists ever to work primarily in the horror genre, Mario Bava is beloved for his baroque style and mastery of varying genres. With his sly sense of humor and irony, an undeniable mastery of mood and atmosphere, and the ability to make high quality cinema with very little at his disposal, Bava forged a body of work that can rightly be called unique. This was a filmmaker who not only guided the actors through the motions and told the camera operator where to point the camera — he was a brilliant cinematographer and special effects artist who oversaw nearly every facet of production and stamped an unmistakable personality on every film he directed, be the end result good, bad or indifferent.
Black Sabbath (I Tre Volti Della Paura, "The Three Faces Of Fear") is one of his most beloved films and came during a period of ferocious creativity for the director. Sandwiched between the equally well regarded Whip and the Body (1963) and Blood and Black Lace (1964), it also helped rekindle an interest in anthology-based horror films; the following year saw the production of Amicus Films' first omnibus Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. The film offers an insight into Bava's complete mastery of the genre as he serves up three tales that touch on the major subgenres. The first tale is an early example of the giallo, a variety of murder mystery Bava had helped to define, cinematically, in the previous year's Girl Who Knew Too Much. Originally altered by U.S. distributor American International Pictures (AIP) so as to remove the 'adult' content (prostitution, lesbianism, etc.) and replace it with a nonsensical supernatural theme, in its original form (preserved on this DVD) it plays as a compelling, somewhat sleazy and defiantly downbeat opening act that sets the stage for the director's later gialli.
Story number two is more traditional, being a period-set vampire tale that harkens back to Bava's debut success, Black Sunday (1960). In it, Karloff gives one of his best latter-day performances as the creepy but oddly sympathetic vampire doomed to drink the blood of those he loves the best. The stagebound atmospherics, colored gel lighting and keen use of sound make up for some lulls in the story.
Best of all is the last segment, set somewhere in between the modern first story and the "once upon a time" second act. Compact and legitimately scary, it reflects the director's interest in Russian literature in its tale of a woman who becomes a victim to her guilty conscience. Almost bereft of dialogue, it's a fantastic example of visual storytelling that builds to a finale that has haunted many viewers for forty years.
Clearly the work of a gifted artist at the peak of his powers, Black Sabbath is a classic of its kind and is sure to appeal to horror fans, whether they're into 'Euro-Cult' or not.
