Conterio covers a lot of graveyard ground in 89 pages,
digging into a bit of creation story, a bit of analysis, a bit of legacy, and a
bit of biography—Bava and iconic star Barbara Steele rightfully receiving most
of this attention. He theorizes about the design of the mask nailed to her face
in the ghastly opening sequence and the misogynistic implications of this scene
as viewers are invited to revel in Steele’s beauty and the eradication of that
beauty. He discusses the plot’s nominal origins in Nikolai Gogol’s story “Viy”,
and other possible inspirations, such as Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest” and
Tolstoy’s “The Family of the Vourdalak”. He pores over the BBFC’s efforts to
censor the film, and most important of all, tackles the most obvious question Black Sunday poses: what the hell is Princess
Asa Vajda—a vampire or a witch? Most radically, Conterio suggests a preference
for the Americanized AIP cut of an Italian film originally released as La maschera del demonio (The Mask of Satan)…well,
at least he prefers the title.
The only glaring issue is Conterio’s failure to draw Ershov
and Kropachyov’s more faithful adaptation of “Viy” into the discussion in any
significant way (their excellent 1967 film Viy
barely gets a passing mention toward the end of the book). Some may also
believe that Conterio’s explanation of the film’s “massive” legacy overreaches
a bit, particularly when the writer implies a scene in the “Buffy the Vampire
Slayer” TV series intends to pay homage to the film, and more absurdly, when he
suggests that some of the most awful aspects of Francis Ford Coppola’s awful Dracula are intentionally awful attempts
to pay homage to Black Sunday. Yeah,
right. But we can allow the writer his smattering of indulgences since he has
otherwise written such an enjoyable study of such an enjoyable flick. Thanks,
Martyn!
