Black Sunday

I’m sitting here watching Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, a film that will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, and it strikes me that this monochrome, dubbed, predictable movie has more power to unsettle and interest me than the vast majority of modern horror cinema.

The opening scene with the iron mask made me wince more than the entirety of Captivity.  I’d like to think it’s because Captivity was simply a poor film, but as modern (cinema released) horror goes it’s pretty standard, going for the clearly exposed jugular rather than trying to create an atmosphere.

Maybe it is simply that the shocks in an older film affect me more because of their age. Perhaps I look on them as shocking for their time (even though I was never there) and feel that I should be shocked too. Whatever the reason, I can say without any hesitation that I was far more repulsed by what is on screen during Mystery In Venice than anything in the apparently stomach churning dross that was Hostel.

Anyway, the Professor has been locked in the crypt as the witch wakes up so I’m going back to my movie.