Officially Mario Bava's first film, Black Sunday (AKA The Mask of Satan) looks like a Universal Monster film, but wow, is it ever shockingly gruesome for 1960! A loose adaptation of Gogol's Viy, the film has the virtue of being steeped in Ukrainian folklore (or possibly, faux-lore), which means old horror buffs won't know all the tropes by heart. The demon-witch at the center of the story has things in common with several Old World monsters (including vampires), but is her own thing. Bava is a few years away from what is considered the first Giallo film, but this is Giallo before Giallo, trading strange colors with wonderfully Gothic black and white cinematography, but also pulling no punches with visceral body horror - those Italian directors sure like to make you squirm, don't they? I do think the ending is a bit pat, and of course, the English dubbing on Italian movies of this era is always an annoyance to me, but visually, Black Sunday is as strong or stronger than the most highly regarded Universal Monster films it is emulating.

Excellent atmospheric horror. This flick is actually pretty scary.

atmospheric and visually gorgeous with some genuinely spooky moments... but the "good guys" are very boring and the story never clicks dramatically or thematically. still, not bad.