Black Sabbath (film)
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Italian release poster
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| Directed by | Mario Bava |
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| Music by | Roberto Nicolosi |
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| Edited by | Mario Serandrei |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. (Italy) |
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93 minutes |
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| Box office | ₤103.5 million |
Black Sabbath (Italian: I tre volti della paura, lit. 'The Three Faces of Fear') is a 1963 horror film directed by Mario Bava. The film is centered on three separate tales that have an introduction and conclusion from Boris Karloff. The film stars an international cast in three short stories. The first, titled "The Telephone", involves Suzy (Michèle Mercier) who continually receives threatening telephone calls from an unseen stalker. The second is "The Wurdulak", where a man named Gorca (Karloff) returns to his family after claiming to have slain a Wurdulak, an undead creature who attacks those that it had once loved. The third story, "The Drop of Water", features Jacqueline Pierreux as Helen Corey who steals a ring from a corpse that is being prepared for burial and finds herself haunted by the ring's original owner after arriving home.
Black Sabbath follows the 1960s trend of Italian film productions, being a low budget horror anthology film with an international cast. The film is credited to various authors but is predominantly based on several uncredited sources. Several changes were made to the script even after the film had gone into production. American International Pictures suggested changes to Mario Bava during filming to make the film acceptable for the American target audience. The company created their own English language dub of the film that removed scenes involving violence and re-edited certain scenes. This version greatly changed the plot of "The Telephone", giving it a supernatural story element and removing any reference to lesbianism or prostitution.
A follow-up to Black Sabbath titled Scarlet Friday was originally going to be directed by Bava and star Boris Karloff. This project was never developed. Plans for a remake were announced in 2004 with Jonathan Hensleigh attached to write the script. Black Sabbath has received favorable reviews from critics. In the early 2010s, Time Out magazine conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors, and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films. Black Sabbath placed at number 73.
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