"Black Sabbath" is, as far as I can tell, the only horror anthology film Mario Bava made.The movie features three stories, as they generally do, introduced by none other than Boris Karloff, who also acts in the second part.The first story, "The Telephone", is about a beautiful woman receiving threatening calls that always start sexual and then turn threatening. The young woman believes the calls are coming from a man she helped put behind bars who has allegedly escaped prison and may be out for revenge, so she calls am estranged friend for help.The second story, "The Wurderlak", set some 100-200 years in the past, and has a young man travelling through an eerie village where he finds, and isn't really that shocked to see, a headless corpse with a dagger sticking in its heart. He removes the dagger, as you do, and stops at the first house he comes to, where he is told that the village is menaced by a vampire-like being called a "wurderlak", and the old man who lives in the house, played by Karloff, is out fighting it. The final, and probably best story is called "A Drop of Water". It's about a nurse who is called to the house of a cat lady who has died. Arriving on the scene, she steals the ring off the corpse's finger, and is then haunted by spooky sounds and apparitions when she returns home."Black Sabbath" is beautifully shot, particularly the second part, with its gothic scenery that reminds the viewer of Bava's previous movie, "Black Sunday". The first two tales are too hard to follow, however, and may bear the marks of studio interference: apparently the girl in the first story is a prostitute and the escaped criminal was her pimp, but those details are absent from this version. The second story starts well, and then suddenly seems to cram a bunch of plot details into one or two scenes, leaving you wondering how you got there so quickly. For example, at first it seemed the young man didn't know any of the people in the house, but about ten minutes later, he behaves as though he has been betrothed to marry her. The ending also didn't really make that much sense.Perhaps because of these details, the first two stories don't really generate any suspense or fear in the viewer. I believe "The Telephone" was edited to remove any mention of prostitution, and "The Wurderlak" had scenes of violence taken out, hence they are confusing and uneven, but it may not be Bava's fault.The last story is the best, and the only one that really made me feel anything like tension. It could be because it's the simplest one.The ending, in which we see Karloff back in his role as master of ceremonies, has one of those shots where the camera pulls back so that we can see the set, other cameras, and stagehands, which is an interesting way to end a horror movie.

"Black Sabbath" is an Italian horror film for which American International acquired the American rights. It contains three stories introduced by Boris Karloff in sequences likely added for American distribution. Director Mario Bava gives us three terrifying tales of the macabre.The best of the lot, in my opinion, is the segment entitled I, Wurdalak starring Karloff and Mark Damon. Count Vladmire d'Urfe (Damon) is riding across country when he discovers a headless corpse with a knife in his back. He takes the body to a nearby cottage inhabited by a family consisting of two brothers, a sister, a sister-in-law and a young boy. The head of the family Gorca (Karloff) is away pursuing a bandit. The family fears that he has been transformed into a vampire like creature called a Wurdalak. Vladmire is warned that he should flee from the place. Just past the witching hour of midnight, Gorca returns. Several tragic events ensue, Vladmire, who has fallen in love with Gorca's lovely daughter Sdenks (Susy Anderson) whisks her away. But as they try to escape.........................................The next best segment again, in my opinion, is the one entitled "La Goccia d'Acqua" where a nurse, Helen Chester (Jacqueline Pierraux) is called to prepare the body of a deceased woman who had been a spiritualist in touch with the dead. In a weak moment Helen removes a valuable ring from the dead woman's finger. When she returns home, she begins to hear things go bump in the night including dripping taps. She then begins to "see things" or does she?...................The last and weakest of the trilogy is one called "The Telephone" in which a young woman named Rosy (Michele Mercier) is terrified by repeated phone calls from a former lover whom she believes dead. She calls a former rival Mary (Lidia Alfonsi) for comfort since they both knew the alleged caller. Later a man enters the apartment and................................To my knowledge, Boris Karloff had never played a blood thirsty vampire in his long and storied career. With the use of special lighting and makeup, the 75 year old actor turns in what I feel was his most terrifying performance. His abduction of the young boy is truly a highlight.

"Black Sabbath" made many viewing experiences reemerge from memory: "Gremlins", "The Shining", "Night of the Living Dead", "Scream"… but certainly not "Pulp Fiction". Yet, from what I gathered, this is what inspired Tarantino for the three-part structure of his classic anthology. Well, if only for "Pulp Fiction", we can be glad for "Black Sabbath"' existence. And you know what, I also have the strangest connection with "Black Sabbath". First of all, I'm not really hot about calling it by its American name as for more than almost fifteen years, I referred to it as "The Three Faces of Fear", and I think I should stick to it, if only because it says exactly what the film is about, an episodic journey into horror, while "Black Sabbath" sounds just too distant and 'marketed' to appeal to me and I just love how promising the original title sounds.Now to the personal story; I said fifteen years, but actually, it's only yesterday that I saw the film for the first tim. The thing is that I missed it when it aired on TV but looking at the title and the year of release, 1963, I asked my father if he knew about it. "Are you kidding? This movie gave me nightmares as a kid!" He told me the story about the ring, the one that stuck in his mind, but not how it ended, he couldn't remember. And then something strange happened, which I'm not proud of, I used to tell friends about the film, saying how great it is, and using the 'ring' story as a teaser.I can't count how many times I told the ring story, and when asked about the ending, I said I couldn't spoil it because it was too terrific. Oh no, I'm not proud… and I'm glad that's the only case I can think of, of talking of something I didn't see. That and (what a conscience-relieving review) rating "The Dark Knight" without watching it, but I retracted my vote and to my defense, I was just upset that the film was responsible for "The Godfather" losing its top spot on IMDb Top 250. All right, my first lie has at least one consolation: I made people aware of this film's existence and yesterday, I could finally see if it deserved the publicity I gave to it, or at least the 'ring' story.First of all, are these three-part films captivating, especially when they are from the same director? I grew up with the "Amazing Stories" TV series and I love how the thirty-minute format allows each film to get the essential without wasting time on exposition stuff or pointless sequences, they're straight-to-the-point and imaginative in the same time. And God forbid you didn't like one segment; you know if it ends with the best one, it will be all worth it. And when I saw that the 'ring' was the last one, I wasn't the least surprised, and I just want to start by saying I was almost disappointed it didn't last longer, it was the best segment, which is saying a lot actually.The three plots are rather simple, you can get the idea with a simple sentence: a woman stalked by a mysterious phone caller, a patriarch back from a successful hunt against a zombie-like creature called Wurdulak but who might have become one, and a nurse stealing a ring from a dead woman with psychic abilities (the dead woman, not the nurse). There are plots that were not new in 1963, but what the film lacks in originality is compensated by Mario Bava's operatic and baroque recreation of traditional horror elements, to give you an idea, it's as if Fellini tried to imitate Hitchcock. And I thought the film would be in black and white, there are actually many use of bold and contrasting colors, tones of green, dark and red mishmash in over-decorated, and over- furnished houses, creating an awkward mix between the weird and the mundane. This is a film of explicitly vivid imagery, even in the casting: Michele Mercier, Suzy Andersen and Jacqueline Pierrieux are the female leads and they simply illuminate the screen with their terrified faces, whether to express anxiety, apprehension, resignation or sheer terror when death is coming at you. Bava's kaleidoscope of fear is so bizarrely appealing it instantly earns its place among the classic horror movies with the acting Legend to endorse it. Indeed, you can't praise the film without ignoring the contribution of Boris Karloff and his performance as the ill-fated Wurdalak Grandpa. I know the second part is seen as the weak link, but there's a scene when Karloff is home and we're not quite sure whether he's a monster or not. He keeps a shadow of sympathy floating above his apparently rude manners, so when he wants to fondle with his grandson, the awkwardness is so thick we can choke on it, and this is why the film is efficient, nothing is never obvious until it's too late. But there's more to praise in Karloff's work, and I think it says a great deal about the appeal of the film, from the way Boris the Terrible introduces the three stories, from his delightfully scary close-ups and the over-the-top ominousness of his voice, you can tell the actor has fun playing in this film. And that's exactly what the penultimate shot, what the dead woman's look, what many weird psychedelic visual effects suggest, Mario Bava had fun making this film, and the film is fun, and I'll never believe that there's not a fun side behind the appeal of horror movies."The Three Faces of Fear" is not perfect but it's got style, atmosphere and a sense of self- derision that I'm sure inspired Tarantino, more than the three-part structure. And now, I'm glad I'll finally be able to talk about the film and be genuinely enthusiastic about it.

Mario Bava bats a thousand this time around. There's not a single segment of this three-parter that's not topnotch. The first story is truly unsettling, and features one of the scariest-looking corpses to ever haunt a child's dreams; her rictus grin is truly the stuff of nightmares- and the thought of somebody actually handling her corpse (even to steal from it) is even more unsettling. The sets are superb (especially the apartment) and superbly shot and beautifully lit; Bava was a Stylist Supreme, and BLACK SABBATH is a Prime Example of it. The second segment has a harrowing ending, with the voice of the murdered man, coming from the phone even as he lies dying on the floor, promising more of the same. The third and final segment has yet another chilling scene: the scene where the young boy returns from the grave and kneels outside the house, scratching on the door and begging to be let in. "I'm cold," he pleads: "Let me in- please..." Boris Karloff and Mario Bava- a match made in Horror Heaven.