Horror 100
No. 65
Mario Bava’s best film, this dark, dank, yet beautifully shot masterpiece pumps new blood into the increasingly tiresome vampire genre.
American Barbara Steele becomes Italy’s biggest horror star thanks to her distinctive features and a stony performance which would inspire horror actresses for genres.
Bava directs with his usual eye for detail, employing the skills he picked up as a cinematographer; the sets, costumes, and crisp black and white photography make for a sense of depressing realism that Roger Corman often tried, but always failed, to imitate.
Bava followed this with the excellent ‘Black Sabbath’, (which inspired the title of Ozzy Osbourne’s band), an trio of horror stories starring none other Boris Karloff, but none of his later work would surpass this moody classic. |