Black Sunday
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Short description
In seventeenth-century Moldavia, the Inquisition condemns Princess Asa Vajda as a witch and executes her by nailing a spiked mask to her face. Before she dies, she curses her family and her judges. Two centuries later, two doctors travelling through the region take shelter in a ruined chapel and open her tomb. When they remove the mask, Asa returns from the dead and sets about destroying the descendants of those who condemned her, among them the young Katia, who resembles her closely. The doctors and Katia's family become the only obstacle to her vengeance.
Mario Bava directed this Italian horror film, the first title in the chronological list of his features, from a screenplay by Mario Serandrei and Ennio De Concini; Massimo De Rita produced it. Barbara Steele plays the dual role of Asa and Katia, with John Richardson as Dr. Andrej Gorobec, Andrea Checchi as Dr. Choma Kruvajan, Ivo Garrani as Prince Vajda, Arturo Dominici as Igor Javutich and Enrico Olivieri as Prince Constantine Vajda.
On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.1 out of 10 from roughly 20,000 votes, and on TMDB it has 7.4 out of 10 from just over 600 votes, indicating a widely seen title with a solid and fairly consistent audience response.
What's left behind the scenes
- By the standards of the 60s, the film was considered too violent, and as a result, it was banned in the UK until 1968. In the US, the film was subjected to censorship.
- Despite his love for Russian classics, Mario Bava didn't bother to check a map to see where the story would take place. As a result, a curious situation arises – everything happens near Mirgorod, but it is said to be territory of Moldova, yet from there one can reach Moscow by carriage in about a day.
- Barbara Steele was given one page of the script per day.
- Initially, the characters of Barbara Steele and Arturo Dominici were equipped with vampire fangs, but Bava later abandoned this idea.
- The credits state that the film is based on a story by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. However, since the main antagonists of the film are vampires, the influence of Bram Stoker’s novel and the classic films made from it is evident.
- The film has different titles in different languages – the English version is called 'Black Sunday,' the German version is 'Die Stunde, wenn Dracula kommt' ('The Hour When Dracula Comes'). Yet neither Black Sunday nor Dracula are mentioned in the film.
- Mario Bava was, at the time, a savior for the 'Galatea' studio – he quickly and relatively efficiently completed projects that had gone out of control and been handed over to him. As a result, 'Galatea' was generous with Bava and made him a gift, allocating six weeks for filming 'Black Mask,' while the standard shooting period at the time was three to four weeks.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
