Black Sunday
1960 Dir. Mario Bava Aka The Mask of Satan With Black Sunday , Mario Bava not only directed his first film (if you don’t count Riccardo Freda’s The Vampires , which Bava photographed and finished directing when Freda left the production), he also made what many consider to be the definitive Euro-Gothic horror film. Adapted from a short story by Nicolaj Gogal, Black Sunday was banned in Britain for eight years, due in large to the brutal opening sequence where Barbara Steele has a mask with spikes inside it forcably fixed to her face. The diabolical Princess Asa (Steele) and her fiendish servant, are put to death as punishment for witchcraft and vampirism, and interned in the crypt of her ancestors; but not before she vows to inflict vengeance on the future generations of her family. Two centuries later, the wheel of the coach carrying the doctors Andre Gorobec and Thomas Kruvajan to a convention buckles, and they are temporarily stranded outside an ancient crypt. Which of c...