Nigel P This is an anthology film directed by Mario Bava, and contains three stories framed by direct-to-camera pronouncements from Boris Karloff.The first segment, 'The Telephone' is a very entertaining, if rather contrived, giallo-styled thriller featuring Rosy (Michèle Mercier), a French prostitute, her friend Mary (Lydia Alfonsi) and pimp Frank (Milo Quesada). An excellent mish-mash of broken friendships healed, relentless abusive phone calls and murder. In number two, 'The Wurdalak', a family is plagued by a curse that appears to have afflicted the father Russian nobleman Gorca (Boris Karloff), which he brings home with him. Finally, 'The Drop of Water', set in 1910, features Nurse Helen Chester (Jacqueline Pierreux) who pays the price for stealing a ring from the finger of a corpse in her care.I am not a huge fan of the colourful, darkly gaudy cinematography championed either by Bava, or later Dario Argento for projects like 'Suspiria (1977)'. Such an approach reduces the reality of the horror, which itself is difficult enough to convey with any measure of authenticity anyway. You are never allowed to forget you are watching a professional production, with actors rather than people, so heightened is the ultimate effect. This is just my opinion of course, and who cares about that?Having said that though, I thoroughly enjoyed 'Black Sabbath' a lot more than I expected to. Possibly Bava's approach works for me here so well because the stories, by their nature, are concise and bite-sized: each story is being relayed as opposed to being 'real'. And the wonderful use of primal colours here gives each tale a ghostly fairy-tale look which is very evocative.Much tinkering with the format befell this production for various around-the-world sales. The American version, for example, changes the order of the stories and removes all mention of prostitution from 'The Telephone' (Frank is merely a ghost rather than a pimp). Bava wanted the final scene to have been Nurse Chester's corpse, but this was also changed before production wrapped. So an utterly ingenious idea was had to feature Karloff signing off (just as he had opened the film), but in character as Gorca, before the camera pans away to reveal the horse he is riding to be nothing more than a prop, and the production crew running round waving branches to simulate the animal's motion. Such a jarring 'to camera' reveal has spoiled many horrors in the past (Bela Lugosi's 'Mark of the Vampire' and 'Return of the Vampire', for example), but works really well here because it merely accelerates the heightened reality rather than pull it out of thin air. An excellent, highly recommended anthology.

ElMaruecan82 "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.

Rainey Dawn This is a pretty good older horror anthology - a trilogy of stories. Boris Karloff hosts and also stars in one segment called "The Wurdalak".The first story is "The Drop of Water". A nurse ends up stealing a ring off the hand of a deal spiritualist... but the corpse seeks revenge. An OK story - the worst of the trilogy.The second story is "The Telephone". A female prostitute is terrorized with phone calls from a man who is dead - what does he want? A pretty creepy story.The third story is "The Wurdalak". This one stars Boris Karloff. Karloff is a lead vampire.. he feeds on the blood of those he loves the most. This is a good Gothic vampire segment (and would have been a great full film). The best story of the trilogy.Overall, this a good horror anthology to watch on a dark and stormy night.7/10

poe426 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.