Post by tav7623 on Sept 29, 2010 13:59:15 GMT -5
Hey everyone tav here with my last movie review for the month of September. This week I will be reviewing the 1963 Italian horror anthology movie Black Sabbath which is Directed by famed Italian horror director Mario Bava and stars Boris Karloff, Mark Damon, and Michele Mercier. In the movie Boris Karloff acts as a host book-ending each story as well as acting in one of the stories. The movie has a total of three stories, two are best described as ghost stories and one is a vampire story which is an adaptation of a short story about vampires written by famed Russian author Tolstoy.
Pros: good cinematography, good soundtrack/sound design
Cons: little to no blood, no nudity, somewhat predictable stories, occasionally bad/noticeable English overdubs, and then there is the dummy/mannequin covered in grotesque makeup that is suppose to be a dead body that moves
I give Black Sabbath a 4.5 out of 10 for good cinematography, interesting use of colored light and sound design/soundtrack to evoke/build suspense and the occasional jump scare. This movie is hampered by the fact that it shows it's age, there is very little blood, no nudity, and each of the three stories are done in a way that it evokes the look and feel of well known horror/suspense movies of that era that were released in the U.S. (Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and the early Hammer Horror movies such as The Horror of Dracula), had the traditional 1960's troupe of playing around with editing/sound/color&light, and the stories end somewhat predictably. The sad thing is that after doing some research I found out that the American version of this movie (which is the version I watched) was severely edited to remove blood and gore from one story as well as a lesbian and a revenge subplot from another story. Also the Italian version had different narrative sequences with Boris Karloff, a different soundtrack, and the stories were jumbled into a different order. Still this movie was well made and atmospheric with it's use of mostly Gothic sets. I would recommend this movie if you are interested in 1960's horror movies, the movies of Mario Bava, or anthology movies. Other than an interest in those things I would not recommend this movie because I feel that it would not interest or entertain horror fans who have come to expect without question boatloads of blood, guts, gore, and female nudity in all of the horror movies they see and trash/crap on the horror movies that don't have some or all of those things in it.....
In closing I hope you enjoyed the review, also FYI tomorrow I will be posting an announcement on the message boards as well as hopefully announcing it on the next episode of the MHS podcast....can't wait to see/read your reactions/opinions..........
Pros: good cinematography, good soundtrack/sound design
Cons: little to no blood, no nudity, somewhat predictable stories, occasionally bad/noticeable English overdubs, and then there is the dummy/mannequin covered in grotesque makeup that is suppose to be a dead body that moves
I give Black Sabbath a 4.5 out of 10 for good cinematography, interesting use of colored light and sound design/soundtrack to evoke/build suspense and the occasional jump scare. This movie is hampered by the fact that it shows it's age, there is very little blood, no nudity, and each of the three stories are done in a way that it evokes the look and feel of well known horror/suspense movies of that era that were released in the U.S. (Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and the early Hammer Horror movies such as The Horror of Dracula), had the traditional 1960's troupe of playing around with editing/sound/color&light, and the stories end somewhat predictably. The sad thing is that after doing some research I found out that the American version of this movie (which is the version I watched) was severely edited to remove blood and gore from one story as well as a lesbian and a revenge subplot from another story. Also the Italian version had different narrative sequences with Boris Karloff, a different soundtrack, and the stories were jumbled into a different order. Still this movie was well made and atmospheric with it's use of mostly Gothic sets. I would recommend this movie if you are interested in 1960's horror movies, the movies of Mario Bava, or anthology movies. Other than an interest in those things I would not recommend this movie because I feel that it would not interest or entertain horror fans who have come to expect without question boatloads of blood, guts, gore, and female nudity in all of the horror movies they see and trash/crap on the horror movies that don't have some or all of those things in it.....
In closing I hope you enjoyed the review, also FYI tomorrow I will be posting an announcement on the message boards as well as hopefully announcing it on the next episode of the MHS podcast....can't wait to see/read your reactions/opinions..........