The Mask of Satan (1960)
Directed by Mario Bava

Film Review

A defining film in Italian horror, The Mask of Satan (a.k.a. La Maschera del demonio) marked an auspicious directorial debut for 46-year-old Mario Bava and ushered in a new era of visceral realism in the horror genre.  Prior to this film, Bava had earned a reputation as one of Italy's finest cinematographers, having begun his career by photographing two shorts for Roberto Rossellini.  He had served as a stand-in director on a few films when the credited director was indisposed or unwilling to complete the film.  The production company Galatea Films rewarded Bava for his directorial support on Caltiki, The Immortal Monster (1959) by offering him the opportunity to direct any film of his choice.  Bava stuck with horror, for which he had a particular aptitude - as his work on I Vampiri (1957)  demonstrated - and created one of the most influential and celebrated films of the genre.

The Mask of Satan was reputedly inspired by a story entitled Viy by the Ukrainian author Nikolai Gogol, although the end result looks far more like a homage to the Universal horror films of the 1930s.  The vast Gothic sets, atmospherically lit in high contrast chiaroscuro, closely resemble those seen in Universal's Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), although the film's explicit horror content and bold sensual flourishes owe just as much to Hammer's more recent horror offerings.  Bava takes these influences and throws in a smattering of Italian Rococo to create a strikingly new horror aesthetic, a Baroque fantasy that is part Gothic fairytale, part lurid expressionistic nightmare, in which sex and horror are inextricably married in a stark visualisation of our darkest and seediest imaginings.

The film broke new ground in its graphic depiction of bodily mutilation.  The opening sequence, in which a spike-lined metal mask is hammered onto the face of an accused sorceress (Barbara Steele, in the role that established her as the Queen of Horror), was probably the most shocking image to have been seen in cinema until that time (surpassed only by the famous eyeball slitting sequence in Bunuel's Un Chien andalou).  Fifty years on, the film still has the power to provoke shock and disgust, so imagine how audiences of the early 1960s would have reacted to such grisly sights as the impaling of a human eye.  Even though the film was censored by its American distributors (when released under the title Black Sunday), it still proved to be highly controversial and was banned outright in the UK until 1968.

It was Mario Bava's experience as a cinematographer which allowed him to create such visually arresting films as a director. The camera glides effortlessly through the haunting Gothic landscapes, imbuing the film with an eerie dreamlike quality and a chilling sense of confinement and predestination.  The film itself appears to be infected with supernatural forces.  Evil lurks in every shadow.  A nauseous graveyard stench lingers in every dark passage, every stone-walled chamber.  Bava conjures up a world of the imagination that is the very essence of our darkest nightmares, yet one that is frighteningly real.  The Mark of Satan stands apart from virtually all other vampire films by virtue of the fact that its horrific protagonists appear to be genuinely consumed by evil - not the slightly cartoonish horror icons supplied by Universal and Hammer, but true Gothic monsters that really do look as if they are instruments of the Devil.  Bava's horror masterpiece is one of the creepiest films of its kind, a film which once seen is never forgotten.  This is the stuff of our worst nightmares - a fright-inducing, heart-stopping excursion into pure terror.  Watch it if you dare.

Film Synopsis

Moldavia, in the early 1600s.  Princess Asa Vajda is sentenced to death, along with her lover Javuto, for consorting with the Devil.  Metal masks lined with sharp spikes are hammered onto their faces, but before their bodies can be burnt a storm breaks and extinguishes the flames.  Two centuries later, Dr Kruvajan and his young associate Dr Gorobec are on their way to a medical conference when their carriage breaks down.  Whilst their coachman repairs the broken wheel, they explore the area and come across a ruined chapel within which they find Asa's forgotten tomb.  Kruvajan accidentally shatters the coffin's glass panel when a bat attacks him and cuts himself.  When he lifts the mask, he unwittingly allows a few drops of blood to fall onto Asa's face, enough to revive her from her long sleep.  Kruvajan and Gorobec then meet Katia, one of Asa's descendents who lives in a nearby castle with her father Prince Vajda and brother Constantine.  Asa has just enough power to resurrect Javuto, who brings Kruvajan to her so that she may feast on his blood.   Asa needs the blood of one more victim before she is fully restored and can take revenge on those who condemned her - the blood of Katia...