La Maschera del Demonio movie storyline. In the 17th Century, in Maldavia, Princess Asa Vajda and her lover Javutich (Arturo Dominici) are killed by the local population, accused of witchcraft. A mask of Satan is attached to their faces. Princess Asa curses her brother, promising revenge to his descents. The body of Javutich is buried outside the cemetery, and the coffin of Princess Asa is placed in the family’s tomb with a cross over it for protection.
Two hundred years later, Professor Thomas Kruvajan and his assistant, Dr. Andre Gorobec, are going to a congress in Russia and they accidentally find the tomb. Dr. Thomas breaks the cross, releasing the evil witch. When they are leaving the place, Dr. Andre meets Princess Katia Vajda, descendant of Princess Asa, and falls in love with her. Meanwhile, Katia is threatened by the witch, who wants to use her body to live again.
La Maschera del Demonio (English: Black Sunday), also known as The Mask of Satan and Revenge of the Vampire in the UK, is a 1960 Italian gothic horror film directed by Mario Bava from a screenplay by Ennio de Concini and Mario Serandrei (with uncredited contributions by Bava, Marcello Coscia and Dino Di Palma), and starring Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Arturo Dominici and Ivo Garrani. It was Bava’s official directorial debut, although he had completed several previous feature films without receiving an onscreen credit. Based very loosely on Nikolai Gogol’s short story “Viy”, the narrative concerns a witch who is put to death by her own brother, only to return 200 years later to seek revenge on her descendants.
By the social standards of the 1960s, Black Sunday was considered unusually gruesome, and was banned in the UK until 1968 because of its violence. In the US, some of the gore was censored in-house by distributor American International Pictures before its theatrical release to the country’s cinemas, where it was shown as a double feature with Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors. Black Sunday was a worldwide critical and box office success, and launched the careers of Bava and Steele. In 2004, one of its sequences was voted number 40 among the “100 Scariest Movie Moments” by the Bravo TV network.
About the Production
The production of La Maschera del Demonio began on 28 March 1960 at the studios of Scalera Film. The exteriors, as well as a few interiors, were shot at a rented castle in Arsoli. The final day of production was 7 May. Steele never saw a complete screenplay for the film. Instead, she was simply handed the scenes she would play, and her dialogue, every morning of the production. According to Steele, “We were given the pages day to day. We had hardly any idea what was going down on that film. We had no idea of the end, or the beginning, either, not at all.”
Both Steele and Dominici were originally fitted to wear sharp vampire fangs, but after only a few days of shooting, the fangs were discarded. The film’s Production Manager, Armando Govoni, recalled, “[W]hen we saw the rushes, especially in the close-ups, they looked too fake so editor Mario Serandrei cut around them.”[7]
The original Italian score by Roberto Nicolosi was issued by Digitmovies AE in 2005, together with another Nicolosi score for The Girl Who Knew Too Much. A complete version has been released on vinyl for the first time ever by Spikerot Records in 2019, with exclusive liner notes by Lamberto Bava.
A suite from Les Baxter’s score was originally released on a promotional LP by the composer, whose contents made an authorized CD debut on a 1992 release by Bay Cities. Citadel Records reissued the same material in 1997 and just like the previous release, this CD also contained a suite of music from Baron Blood, another Bava film which also received a new score by Baxter for its American version. Baxter’s complete score to Black Sunday was released in 2011 by Kritzerland, whose CD contains the music in chronological order.
La Maschera del Demonio (1960)
Directed by: Mario Bava
Starring: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani, Arturo Dominici, Enrico Olivieri, Antonio Pierfederici, Tino Bianchi, Clara Bindi, Mario Passante, Germana Dominici
Screenplay by: Ennio De Concini, Mario Serandrei
Production Design by: Giorgio Giovannini
Cinematography by: Mario Bava
Film Editing by: Mario Serandrei
Costume Design by: Tina Grani
Set Decoration by: Nedo Azzini
Music by: Roberto Nicolosi
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Unidis
Release Date: August 11, 1960 (Italy)
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