Rating: 18/20
Plot: A 17th Century witch is understandably pissed when she's sentenced to death and has an iron-spiked mask hammered into her face before her burning. A couple hundred years later, she is brought back to life by some bumbling visitors and decides to try to inhabit the body of a girl who sort of looks like her.
Bava's first is my last for January's Mario Bava Festival. Yes, it's already on the blog somewhere, but I'm bumping it up a couple points because it's just that good. I think some clumsy dubbing got in my way the first time I watched this. New to Bava, I'm not sure I knew that I was just supposed to watch the thing. Also known as The Mask of Satan, this is Bava adding his own visual style to an otherwise classical presentation. The set design and a lot of shots could have come from a silent horror movie or one of those Universal monster movies. But man, I love how the camera moves in this, weaving through trees and maneuvering through the kind of house you'd expect to see in a movie like this, and in one terrific long shot, leading a girl as she goes out to milk a cow. Some of Bava's shots are so perfectly framed. He uses the architecture and gnarled tree branches as well as any director, and along with the lighting and an omnipresent mist, it all creates a mood of supernatural mystery. Dig that grave emergence scene, the movement of a phantom horse and carriage where it looks like it's in slow motion with everything else at regular speed, the shot of Javuto driving said coach like he's being filmed in 1923, a pan and a swirl on a dead face, a great shot of Asa's hand and long long fingers, a partially-decomposed face complete with maggots, and glowing cloudy orbs transitioning into a brass instrument bell. Oh, and who can forget that harshly satanic scene with the mask and the bulbous hammer? It's gorgeous stuff, and if you watched this entire movie without any sound at all and had no clue what was going on in the story, you really wouldn't mind. There's also the standard beautiful woman Bava loves to show off. This time, it's Barbara Steele who is so good in dual roles that you might not realize she's playing dual roles. Just so good, and an undeniably influential piece of horror art. I'd have to see Kill Baby, Kill again to decide whether this is my favorite Mario Bava movie. It's probably the one newcomers should watch first.
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