#4 - Black Sunday (1960)
Of all of the most influential and highly regarded horror directors, Mario Bava is probably the one that I am the least familiar with. Before this, I had only seen two of his films - the bizarre and surreal Planet of the Vampires and a later giallo of his called Shock, neither of which I really loved. However, this film really blew me away.
Most of the Italian horror that I am familiar with is from the 70's and has a very distinct style, so I was surprised to find this film from 1960 has more in common with what Hammer was doing during the same era. This is a creepy and atmospheric gothic horror story, with beautiful black and white photography and a great traditional score. The story is about a witch who died during the 17th century, but comes back two centuries later to terrorize the descendents of the family who killed her. Not exactly a ground breaking plot, but the film is just masterfully done in every way that it is easy to see why it is considered a classic.
As a side note, the title "Black Sunday" has nothing to do with the film at all - in fact, the version I watched was actually the international version called "The Mask of Satan" (which is basically the same as the Italian "La Maschera del Demonio"), but for whatever reason the title was changed for US audiences. Whatever you call it, this is a great film and I can easily see it becoming one of my all-time favorites. Highly recommended to fans of classic atmospheric horror a la Hammer or Universal.
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