Black Sunday

 

Black Sunday aka The Mask of Satan (1960)

The Plot: A vampire witch is captured and sentenced to death by hammering a mask full of nails into her head, but they fail to burn her at the stake which results in her being resurrected in order to find a new host body to live again. 

  Black Sunday revolves around a vampire witch, or is it a witch vampire? There really should be word for Witch Vampires. They have all the blood drinking of a vampire with the spell casting ability of witches. A formidable foe for sure.  She is revived accidentally when 2 doctors have a carriage tire break stumble on her tomb, accidentally cut themselves and drip blood on the Vampire Witch's corpse. What a particularly bad set of circumstances for the poor folks of Moldavia.  The Witch Vampire rises from the grave and puts her evil plan in place to take over the body of a younger woman. Which, hey! She's been dead for over 2 centuries at this point, who wouldn't want to look younger?
It's not comfortable being dead for 200 years in the Mask of Satan

  She attempts this through various mind control techniques, which almost work! But int he end she is undone by the intrepid young Doctor, with a little help from a pitchfork and torch carrying mob. A but cliched? perhaps, but one cannot doubt the efficiency of a pitchfork and torch wielding mob when a Vampire Witch needs to be dispatched. 
Not even a Vampire Witch can escape acne

  This movie does have atmosphere for days. Shot in clear B&W, its sets are either old vaguely Eastern European country sides or dark, dank castles. I do believe this movie was better named as The Mask of Satan. The mask does play an important role after all. Calling it Black Sunday doesn't make sense to me, I'm not even sure it takes place on a Sunday! 
the undead always look great in dragon tunics

  Black Sunday is a well paced, atmospheric witch revenge movie where she doesn't quite get her revenge thanks to the quick thinking of a pitchfork and torch carrying mob. I give it 6 Satan Masks




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