BS
Black Sabbath – The 1963 movie, shot in Italian by famed horror director Mario Bava gave the band their name as they were considering a switch from Polka Tulk, a weak moniker that Ozzy Osbourne selected one day on a visit to the loo. The film features Boris Karloff as the narrator who introduces all of the three segments (The Telephone, The Wurdalak, and The Drop of Water) and as a patriarchal wurdalak.
The opening tale is one of weird psychological horror called The Telephone, as a beautiful woman gets threatening phone calls from someone who swears to kill her. The caller is not the killer, but… someone is! Great interior shots of a sexy woman undressing in a beautiful gothic apartment full of cool stuff and opulent furniture – she’s probably not paying for all this on a coat check girl’s salary. Smoking nervously. The strap of her night gown slips away perfectly from her shoulder at one particularly tense moment. Short and sweet. The Wurdalak is weird gothic monster horror – is he or isn’t he a blood sucker? Of course, a dumb nobody lets his feelings get in the way of his better senses, and he’s destroyed along with the wurdalak’s beautiful family. A Drop of Water is the tale of a sassy nurse who is called on when an old woman dies in her apartment, and who is driven mad when she tries to steal her ring – buzzing flies, dripping drip drops, strange sounds, staring eyes and other insanity haunts the production. The movie doesn’t quite take itself seriously, though, and at the end Boris Karloff goes for a weird sight gag – he’s riding a horse, when the camera pulls away we see that it’s a prop horse with stage hands making it look like he’s riding around by passing by with spruces from a tree. Bizarre!
The DVD comes with a profile of Mark Harmon, who boasts of introducing Clint Eastwood to his first leading role in Sergio Leone’s Fistful of Dollars. There are also great samples of stills and posters other promotional materials in a variety of languages.
One of the highlights of this DVD is the previews of other Mario Bava films, such as Black Sunday, the Girl Who Knew Too Much, Knives of the Avenger, and Kill, Baby… Kill. These would be great to show before one of my band’s concerts!