Black Sabbath (1963)

 "I do hope you haven't come alone..."

What is this that stands before me? Figure in black that points at me? Well, no, it's Mario Bava's most famous film, a highlight of Boris Karloff's career and, of course, famously seen at the cinema by one Geezer Butler.

It's also an extraordinarily shot film, wit studio and location made to look creepily effective by means of camera framing, movement and a thoughtful deployment of a colour palette based around magenta and green. This is a film that plays around, and has fun with, the concept of what is a horror B movie and what is a more serious film, and deliberately blurs the distinction. It's a portmanteau film based on short stories by such names as Chekhov, Tolstoy and Maupassant, yet the script cheerfully diverges from the source material in the pursuit of the grand guignol, artistically depicted.

The three tales are each very different, with effective twists, but all have in common the very effective use of tension- as well as the use of the camera to make elements that may look cheap or ineffective in the hands of a lesser director look terrifying. The first tale has overtones of male violence against women, yet is told from a female perspective (and gaze), while the second tale, with Karloff truly oustanding, is a clever take on the vampire myth, moving it to a creepy rutal Russia of Czernobog gloom. The third tale may be the slightest, but it perfectly illustrates how much Bava can do, even with relatively basic material, to wring the maximum amount of effectively paced and creepily shot horror out of whatever he's given with.

An impressive film but although, yes, Karloff is ecelent, essentially this is an example of a film raised from the ordinary to the extraordinary by superb direction. Bava is magnificent.