VERSUS THE SCARECROW EPISODE THIRTEEN: Unlucky Me I decided to challenge myself and really open the doors of my film knowledge and take on “The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide”. It’s 808 pages of movies and movie reviews from some of the most knowledgeable movie people you don’t know. It’s a book put together by a staff that praises, and destroys, some of our favorites and not so favorites. You can read the rest of my series here.
Just a quick refresher: each episode, I’m going to tackle three films from three different categories. Two films will be films I’ve never seen before and one will be one I’ve seen before or own. For the new films, well, new to me, I’m going to review them like a typical FTS review using the TOAST Rating system. But, for the films I’ve seen, I’m going give a quick paragraph or two about why I like or don’t like the film. We’ll try to include the poster and trailer for each film. “….and here. We. Go!”
It’s horror film time! This episode I get a jump on my new years cinelution of seeing more horror films. This episode I’ll be taking a look at Black Sabbath, the classic The Amityville Horror, and I’ll be reflecting on a film that terrifies me every time I watch it, The Shining.
Black Sabbath (1963) Directed by Mario Bava. Starring: Michèle Mercier, Lidia Alfonsi, and Boris Karloff. IMDB says: “A trilogy of three horror stories. “The Drop of Water” concerns a nurse who steals a ring off a dead spiritualist, only to have the corpse seek revenge. “The Telephone” features a prostitute who is terrorized by phone calls from a dead client. “The Wurdalak” stars Boris Karloff as a vampire who feeds on the blood of his loved ones. .”
I’ve heard time and time again that this is the worst film of all time. I had my reservations because I’ve seen some bad films in my life and thought, how could this black and white 1950s film that’s just over an hour long be terrible? I got my answer with one word: Vampires.
Black Sabbath is weird. You’d think that a movie who’s name is used to start a band (Yep, Ozzy decided on the name Black Sabbath after seeing the film’s name on a marquee of a theatre) would be darker and filled with more evil. What I got was a solid opening to a film that went from creepy and unnerving to corny within minutes. The film is a trilogy and broken into three stories, with the films narrator, Boris Karloff, talking in between the stories. The first story is about a nurse who is called in when a medium/spiritualist dies. As she is prepping the body for the priest/morgue people, she notices a sapphire ring on the medium. She takes the ring and thinks all is well until she realizes the medium/spiritualist has followed her home, seeking revenge for the theft! Now this one was creepy as shit and unnerving. To be honest, I had some trouble sleeping due to a combination of this scene and an overactive imagination. The lighting was right, the music was on point, and the acting wasn’t that bed. The whole thing felt eerie and while it unnerved me, it got me excited/worried for the next two stories.
It was at this point; the quality and my interest plummeted. In the second story, Rosie comes home and receives a phone call threatening her and telling her he sees everything she’s doing. Growing paranoid, she’s calls over her friend Mary, explains what’s going on, and then the twist happens. It’s a spoiler so I’ll stray away, but I will say it was a lot of build up for zero pay off. That and it was just stupid. But the acting in this was alright, the setting was cool, but the content just wasn’t there like it was for the first story.
In the final story, we went back to the 1800s. A Russian count is riding through the countryside when he comes across a dagger in a mans chest. He pulls the dagger out and comes across a man who wants the dagger. The count asks if it’s his, and the man says it belongs to his father. The count goes back to the man’s house and it ends up being a large manor. As the man’s father comes home, the count becomes suspicious as to why the family acts weird around him. Answer? He’s a vampire. From there one by one family members get plucked off while they try and survive his wrath. This last story felt more like a Vampire soap opera or a deleted scene from the Twilight series. The acting was much worse than the first two stories and the music just didn’t fit right.
Now the whole film was originally filmed in Italian, but was dubbed into English. The film is written and directed by Mario Bava, and I’m unfamiliar with his works or other Italian horror films so I have nothing to compare it to. If you’re interested in seeing this movie, check it out on Netflix Instant Queue, watch the first story, then turn it off, cause that’s as good as it’s going to get.
Check back tomorrow to read my review of The Amityville Horror and then again on Wednesday for the conclusion of episode 13 with my reflections on The Shining. If you’re interested in more, you can find the rest of the Versus The Scarecrow series here.