BLACK SABBATH (1963)
Note: from Oct 2021-June 2022, the podcast was known as 21 Jump Scare and was organized in a slightly different fashion, with different awards.
Background (spoiler-free) 0:00-14:15
Discussion (spoiler-heavy) 14:15-34:49
Awards (spoilers for days) 34:50
Director Mario Bava
Screenplay Marcello Fondato, Alberto Bevilacqua, and Mario Bava, adapted from stories by “Ivan Chekhov,” F. G. Snyder, and A. K. Tolstoy
Featuring Lidia Alfonsi, Susy Andersen, Mark Damon, Rika Dialyna, Boris Karloff, Michele Mercier, Harriet Medin, Milly Monti, Jacqueline Pierreux, Massino Righi
Opened: August 17, 1963 (Italy) / May 6, 1964 (US)
Budget: 205 Italian lira
Gross: 103.5 Italian lira
SPOILER-FREE SYNOPSIS
Black Sabbath, or as it was originally known, The Three Faces of Fear, is broken into three stories, The Telephone, The Wurdulak, and The Drop of Water. The Telephone is a contemporaneous tale of a beautiful woman, Rosy, who receives phone calls from someone who claims to be able to see her every move, and who threatens to kill her before dawn. The Wurdulak is a gothic melodrama set sometime in the 19th century about a nobleman, Vladimir, who comes across a headless body with an ornate dagger in its back. He brings the dagger and body to a nearby home whose residents identify the dead man as a Turkish outlaw. The man was apparently killed by a wurdulak, a vampire, which (according to legend) people turn into after being bitten and wandering away from their home for five days. The story poses the question of whether the patriarch of the family, Gorca, is a wurdulak himself, and whether he poses a threat to Vladimir and members of his own clan, including his sons Giorgio and Pietro and his daughter, Sdenka. In the final installment, The Drop of Water, set sometime towards the beginning of the 20th century, a nurse, Helen Chester, is summoned to dress the body of a dead woman who lives in a filthy mansion bestrewn with cobwebs, cats, and creepy dolls. In the story, Miss Chester becomes obsessed with a ring on the dead woman’s finger, and after heisting it, becomes haunted by the dead woman’s soul, which takes the form of a fly, the sound of dripping water, and the occasional meow.
EPISODE NOTES
Original music from Black Sabbath by Roberto Nicolosi. Excerpt from the song “Black Sabbath” by Black Sabbath (1970).
TRAILER
AWARDS
The Tom Six Award for Most Disturbing Scene
Bradford: Gorca’s return in “The Wurdulak” and embrace of little Ivan
Eric: The dead old lady’s face in “The Drop of Water” (Not a scene, per se)
The Seth Brundle Award for Most Likable Character
Bradford: Vladimir, “The Wurdulak”
Eric: Mary, “The Telephone”
The Ellen Ripley Award for Character that Most Deserved to Live
Bradford: (tie) The dead old lady in “The Drop of Water”; Rosie in “The Telephone”
Eric: Helen Chester, “The Drop of Water”
The John Doe Award for Character that Most Deserved to Die
Bradford: Pietro, “The Wurdulak”
Eric: Vladimir, “The Wurdulak”
The Gaspar Noe Award/Ken Russell Award for Most Gratuitous Screen Moment
Bradford: Abstaining
Eric: Gorca pulls the head of the Turkish outlaw out of the bag and throws it on the floor in “The Wurdulak”