Black Sabbath Review

Review of Black Sabbath (1963) by screenqueeen: 👍 3.5/5

16/100

a cozy horror anthology bookended by and starring (in one segment) everyone's favorite ghoulish grandpa Boris Karloff. there's not much to these stories and they largely feel like scary tales to tell children, but with signature Bava flair with his impeccable set design and love for flooding the mise-en-scène with beautifully saturated colored gel lights. it does a lot to dress up the pretty bare bones structure of each story in the way Bava does it, which may be why so many revere this anthology over others (also have you seen the majority of horror anthology films? not a very high bar of quality). still, this is lacking something to push it into something that would make it make sense that this was Bava's favorite of his films he's ever done. it clicks a little by the very end in a "magic of moviemaking" kind of way when Karloff is still in costume and rides his "horse" through the "dark forest" after sending the audience off in a way that made me think he (both Karloff and Bava) was trying to do a William Castle bit. i hope not, Bava's better when he does Bava bits! but this is still neat and fun and a great way to usher in the start of autumn and the colder seasons of the year.