The Beginning of the Italian Horror Film: Mario BAVA’s “Black Sunday/La maschera del demonio”

Abstract

Following George MELIES’ “Le Manoir du diable” (1896), many horror films were produced in Germany in the late 1910s and in the 1920s, under the strong influence of German romanticism. In Hollywood, Universal and RKO contributed many films to the genre, which was inspired by the English Gothic novels. In the late 1950s and in the 1960s, the horror film, now in color, began to flourish in other countries. The Italian horror film genre started with “I vampiri” (1957) by Riccardo FREDA, with Mario BAVA as cameraman. BAVA’s debut as director “Black Sunday” (1960) was based on the Russian Gothic novel “Vij” by Nikolaj GOGOL. BAVA worked also as cameraman for this film, and his outstanding visual technique and excellent special effects created an atmosphere which dominates the genre. Like this film by BAVA, Italian horror films are often considered as “faceless”, without any Italian characteristics, and accused of being mere imitations of - mainly - American films. However, this “international” character in the setting and language is required by commercial reasons and can be considered as uniqueness of the Italian horror film genre.