Black Sabbath (film)

Black Sabbath
Italian release poster
Directed by	Mario Bava
Screenplay by	Marcello Fondato Alberto Bevilacqua Mario Bava
Produced by	Lionello Santi Alberto Barsanti[1]
Starring	Boris Karloff Mark Damon Michèle Mercier Susy Andersen Lydia Alfonsi Glauco Onorato Jacqueline Pierreux
Cinematography	Ubaldo Terzano Mario Bava
Edited by	Mario Serandrei
Music by	Roberto Nicolosi
Production companies	Galatea Film Emmepi Cinematografica Lyre Film[2]
Distributed by	Warner Bros. (Italy)[2] The Rank Organisation (France)[1]
Release dates	August 17, 1963 (1963-08-17) (Italy) November 17, 1965 (1965-11-17) (France)
Running time	93 minutes[2]
Countries	Italy France[2][3]
Language	Italian
Budget	₤205 million[4]
Box office	₤103.5 million (Italy) $419,000 (US rentals)

Black Sabbath (Italian: I tre volti della paura, lit. 'The Three Faces of Fear') is a 1963 horror anthology film directed by Mario Bava. The film consists of three separate tales that are introduced by Boris Karloff. The order in which the stories are presented varies among the different versions in which the film has been released. In the original, Italian print, the first story, titled "The Telephone", involves Rosy (Michèle Mercier) who continually receives threatening telephone calls from an unseen stalker. The second is "The Wurdulak", where a man named Gorca (Karloff) returns to his family after claiming to have slain a Wurdulak, an undead creature who attacks those that it had once loved. The third story, "The Drop of Water", is centered on Helen Corey (Jacqueline Pierreux), a nurse who steals a ring from a corpse that is being prepared for burial and finds herself haunted by the ring's original owner after arriving home.

Being a low-budget horror film with multiple stories, an international cast and foreign financial backing, Black Sabbath follows numerous trends of 1960s Italian film productions. The film is credited to various writers, including Anton Chekov and Aleksey Tolstoy, but is predominantly based on several uncredited sources, and changes were made to the script after filming commenced. American International Pictures and Titra Sound Corporation suggested changes to Bava during filming to make the film palatable for American audiences, and created their own English-language version of the film, which replaced Roberto Nicolosi's score with music by Les Baxter, removed several depictions of graphic violence and made alterations to other scenes. This version greatly changed the plot of "The Telephone", giving it a supernatural element and removing all references to lesbianism and prostitution.

Black Sabbath was a commercial failure upon release in Italy, and performed below expectations in America. A spiritual sequel to the film, based on "The Dunwich Horror" and provisionally titled Scarlet Friday, was set to reunite Bava with Karloff and co-star Christopher Lee, but AIP distanced themselves from Bava following the failure of Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs and eventually produced the film without Bava, Karloff or Lee's involvement. Plans for a remake were announced in 2004 with Jonathan Hensleigh attached to write the script. Since its original release, Black Sabbath has received positive reviews from critics, and was placed at number 73 on a Time Out poll of the best horror films.