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| Michael Draine's Twisted
Vista |
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| Black
Sabbath (1963) |
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| (Image Entertainment) DVD |
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| Previously known to
American audiences only |
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| in drastically cut
versions, the baroque, |
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| darkly erotic fantasies of
Italian horror |
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| maestro Mario Bava
(1914-80) are finally |
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| receiving overdue
recognition via the DVD |
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| medium. Charting a
solitary path between the |
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| European art film and
Grand Guignol horror, |
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| Bava invested his work
with a visual primacy |
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| that continues to influence
such eminent |
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| stylists as Dario
Argento, Tim Burton, and |
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| David Lynch. This DVD
presents the original |
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| European version of an
anthology film |
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| conceived as I tre volti della paura |
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| (“The Three Faces of
Fear,” 1963), retitled |
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| Black
Sabbath for Stateside release by |
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| American International Pictures. |
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| Compounding the indignity
of an American |
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| premier on a double
bill with McHale’s |
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| Navy, AIP shuffled Bava’s deliberately |
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| structured story sequence,
replaced |
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| Roberto Nicolosi’s lean,
moody soundtrack |
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| music with a Les Baxter
score, and rewrote |
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| the opening episode to
eliminate a lesbian |
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| motif. This uncensored,
Italian-language |
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| version of the film
restores the intended |
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| narrative symmetry, Nicolosi’s
deftly |
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| understated music, and a
prologue with |
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| Boris Karloff. |
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| “The Telephone” casts the
darkly sensual |
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| Michèle Mercier
(from Truffaut’s Shoot |
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| the
Piano Player) as a high-class prostitute |
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| terrorized by a seemingly
omniscient |
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| voyeur, anticipating the
opening sequence |
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| of Wes Craven’s Scream. |
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| The best-remembered segment, “The |
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| Wurdulak,” features
fantastically distorted |
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| landscapes and
Boris Karloff in his last great |
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| monster role. Massive,
baleful, and rheumy- |
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| eyed, the
76-year-old actor radiates a malig- |
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| nance which transcends
the dubbed Italian |
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| voice. (The English
language track, with |
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| Karloff’s incomparable baritone,
is |
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| not included.) The
dark-and-stormy night |
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| story, “The Drop of
Water,” starring |
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| Jacqueline
Pierreux, achieves mounting |
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| tension with an
accumulation of disquieting |
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| details: a mewling
cat at its owner’s |
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Susy Anderson in "The Wurdulak" |
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| deathbed, an
overturned glass of water, |
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| a fly crawling on a
corpse’s ring finger. |
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| The DVD features removable
subtitles, |
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| the Italian theatrical
trailer, a still |
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| gallery, Bava and
Karloff filmographies, |
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Music Review Index |
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| the Mario Bava
entry from The BFI |
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| Companion
to Horror, and liner notes |
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| drawn from Tim Lucas’s monumental |
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| Bava monograph, All the Colors of the |
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Twisted Cinema |
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| Dark. An artifact-free, 16:9-enhanced |
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| enhanced
Technicolor transfer vividly |
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| captures the
miasmatic greens and |
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| supernal violets of
the haunted |
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| world of Mario Bava. |
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| A superb article on the
transformation |
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| of I tre volti della paura into Black |
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| Sabbath appears in Video Watchdog #5, |
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| still
available from: |
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| http://www.videowatchdog.com/ |
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