Mario Bava – Halloween Horror Haiku

From Black Sunday’s vengeful Princess Asa Vajda, seeking retribution against the descendants of her treacherous brother to the ill-fated family in Hereditary, whose souls were already promised to a demon, witches come in many forms. Some are good, some are bad, and some are just really really angry.

There’s no order to today’s list, these witches are hangry, vengeful, spiteful, or all of the above! I loved the witches in every one of these movies. Many titles show up on previous horror movie lists I’ve made, but I have to point out two new film faves.

The first is Weapons and Amy Madigan’s Oscar winning role of Gladys, pure nightmare fuel, such brilliance. After the shock of realizing who the real villain in the story was, I was terrified every minute the red wigged clown face was on screen. I look forward to seeing more of her in upcoming Gladys sequel.

Oscar Winner Amy Madigan in Weapons, Warner Bros.

The other new movie is The Witch: Revenge, a low-budget indie horror from Ukraine, released in 2024 and set at the start of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine just two years prior, filmmakers actually collected uniforms of real Russian invaders and used them as costumes for their cast. While the bad guys are wildly over the top and their dialogue is on the nose, it’s not a stretch to believe the Russian army is mindlessly raping and killing innocent civilians. It’s a moody, atmospheric witch movie, and while not exactly a rousing crowd pleaser, these guys all deserved what was coming to them. This is a good little witch flick and it deserves more eyeballs.

13 witchy films you need to see right now!

Black Sunday (1960)
Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
The Conjuring (2013)
Gretel & Hansel (2020)
The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
The Witch: Revenge (2024)
Hellbender (2021)
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Suspiria (2023)
Hereditary (2018)
VVitch (2015)
Weapons (2025)

Remember, there’s no going back once you cross a vengeful witch. Madness, mayhem, death and destruction are coming your way.

Happy viewing! Stay safe out there!

Black Sunday (1961)
Sometimes Satan, with his capacity for doing evil, even plays tricks with the dead.

blacksunday barbara steele — Black Sunday ©Kino International

After following in his father’s footsteps, cinematographer Mario Bava made his directorial debut with 1960 gothic horror, Black Sunday, aka, The Mask of Satan, about a witch named Asa Vajda from Moldavia, who vows revenge after she and her apprentice are condemned to death by her brother, the crown prince. Two centuries later, on Black Sunday, the day Satan walks the earth, a traveling physician and his assistant unwittingly bring the witch back to life. After turning her apprentice into a vampire, Asa immediately sets out to fulfill her cursed prophecy, by terrorizing her brother’s descendants.

Production started in late March 1960 and took less than two months to film, releasing in Italy in August of 1960. The film was a modest success, bringing in $140 million lire, earning back its production costs, but performed much better in Europe and the US. Despite being low-budget, Black Sunday was praised for its originality and vivid imagery, however, the gore and gruesome violence shown in the film drew much criticism and was even banned in the UK until 1968, when a heavily censored version, retitled as Revenge of the Vampire, was finally released. The uncut version wouldn’t be shown until 1992!

©Kino International

In the US, Black Sunday was shown as a double feature with Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors in February 1961. In order to make the film less objectionable, American censors edited the movie down three minutes, excluding such violent scenes as, the burning and branding of flesh, eyeball impalement, and blood spewing out from the mask as it was hammered onto witch’s face in the opening sequence.

Unknown British actress Barbara Steele was cast in the lead duel role of the evil witch vampire Asa and her innocent descendant Katia. Even though her voice was dubbed by another actress, audiences swooned over Steele’s haunting beauty and loved her villainous portrayal of the vengeful Asa. Barbara Steele reportedly had a hard time on set and gained reputation for being difficult, mostly due in part to the lack of communication and language barrier.

What was once shocking to audiences of the early sixties, holds the same magic to influence numerous artists and filmmakers over the years, including Francis Ford Coppola, who is said to have recreated several scenes in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as a homage to Bava, and Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, which borrowed imagery, namely, the iconic death by iron maiden scene. The horrifying story of revenge and all its extreme violence and sexual suggestions actually helped Black Sunday become a cult classic.