Terror Creatures from the Grave / 5 tombe per un medium (1965)

The onset of the Halloween season this year has really put me on a black-and-white horror kick for some reason. I’m looking forward to checking out some classics I haven’t seen yet, such as City of the Dead (1960) and Eyes Without a Face (1960), and revisiting some favorites like Carnival of Souls (1962) and Night of the Living Dead (1968).

I used to approach black-and-white movies apprehensively, thinking that they would likely be a boring chore to sit through. I missed out on discovering a lot of classics when I was younger with this mindset, a mindset that surprises me considering that I had always been able to enjoy black-and-white TV-shows as a kid like Lassie and The Three Stooges, which happened to give me the false perception that the world must’ve been in black-and-white back then. I had always preferred color, but nowadays I really have no preference. There’s something both oppressive and romantic about black-and-white cinematography, a separate experience with its own charm that I don’t think is inferior to color cinematography. What finally gave me a taste for black-and-white film and caused me to not see it as a diminished experience due to technological limitation was Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960), which also turned my interest to the black-and-white Italian horrors of the ‘60s that I probably would’ve had no interest in otherwise.

The Ghost / Lo spettro (1963)

‘Epic’ has sort of become a popular internet slang term these days and is generally used as a descriptive response for anything that comes off as grandly awesome. I normally prefer using it in the more traditional sense as a tag for a long story that spans multiple books or movies. So, even given its standard runtime, why is ‘epic’ the first adjective that comes to mind when thinking about Riccardo Freda’s generically titled Gothic horror/mystery THE GHOST?

In trying to come up with a possible answer, I find myself realizing just how well nearly everything about THE GHOST hits the spot. From the opening séance to the fulfilling ending, there ends up being a very attractive mental journey, dense with macabre elements, to a destination that could only be described as maniacal insanity, just before the film closes out with a religious representative reminding us that the devil is a very real person. I feel that it is this cadaverous journey, mostly within the confines of a richly decorated Scottish 1910 mansion as well as the grand supernatural, alien beauty of the film’s star, Barbara Steele, that merits the ‘epic’ tag.

Am I right when I say that Steele was an essential component in helping several Italian Gothics rise above being standard genre fare? Just like the chorus to a particular ‘80s Roxette song, she’s got the look. Here, Steele doesn’t portray her usual dual role of a good and an evil character but only the latter in this film, and it really is what she does best. She’s on fire in an immortal murder scene late in the movie that brings to mind the phrase ‘slashed to ribbons’. 

An Angel for Satan (1966), Starring Barbara Steele

Imagine being so taken by a lady's stunning beauty that you lose interest in everything else and become so detached from your regular life that you don’t even feel like yourself anymore. According to the film “AN ANGEL FOR SATAN”, finding yourself under the favorable attention of such a seductive presence could cause you to neglect things you used to hold dear and ultimately suffer tragic consequences. In this movie, actress and legendary horror queen Barbara Steele plays a character that maliciously uses her otherworldly beauty and womanly charm to seduce and get into the heads of villagers, both men and women, causing them to commit regrettable and woeful deeds. 

Set in the early 1900s in a superstitious backwater village, Camillo Mastrocinque’s AN ANGEL FOR SATAN is a compelling piece of Gothic horror, where atmosphere and mystery rule the day. Similar to some of her other movies, Steele plays a good and an evil role but this time as a single character with a dual personality. She spends the latter half of the film bouncing in and out of her evil side causing us to wonder if she is being possessed or just plain out of her mind. The reason behind the terror is ultimately explained in a fairly satisfying climax that I will in no way try to ruin.