La Masquera del Demonio (Black Sunday)

1960

Directed By Mario Bava

Starring: Barbara Steele

Accused of sorcery and vampirism, the Ukrainian princess Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele), along with her consort Javutich, are sentenced to die on the evening of St. George's Day by Asa's own inquisitor brother. Defiant, Asa puts a curse on her own house, vowing to return someday and live again through the flesh of the Vajda line. Spiked masks are hammered onto the faces of the witch and warlock, but a sudden cloudburst drives the townspeople away before the bodies can be burned, Shaken by the ominous nature of the storm, the villagers instead elect to seal Aja in the family tomb, and bury Javutich in unconsecrated earth.

Two-hundred years later, the young doctor Andre Gorobec and his older traveling companion Dr. Kruvijan are aboard a carriage, going through the same fog-shrouded region on the way to a medical conference in Moscow. Concerned with missing the keynote speech in the morning, Kruvajan orders the coach driver to take the road through the forest. The coachman dreads the prospect, as it's revealed that a legendary witch haunts those woods. As fate would have it, the coach loses a wheel near the Vajda family crypt. Waiting for the driver to put the wheel back on, Andre an Kruvajan are drawn into the crypt by a strange wailing sound. They happen upon the tomb of Aja, the witch of the legend, who has been buried with a window looking out of her coffin, so that she'll be bound to her grave by the sight of the stone cross that looms above. Andre leaves for a moment to assist the craven coachman, as Kruvajan admires this archaeological curiosity. He is promptly attacked by a bat, which causes him to destroy the cross and break the glass of the coffin while striking at it. Kruvajan cuts himself on this glass, and inadvertently drips blood into the eye-socket of Asa. After removing Asa's mask to get a look at her face, Kruvajan and Andre leave the tomb and encounter Princess Kaita (also played by Barbara Steele) who is out walking her dogs. She informs them that they are trespassing on the family tomb. The men apologize and take their leave, though Andre expresses a desire to see Katia again, obviously very taken with her raven beauty.

In the house of Vajda, Katia plays the piano as her brother Constantine cleans a rifle, and her father the prince sits morosely by the fire. Katia comments on the painting of her ancestor Asa, which hangs prominently in the living room, along with a painting of Asa's lover and accomplice Javutich (a rather Vlad the Impaler-ish figure). The prince himself is haunted by the dark legacy of Asa and Javutich, remembering that it had been 200 years ago that very night when Asa and Javutich had been executed. Later, he sees a vision of the diabolical Mask of Satan of the title on the inside of a drinking cup.

Meanwhile, Aja's mummy, nourished by the small quantity of Kruvajan's blood, swells with life. Still evidently quite weak, Aja calls upon Javutich, some distance away in the murderer's cemetery, to rise from his grave. Javutich crawls from the drenched earth, and rips off his spiked mask, casting it aside. Soon his phantom presence is felt in the house of Vajda, and he materializes in the terrified prince's bedroom. The prince manages to drive Javutich away with a cross, but is left senseless with fear, which is how he's found by Katia and Constantine, awakened by his cries. Remembering the doctors she met earlier, Katia dispatches a servant to go to town and summon them. However, Javutich kills the servant, and appears to Dr. Kruvajan in a funereal black coach, informing Kruvajan that his services were needed by the prince, who is reportedly ill. Javutich takes Kruvajan to the castle, but leads him through the secret passage behind the ornate fireplace, and down to the tomb where Asa waits. Her stone coffin crumbles away, revealing a woman who is strangely alluring, in spite of the grisly scarring of her face. Still unable to move on her own, Asa entrances the doctor to approach and kiss her, and thusly drains his life essence.

Now a ghoul himself, Kruvajan returns to the upper berth to attend to the prince. The prince seems to sense what Kruvajan is before the doctor puts him under with a gesture of the hand. Kruvajan stalks the increasingly wary Katia, who is able to fend him off with her father's cross.  In the morning, the prince is found dead, a victim of Kruvajan's vampirism.  Not far away, the body of the servant is found tangled in foliage on the banks of the river.  Meanwhile, Andre, finding Kruvajan absent, goes to the house of Vajda, where he and Katia's brother Constantine start putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Andre is later confronted by a grim Kruvajan, who warns Andre to stay clear of Castle Vajda.

A small fire in the castle leads to the accidental discovery of the secret passage to the crypt, and Asa's slumbering form therein.  Andre goes to get help, and Constantine finds himself locked in the crypt with Javutich.  Impotent with terror, Constantine falls into a spike-filled pit.  Andre and the village priest locate the grave of Javutich, but find Kruvajan's body there instead.  The priest shows Andre that a cross burns Kruvajan's flesh- that he is a vampire- and they kill Kruvajan by impaling his eye.

Finding herself alone in the castle (aside from the corpses of her father and the murdered butler) Katia breaks down at the prince's casket, only to have him rise from the dead.  Katia faints, and her father is about to prey on her when Javutich assails the prince and throws him in the fire.  Javutich carries Katia down to the crypt and lays her beside Asa, who awakens and starts to drain her life away.  Andre returns to the castle at that time, and becomes locked in a struggle with Javutich, who is himself pulled down into the spiked pit by the mortally injured Constantine.

When Andre reaches the crypt to kill Asa, he mistakes her for Katia, and is about to kill the sleeping Katia when he notices the cross on her neck.  He takes up the cross and turns to Asa, who, while pulling away from the symbol, is revealed to be not altogether human.  Asa tries to mesmerize Andre, but her intention is interrupted by a mob of villagers  gathered by the priest to siege the crypt.  Asa is taken out and tied to a ladder, to be tipped into the heart of a raging bonfire.  Before she is consigned to the flames, Asa screams, and seems to return to a corpselike state.  A despairing Andre, believing Katia to be dead, is consoled by the priest when Katia stirs, her own beauty restored as Asa withers away outside.