Watch The Mask of Satan online

" I intended doing the same with Lamberto Bava's work on the occasion of the centenary marathon devoted to his father Mario; however, after checking out the title under review – which is actually a remake of the elder Bava's BLACK Sunday (1960) – I decided against it, given the utter disappointment the experience proved to be! Whether by accident or design, Lamberto was virtually Mario's age when he adapted the Nikolai Gogol story "The Vij" – but the latter already had a full 10 years' practice directing movies, whereas his Dad's effort had been his official debut; still, watching the two films back-to-back one would think the reverse was true…in view of the overall amateurishness of the 1989 version compared to the extreme confidence and dazzling artistry displayed throughout the 1960 one! For the record, I will be getting to yet another rendition (made on its homeground in 1967 and, by far, the most faithful) of the same source material… A word on the title: the younger Bava is perhaps best-known for helming the gross and grossly overrated DEMONS (1985) and DEMONS 2 (1986); for some odd reason, a handful of unrelated contemporaneous Italian (and one American!) horror films were released in Japan as if they were subsequent entries in what could only be termed an unenviable franchise – namely Michele Soavi's THE CHURCH (1989; which became DEMONS 3) and THE SECT (1991; DEMONS 4…followed by Bava's effort despite that one being actually shot prior to it!), Luigi Cozzi's THE BLACK CAT (1989; DEMONS 6…ditto!), Freddie Francis' U"