ANDREJ (John Richardson) and Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) visit the crypt of the Vajda family.
This is a remarkable document, not only because it differs so radically from the film Bava would ultimately cre- ate, but because it contains images and situations destined to resurface in Bava’s later work. The decision to tell Gogol’s dark fable within a con- temporary framing story shows Bava already contemplating the uncanny juxtaposition of past and present, as modern-day people become lost in ancient and unfamiliar surroundings and find themselves caught up in the past history of an abandoned ruin. This will later happen in Lisa and the Devil (1973) with its single protago- nist. The petrified monsters, first seen as a decorative frieze inside the derelict
church, look forward to the concept of Anomalia, an unrealized science fic- tion project from the late 1970s, writ- ten with Dardano Sacchetti. The “I wurdalak” episode of I tre volti della paura/Black Sabbath (1963) con- cludes with a horse galloping away as though driven mad. The fact that “Viy” was a classic
literary property—that is, in the pub- lic domain—made it an agreeable choice to Nello Santi. But the treat- ment was unacceptable, as written. Bava may have been a compulsive reader, but he was above all an in- stinctive artist, unable to express himself in words as well as he could communicate emotion through im- ages. Therefore, Galatea’s resident
ANDREJ returns to the Vajda crypt (below) with the priest (Antonio Pierfederici), where they discover the reactivated evil of Princess Asa.