MARIO BAVA camps it up on the graveyard set, as Ubaldo Terzano frames Javutich’s resurrection behind the camera.
the rushes, especially in the close-ups, they looked too fake, so Serandrei cut around them.”
It was in this way that the defin- ing lines between vampire, witch, and Satanist began to blur. In Black Sunday, American International’s English-language version of the film, the narration tries to bridge the gulf between the two by saying, “History has given these slaves of Satan the name of Vampire.”
Late in the picture, when Andrej and Constantine discover the secret passage to the family crypt be- hind the castle’s fireplace, they dis- cover in that secret recess a nude portrait of Asa, who is shown hold- ing a crystal ball in her hand, with a snake weaving in and out of her fin- gers—symbolizing her commanding grasp of male power symbols that would have posed an intolerable challenge to the men around her.
Another source of confusion in- volves the precise nature of the rela- tionship between Asa and Javutich. In the English-language versions of the film, Javutich is described as Asa’s “serf” or “servant,” but the film’s Italian press materials identify him as “Prince Ygor Javutich—fratello della strega”—which means, “brother of the witch.” This revelation helps to clear up some of the mysteries sur- rounding this character in the En- glish versions—namely, why the Vajdas would hang a portrait of one of their former servants on the wall of their castle, and why a servant would dress as imperiously as Javutich, his breast emblazoned with the griffin carved into the fam- ily hearth at Castle Vajda. With this information in hand, and given the devotion that Arturo Dominici dis- plays in all his scenes opposite Bar- bara Steele, it becomes more obvi- ous that these royal siblings may have been crucified less for practic- ing Black Magic than the rites of in- cest. 20
WILLED back to life by his sister, Asa, Javutich rises from his grave—the Mask of Satan still hammered to his face.
