Black Sunday

Play trailer

Black Sunday

1960

1h 23m

Horror

Play Trailer

Watchlist

Watchlist

Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

88%

Tomatometer

24 Reviews

78%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

Burned at the stake, a vampire witch princess (Barbara Steele) wakes up centuries later with her undead henchman.

Watch on Prime Video

Stream Now

Critics Consensus

Mario Bava's official narrative debut is a witchy nightmare steeped in gothic splendor, shot in chiaroscuro black and white and punctuated with startling gore.

Read Critics Reviews

Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

One of the cinema's preeminent examples of gothic horror.

Rated: A-

Feb 5, 2008

Full Review

Derek Adams

Time Out

The visual style still impresses, but the story beneath it has become too formularised for the film to retain all its original power.

Feb 9, 2006

Full Review

Eugene Archer

New York Times

It will leave its audiences yearning for that quiet, sunny little motel in Psycho.

Rated: 2/5

May 10, 2005

Full Review

Alan Jones

Radio Times

A masterpiece of the macabre that showed Bava's sheer mastery of the terror medium, it had censors worldwide up in arms over its still powerful opening torture sequence, in which a mask of nails is hammered onto Steele's screaming face.

Rated: 4/5

Oct 31, 2024

Full Review

Sean Axmaker

Stream on Demand

[Mario Bava's] vivid style—gliding camerawork, dramatic lighting, striking compositions, and atmospheric sets cobbled together from limited resources—set the standard for Italian gothic horror ...

Oct 21, 2024

Full Review

Howard Waldstein

CBR

Black Sunday is surprisingly gruesome and tastefully terrifying in all the right ways. It's an essential of Italian horror that begs to be seen.

Jun 27, 2023

Full Review

Read all reviews

Steven M

It’s got that ancient look to it.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

11/20/24

Full Review

steve d

Cool creepy old movie with brilliant use of light and shadow and great atmosphere. I have a crush on Barbara Steele now.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

10/21/24

Full Review

Vito P

It's really exciting to see how such effective visual effects are achieved with limited means in a film that really is an inspiring gothic gem.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

09/22/24

Full Review

Joseph D

Came upon this gem thanks to Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments of all time. Normally I'm not one for B&W stuff, but this film holds up as a suspenseful thriller.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

10/10/23

Full Review

martin f

One of the best Gothic horror (and Italian horror) out there with a perfect use of Black & white, melancholic dialogues and a surprising amount of gores. The very contrasted black and white puts so much emphasis on the actors' beautiful eyes that you can feel their emotion with their stares alone. It also works very well with the gloomy decors. There is just one short scene filmed differently (with a regular black and white) that took me out for two minutes. There is a lot of old school special effects there, some may feel outdated but they are still captivating and don't spoil the creepy atmosphere.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

sean s

It is sad to say that this old black and white movie from 1960 is still better than most of the offerings that I see on Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu currently. This film has neat old, spooky black and white photography and sets. Mario Bava is a great atmospheric director and was ahead of his time. Barbara Steele usually puts on a good show and does in this one. What cracks me up about these old movies is that they let the villain, usually a witch or evil wizard, ramble off this long curse upon the village and it's people instead of quickly dispatching them. It is worth a watch.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Read all reviews

Read More

Read Less

POST RATING

WRITE A REVIEW

EDIT REVIEW

Mario Bava

Director

Barbara Steele

Katia Vajda

John Richardson

Dr. Andre Gorobec

Ivo Garrani

Prince Vajda

Andrea Checchi

Dr. Thomas Kruvajan

Arturo Dominici

Igor Javutich

50 Fresh Scary Movies and TV Shows to Watch on Netflix

Brannon Braga’s 10 Favorite Horror Films

View more photos

Synopsis

Burned at the stake, a vampire witch princess (Barbara Steele) wakes up centuries later with her undead henchman.

Director: Mario Bava
Producer: Massimo De Rita
Screenwriter: Ennio De Concini, Mario Serandrei
Production Co: Galatea Film
Genre: Horror
Original Language: Italian
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 8, 2017
Runtime: 1h 23m

Most Popular at Home Now