Barbara and Bava & Cushing is Frankenstein for the first time.

Unbelievably, this is the first time Bava's Black Sunday (or Mask of Satan, if you prefer) has made the October cut since 2008, and I'm not entirely sure why. I just knew I wanted Bava to make the month as Naschy is planned to be included as well. Black Sunday (1960) was a treat and quite a fun experience, particularly watching it with my son and daughter. Introducing them to Bava and Barbara, what could be better, right?

FAB FIVE:

•  While Barbara Steele is featured in dual roles--as the Satan-worshipping witch who curses her brother and ancestry, Princess Asa and the innocent, virginal ancestor (of two decades), Katia--I certainly felt she excels in the evil of the two roles. My favorite scene featuring Asa is in her tomb after Professor Kruvajan has pulled the death mask from her corpse face, with blood cut on the hand from a shard of glass of the crypt resurrecting her. Not long after this, Asa, almost fully restored (but still needing a number of victims' blood to provide total form), with her face still riddled by the holes caused by the hammered spiked death mask, calls for Kruvajan to come towards her. Unable to resist, he does and that relish of being renewed to once again be free to conduct her evil is quite present.

• I truly liked this one particular scene where Katia's father, Prince Vajda, is asleep after a restless night of worrying about Asa's curse on his family. A harsh wind (AKA, Asa's lover, the Devil-worshipping, Javutich) carries through the living quarters and dinner area of the castle after a secret door behind the fireplace opens. The door is a location that Javutich (in forms both in spectre and sometimes full body apparition) often leaves when about his Asa's business. The curtains and various objects in the castle are taken up or pushed over by an invisible, unseen Javutich who eventually appears to Vajda, awakening him in terror. The spectre of Javutich is one of the film's highlights, quite a malevolent presence indeed, doing all so that Asa would once again be free to reign with him, celebrating their master. Only the crucifix, at his bedside, rescues Vajda at that moment.

• The third scene, where a fiery Asa informs her brother and the executioners with their hooded faces and lighted torches that she would curse him and their ancestors for what they were about to do to her. The emergence of the mask, its spikes, and her expression as the end seemed near really set up just what would be lying in wait for the characters ahead.

• Javutich is called to rise by Asa so he can assist her in returning her to full health and to kill for her. The story's flaw is that "Why can he just rise and yet she needs his help until film's end in order to do so?" I can't answer that but it stirs and moves the plot. Javutich kills and kills. The coachman, butler, Katia's brother (Prince Constantine), Kruvajan, and Vajda are all victims that stand in Javutich's way. But I love a good "rising from the grave" scene and Javutich's emergence, with the mask bearing its ugly visage and the mud-caked hands (the fingers look like talons) reaching out from the earth. It is quite a "re-introduction".

• I think the "taking of life" scene where Asa "pries the youth" from Katia as age begins to show and go between the two perfectly exemplifies the centuries-long "wait" to get what she felt was her due. Like the Universal movies of the past, soon a village full of locals don their pitchforks and torches, and Asa's love interest (Kruvajan's student), Andre Gorobec, will need assistance from the local priest in order to stop the reign of terror.

With secret passageways, an active fog, electric storms, furious wind, thickets and dead trees, and vampire-like spectres, along with a burial chamber housing multiple crypts and halls/corridors that show the decay of disrepair thanks to time and its savagery, and the cemetery, Bava made a film that could be compared next to Gothic greats that came before Black Sunday.

Black Sunday ****
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Typically Curse of Frankenstein (1957) is an early October viewing and has been for several years now. I had to get my early Cushing/Frankenstein fix and so Curse seemed just right. While quite the asset, I admit that Hazel Court's bosom, although quite pleasant, didn't make the FAB FIVE, even if it was a FAB TWO.


FAB FIVE:

• The most memorable and pitiable scene to me is what the monster is reduced to by the end, still kept alive by a totally diabolical, mad scientist, in the Baron. Paul, sure, did contribute to the monster's brain being damaged, but it was the Baron who refused to let it be put away and buried for good.

• The Baron's calculated murder of an elder genius for his brilliant brain by pushing off the top of his stairs finally proved what he was willing to do to create his "perfect man made from scratch". Later invading a mausoleum he provided to the dead genius to have free access to his brain, only Paul's trifling stopped this act from being a success.

• The Baron staring face to face at the monster in mummy bandages as he rips away to show his rotted face flesh and cold, dead eyes. It hoists him up off his feet, hands gripped tight over the Baron's throat, and just as the life is about to slip away, Paul saves him.

• A reprehensible act involving the murder of a maid the Baron was having sexual relations because she threatened to expose him is later a reasonable justification for Paul not to rescue Frankenstein from the guillotine. Also the threat the Baron makes regarding his fiance Elizabeth if Paul interferes with the experiments as well contributed. But seeing a destroyed Paul not admitting that the monster story the Baron tells to the priest is real informs us that no longer could Frankenstein be allowed to live with what scientific desires lurked within. It's the noose around the neck that tightens and the Baron finds himself no longer able to free himself.

• A key scene where the Baron explains to Paul that no matter what he would continue to do what he does. No matter how many brains or bodies he would steal or build, he would not stop which leads to Paul finally taking a stand, planning to go to the authorities. A desperation is evident immediately as a struggle ensues. Nothing matters to Frankenstein but his experiments. Elizabeth has been placed in the background and Paul's friendship and warnings regarding going too far fell on deaf ears. Not even allowing pleas to quit before something horrible happened to infiltrate his dream, the Baron's fate at the end was of his own making.

Curse of Frankenstein ****