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Black Sunday

Witches • 1h 26m

Directed by Mario Bava • 1960 • Italy
Starring Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi

Italian maestro Mario Bava left his first indelible mark on horror cinema with this gothically stylized tale of witchcraft and revenge, loosely based on Nikolai Gogol’s oft-adapted short story “Viy.” In her signature role, Barbara Steele plays a seventeenth-century Moldavian witch who is tortured and condemned to death for sorcery—but not before vowing to get even with her killers. Two hundred years later, her curse comes to pass as she rises from the grave to take possession of a descendant (also Steele) and exact retribution.

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