'The mask of the demon') is a 1960 Italian gothic horror film directed by Mario Bava in his official directorial debut, and starring Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani, Arturo Dominici and Enrico Oliveri.

Former Rank Organisation contract players Steele and Richardson were cast as Bava felt that British leads would allow the film to compare favorably to Dracula.

Bronze masks with sharp spikes on the inside are placed over Asa and Javutich's faces and hammered into their flesh, but a sudden storm prevents the villagers from burning them at the stake.

Two centuries later, Dr. Choma Kruvajan and his assistant, Dr. Andrej Gorobec, are traveling through Moldavia en route to a medical conference when one wheel on their carriage breaks.

[6] His first outline of the film, a four-page treatment titled Il Vij, is dated September 1, 1959 and closely follows Gogol's original story.

[14] Santi deemed Bava's treatment unsatisfactory and hired Galatea's top screenwriter Ennio De Concini, who had co-written both of the Hercules films and The Giant of Marathon, to help the director turn the concept into a workable screenplay.

[16] According to Sergio Leone, De Concini "was far better at improvising stories, live, in front of producers, then writing them down"; this, coupled with his highly prolific resume, has led Bava biographer Tim Lucas to believe that while De Concini contributed many ideas to what would become Black Sunday, he did little of the actual scripting, which Lucas attributes to Marcello Coscia, who co-wrote Bava's early science fiction film The Day the Sky Exploded (1958).

[24] Steele seldom worked in the United States: she was cast opposite Elvis Presley in the Western Flaming Star, but a falling-out with director Don Siegel led to her being replaced during the first week of shooting by Barbara Eden.

After a Screen Actors Guild strike in March 1960 left her free to pursue her own interests, she traveled to Italy, leading to her casting in Black Sunday.

[29][30][31] Ivo Garrani, who portrayed Prince Vajda, was a veteran of earlier films photographed by Bava; the actor reflected that his friend's on-set behavior changed little in his transition to directing full-time "because Mario was already a director.

Lucas concurs on this point, noting that while Bava would provide storyboards and occasionally adjust lights and lenses, Terzano was largely in control of which takes would be printed.

[42] The final week of the shooting schedule was reserved for special effects work and tracking shots, for which Bava was able to use a dolly in one of the few occasions of his directorial career.

[44][46] To create the illusion of Asa's eyes regenerating within the sockets, a section of the character's tomb was built containing a hollow area under the mask, into which tomato soup and rice were used to simulate blood and maggots.

[47] When Javutich appears to materialize in front of Constantine, Dominici stood off-camera, and his reflection was bounced off a mirror onto a black section of Asa's painting.

Wrinkles were drawn on Steele's face with red grease pencil, while rouge was applied around her eyes and on her cheeks to make them appear sullen.

[47] Because Serandrei rarely worked as a writer, Lucas has suggested that his screenplay credit for Black Sunday indicates that his responsibilities went beyond cutting scenes together and that he helped Bava correct narrative flaws in post-production.

[47] An English-dubbed version of the film created for international export, titled The Mask of Satan, was translated from the Italian-language script, directed by George Higgins III and recorded in Rome with the English Language Dubbers Association (ELDA).

[5][51] In contrast to the embellishments of the ELDA version, Titra's dubbing was largely faithful to the cast's spoken dialogue, although some phrases were softened, such as Asa's line "You too can find the joy and happiness in Hades!"

[58] After being passed uncut by the Board of Censors, Black Sunday was theatrically released in Italy as La maschera del demonio on August 11, 1960, where it was distributed by Unidis.

[34] Its popularity influenced other Italian films, such as I motorizzati (1962), where Ugo Tognazzi plays an impressionable horror fan who is terrified of Black Sunday.

[60] In its initial release, Black Sunday was a double feature with films from smaller independent companies, such as the British comedy Carry On Nurse (1959) or Roger Corman's The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).

[58] A CD of the full score, remastered from the original two-track session tapes sourced from MGM's archives, was released in May 2011 by Kritzerland in a limited edition run of 1000 copies.

[71] This version, copyrighted in 2000, was supervised by Bava associate Alfredo Leone of International Media Films as a means of preventing the film from falling into the public domain; it features new, red-colored credit titles in place of the original credits, a newly-recorded opening narration, and cues from Baxter's score for Baron Blood that play over scenes that originally lacked music.

"[74] A review in Time declared the film to be "a piece of fine Italian handiwork that atones for its ludicrous lapses with brilliant intuitions of the spectral.

He also noted the "beautifully composed chiaroscuro cinematography, expressionistic set design and art direction and the grotesquely appealing makeup lend the film a distinct atmosphere; this is cinema at its most grandiose and rich, brimful of high-flown imagery.

It appeared in a reader's choice poll conducted by Fangoria of the ten greatest horror films made before 1970, where it tied for number seven with Fisher's Dracula.

[63] In 1989, Lamberto Bava directed a made-for-television film also titled La maschera del demonio; this was not a remake of Black Sunday, but an adaptation of Gogol's story in a contemporary setting.

[86] Tim Burton most prominently used imagery from the film in Sleepy Hollow (1999), such as in the scene where Lisa Marie emerges from an iron maiden with her face punctured akin to Asa.

[88] The violence in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), which was released a week earlier than Black Sunday, was portrayed through suggestion, as its famous "shower scene" made use of fast cutting.

[22] This level of violence would later be seen in other Italian genre films, such as the Spaghetti Western and the giallo, including Bava's own Blood and Black Lace (1964) and the gialli of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.