Cinematographer-director Mario Bava (1914-1980), "Maestro of the Macabre," was a supreme stylist whose niche-horror, from witchcraft and "neo-mythologicals" to blob monsters-was transcended by "sinuous camerawork, moody pacing, and delirious mise-en-sc?ne" (New York Film Forum retrospective tribute). Black Sunday, based on Gogol, "investigates with a restless, moving camera the 'hour of the wolf,' that time of morning when dream and reality are interwoven inextricably. His landscapes are like Dante's 'dark woods'-shadowy, deserted, mist-filled. His interiors are exaggerated, Baroque-decaying castles, cobwebbed mausoleums, somnolent villages...(A) sorceress returns to possess the body of a young girl (both played...by the regal, cadaverous Barbara Steele); (a) young hero braves the perils of evil and illusion. Upon these bare crickety bones Bava weaves his tapestry of nightmares. Ambiguity reigns supreme...." (James Ursini)