Bava rose fully formed from the brimstone with Black Sunday, his first devilishly atmospheric feature, about a centuries–old curse. In a landscape of crepuscular mist and crumbling buildings, the townsfolk gather to pass judgment on the damnable sorceress, Asa, played with wicked sensuality by Barbara Steele. Just before her torture with a spike–lined mask, the witch swears vengeance upon all those assembled. For two centuries, this curse lies like a crushing but contained weight upon this creaky corner of Moldavia, that is until two strangers happen upon the entombed corpse of Princess Asa. With dark delight, Bava creates a setting of grotesquely ornate decay-fog laces through collapsing cathedrals and dim passageways shelter evil. An accursed past everywhere infuses the story with its inescapable affliction. Eerie and illusory, Black Sunday puts flesh back on the rotting corpse of time.