Hooptober 11 #29

Black Sunday starts out like the perfect marriage between the classic Universal horror movies that came before it and the Italian horror wave that would follow. It has all the atmosphere and black-and-white beauty of an old Universal film with the more extreme content of its Italian descendants. The first thirty minutes are pretty much perfect. It's all atmosphere. And that atmosphere is wonderful. The gloomy sets, the black and white photography, the slowly panning camera movement. It's all brilliant.

As the movie continues, though, it can't keep up with that extremely good start. The cinematography, set design and production design all remain sublime throughout, but character and dialogue become more central later on in the film. Unfortunately, the acting and writing are not up to snuff with the technical aspects of the film. The technical aspects are the stars and so the comparatively poor writing and acting do not ruin the movie, but they lessen its impact.