I always thought that if there’s a gothic cinema in the way there’s gothic literature, then signor Bava’s Black Sunday had to be the prime example of such a thing. I have now discovered another contender for that crown, made in Mexico the year before. GodDAMN this is good. Director Fernando Mendez is someone I know nothing about beyond the bugger all that IMDB says, but apparently he was something of a pioneer in Mexican horror in the late 50s; his 1957 film The Vampire (which is now on its way to me from the good people at Indicator/Powerhouse) was apparently the first such film to depict a vampire with fangs. Otherwise I don’t know much else about him or any of the performers, but oh my; no vampires in this one but there is a sort of walking dead… the titular “black pit” is more metaphorical than actual, but Dr. Mazali certainly finds himself stuck in one. He’s made a pact with his fellow doctor, Aldana, whereby whichever one dies first promises to return to show the other what lies on the other side of death, but the other gets to come back alive. Such a simple plan, who could imagine anything going wrong with it or that there might be complicating factors? Well, the fact that Mazali oversees a mental institution might wind up being one of those… This is terrific stuff, beautifully filmed and full of atmosphere, leading to a bit of a fucking-hell climax, and along with Der Hund von Baskerville it might just be the best film I’ve seen for the first time in the Century of Cinema project so far. Let me end with some screen grabs from the blu-ray (click to expand to full size):
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