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Released by: Severin Films
Released on: November 26th, 2024.
Director: Lamberto Bava
Cast: Mary Sellers, Debora Caprioglio, Michele Soavi
Year: 1989
Purchase From Severin Films
Mask Of Satan – Movie Review:
Also known as Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil, Lamberto Bava’s Mask Of Satan (not to be confused with Mario Bava’s Mask Of Satan, also known as Black Sunday, made in 1960) opens with a group of young adults - Alexandra (Mary Sellers), Nora (Alessandra Bonarotta), Irma (Laura Devoti), Bebo (Michele Soavi), Andrea (Stefano Molinari) and Sergio (Ron Williams), Sabina (Deborah Capriogli, who was at one point married to Klaus Kinski, the poor woman, in fact she’s credited as Deborah Kinski in the film!) and David (Giovanni Guidelli) - up in the mountains enjoying a ski trip. This is late eighties Italy, so everyone is dressed in garish colors and most of the women have big hair.
At any rate, one of the women on the trip, Sabina, hurts her leg. Around the same time, one of the guys from the group finds a corpse frozen in the snow and, if that weren’t odd enough, said corpse has a metal mask covering its face. They decide to try and remove the mask but as they do, there’s a bit of an earthquake and a giant icicle falls down and impales one of the guys.
Somehow, Sabina’s leg gets better so everyone splits and they hide out in an old church they run across, which at first appears to be abandoned. They cruise through the church and, on the other side, find a small town whose only inhabitants are a weird old priest (Stanko Molnar) who keeps a wolf as a pet. The priest explains that when they removed the mask from the corpse in the mountains, they inadvertently resurrected a witch named Anibas (Eva Grimaldi). Cue the requisite flashbacks showing us what happened to Anibas and then cut back to the present day where everyone aside from Sabina and nice guy Sabina and David, the only virgins in the group, becomes possessed by evil and tries to kill the two leads who spend the rest of the movie trying not to get killed by the possessed creatures that were once their friends.
This one starts off strong and ends fairly well, but in the middle stretch, the movie could have used some trimming. Light on gore but high on garish colors, Mask Of Satan is a bit on the predictable side but it’ll entertain less demanding fans of the later era of the Italian horror movie boom. The use of color in the movie is impressive, with plenty of bold primary hues integrated into the visuals, especially in the last half of the movie, but those expecting the over the top gore of the first two Demons movies that Bava directed may be disappointed that things don’t go nearly as far in this entry.
Still, there’s entertainment value to be had here, even if this isn’t a classic per se. Deborah Capriogli looks great here and we get a little bit of sexiness worked into the story which helps things. The makeup effects aren’t half bad at all and Simon Boswell contributes a score that, if not his best work, suits the tone of the movie well. The sets look really big and this was clearly pretty ambitious from the production standpoint, while the snowy exteriors add some welcome atmosphere to the proceedings. There isn’t much in the way of character development here and there are some pretty big logic gaps (how did Sabina’s leg just all of a sudden get better?) but the movie’s visuals are strong.
Mask Of Satan – Blu-ray Review:
NOTE: As this review is based on an online screener provided by Severin Films for review purposes, the technical portion and the extras review for this release will is not complete. If/when finished product is made available, we’ll update this review accordingly.
The stream offered for review presents the movie in a 1080p high definition transfer, framed at 1.66.1, while the UHD would, obviously, be an AVC encoded transfer “scanned in 4K from the original camera negative.” Ignoring the compression of the stream provided for review, the picture quality here is nice, with the colors really popping (when the green lighting kicks in you’ll really notice it!). Skin tones are fine and black levels are decent.
Audio chores on the stream are handled by an Italian language 2.0 Mono track with optional subtitles in English. The finished product should also include a Spanish language track 2.0 Mono track. The quality of the audio is quite good, with the track offering up clear and concise dialogue and properly balanced levels.
Extras slated for this release include:
-The Curse Of The Mask – Interview With Director Lamberto Bava
-Una Americana A Roma – Interview With Actress Mary Sellers
-Sabina The Teenage Witch – Interview With Actress Debora Caprioglio
Mask Of Satan – The Final Word:
Lamberto Bava’s Mask Of Satan is an entertaining slice of late eighties Italian horror that, if not a top tier genre effort, holds our attention pretty easily throughout its running time. It’s a good looking movie with some impressive design work, a few fun performances and a wacky demon sex scene – you could do a lot worse!