Anyone trying to keep track of Italian horror films in the late '80s had to untangle a lot of perplexing titles that may or may not have been made for television, often with gore levels that made it impossible to figure out where they were intended to screen and a home video release in the U.S. almost always out of reach. Lamberto Bava had more than his share of these mystery productions, and one that seemed to be far too good for its immediate slip into oblivion was 1989's La maschera del demonio, whose Italian title indicates a remake of his father Mario's pioneering horror classic, Black Sunday. The film itself is a lot trickier to pin down as it offers a modernized remix of elements from the original film (namely the legendary scene of a witch's face getting impaled with a metal mask), its literary source Viy by Nikolai Gogol, and the set piece-driven mania of Lamberto's Demons films and Michele Soavi's The Church. The credentials here are top notch including a cast of familiar Eurocult faces, plentiful and inventive special effects overseen by the great Sergio Stivaletti, and a highly effective score by Simon Boswell. Unfortunately the timing was way off, and it was barely seen at all until a 1992 VHS popped up in Japan in Italian with Japanese subtitles. That source ended up on the VHS gray market right away, with eventual fan-subtitled copies replacing it a few years later. The film remained something of an underground secret though, usually circulating as The Devil's Veil or, not surprisingly, Demons 5: The Devil's Veil. In 2025, Severin Films finally gave Bava's neglected film its due with the first legit English-friendly release of any kind as a special edition Blu-ray under the title The Mask of Satan, thus filling in a significant missing slot in the director's filmography.

During an afternoon skiing on vacation, eight friends are trapped when a crevasse opens up in the ice and injures one of them, Sabina (Paganini's Caprioglio, a.k.a. Debora Kinski at the time). The de facto leader of the group, Davide (Fiorile's Guidelli), and the others including Alessandra (StageFright's Sellers) and Bebo (Soavi himself) come upon a frozen body wearing a metal mask which they remove by hacking away at the ice. They quickly learn this was a very bad idea as they end up in a gigantic underground temple whose only human inhabitant in the chasm, a blind albino priest (A Blade in the Dark's Molnar), initiates a flashback showing how the infamous witch Anibas (Rat Man's Grimaldi) was executed on the site. Soon everyone inside the icy cavern is being influenced by the witch's revived presence, with the intruders seeming to die and come back to life among other uncanny occurrences.

Though the general approach here is similar to the "trap folks in a single setting and have random horrific things happen" (a la Ghosthouse, Witch Story, Killing Birds, etc.), The Mask of Satan distinguishes itself with plenty of visual style including a great, expansive set, an evocative snowy atmosphere, and splashy, colorful lighting that really goes berserk in the final stretch. It's odd seeing Guidelli in here since the still-busy actor is better known for prestige films like Night of the Shooting Stars and Where Angels Fear to Tread, but he's perfectly fine here as our very confused hero who ends up participating in one of the craziest sex scenes in Italian horror history. Surprisingly this also ends up being a more faithful take on Viy as well with the climax offering its own spin on the "watch over a dead witch on her tomb" idea, spiced up with some flashy '80s effects and a lot more skin.

After languishing in oblivion for decades, The Mask of Satan looks gorgeous here on Blu-ray with a fresh 2K scan from the negative that brings out some astonishing color schemes you'd never imagine from the earlier bootlegs. The DTS-HD MA Italian and Spanish 2.0 mono tracks here are fine (the first option sounds better) with English-translated subtitle options for either; the film was very obviously shot in English based on the actors' lip movements, but apparently an English sound mix was never created. In "The Curse of the Mask (37m6s), Lamberto Bava goes into his intentions behind his own take on the story despite his distaste for remakes and sequels, the Spanish-based TV series about witchcraft that led to this production getting off the ground at Mediaset, the process of putting together the studio set, and the unworthy fate awaiting as soon as it was finished. In "Una Americana a Roma" (12m29s), Sellers chats about being a transplanted New Yorker in Italy thanks to Fabrizio Laurenti, the process of getting acclimated to the language, and her career in a wide range of productions including her breakthrough role for Soavi and her harmonious work with Lamberto Bava and Joe D'Amato (and less so with Umberto Lenzi). Finally "Sabina The Teenage Witch" (11m54s) -- yes, that's actually the title -- Caprioglio looks back at being discovered by Klaus Kinski, the elaborate nature of the makeup effects on this film that took hours-long sessions, and her subsequent starring role in Tinto Brass' Paprika.

Reviewed on March 7, 2025

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