Verdict
Summary
The trick with a good low budget horror film is to disguise all that with convincing elements that help you to ignore what breaks the illusion, and The Mask of Satan struggles with that. However, I did like the mood the film casts, and everything else about the film – particularly the plot, which I became invested in – works for me. So, the film is a win especially if you’re a connoisseur of Italian horror.
Plot:
Some skiers fall into a crevasse in the ice and unearth a witch frozen in the ice.
Review:
Several young couples are skiing, and a crack in the ice sends them all plummeting into a crevasse where they have no hope of climbing out. With one of them wounded, the group of skiers stumbles upon a strange block of ice where they start chipping away at it with their tools. They unearth a woman frozen in the ice with a radical looking mask that was drilled into her skull. When they get the mask off, right away, things start going a little sideways: The witch thaws out, the group starts acting a little “off,” and they stumble into a subterranean lair deep beneath the ice where an entire medieval village has been persevered for centuries and a blind man and a dog have been safeguarding the world from the witch’s evil. When the group fools around and spends the night as guests of the blind man, the witch transforms into her beautiful young self and seduces the men, hoping to magnify her evil and somehow escape from her frozen prison. As their numbers dwindle, the group and the blind man desperately try to trap the witch one last time, which means they have to drill the mask back onto her face!
From Italian horror genre stalwart Lamerto Bava, The Mask of Satan has an intriguing set-up and plot with the appropriate amount of gore, sexuality, and icky transformations (and some wacky puppetry), but where it falters is in its obvious low budget that isn’t necessarily the issue in itself, but there’s a lack of quality control that is blaringly apparent. The film is supposed to be set in a frozen and snowing locale, and all of the snow is obviously not snow but foamy soap bubbles, and close-ups show characters caked in soapy foam … which is very, very cheesy, for lack of a better term. Again, I can happily and gleefully ignore that, but then there are the moments when characters touch the rock walls, and you can see the flimsiness of the set as the actors interact with them. The trick with a good low budget horror film is to disguise all that with convincing elements that help you to ignore what breaks the illusion, and The Mask of Satan struggles with that. However, I did like the mood the film casts, and everything else about the film – particularly the plot, which I became invested in – works for me. So, the film is a win especially if you’re a connoisseur of Italian horror. Simon Boswell did the score.
Severin has just brought The Mask of Satan to Blu-ray, which marks its North American Blu-ray premier, and the 2K scan from the original camera negative is adequate, if not pristine. I like a transfer such as this, though, that doesn’t look “perfect” with its scratches and marks that make it feel organic rather than some computer filtered pristine transfer. The special features include an interview with Lamerto Bava, and two interviews with two of the actresses.
