Bava Book Featured on New Bava DVD

Isn't this a great picture of Luigi Cozzi and Lamberto Bava posing with MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK at the world-famous Profondo Rosso store? Ah, but it isn't a picture! It's actually a frame grab from a 9m interview featurette included on a new Italian "Special Edition" DVD of I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA (aka BLACK SABBATH), the first-ever release from a new company called Sinister Film. The book sits in front of them for the whole 9m, and sometimes gets opened to share glimpses of the chapter devoted to this classic horror anthology, starring Boris Karloff.

The disc is Italian-language only, but the extras are certain to tempt hardcore Bava fans. There is an impeccable anamorphic transfer of the Italian version; a lively feature-length audio commentary by Lamberto and Luigi (unlike his earlier laconic commentaries, here an enthusiastic Lamberto almost never stops talking!); a 38m documentary utilizing Bava TV interviews to "comment" on scenes from various films; 15m of "deleted" scenes taken from the American BLACK SABBATH version; photo and poster galleries; a 16-page illustrated booklet containing testimonials from the likes of Jacques Tourneur, Riccardo Freda, Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Pupi Avati and many others; and some additional featurettes ported over from VCI's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE disc, including interviews with actors Cameron Mitchell and Mary Dawne Arden and composer Carlo Rustichelli.

Where can you find it? I got mine at Bloodbuster, a reliable Italian DVD website that takes PayPal. It took a couple of weeks to reach me, but it was worth the wait.

And that's not all the happy news about this Bava classic I have to share. David Sehring, the head of Dish Network's Monsters HD channel, has written to tell me that BLACK SABBATH -- the film's much-coveted, never-on-DVD, English-language version -- will be making its high-definition debut on Monsters HD sometime this summer!