blacksunday

The Monsters I Grew Up With

The Story Behind This Face

Barbara Steele

as Princess Asa in

Black Sunday

1960

Directed by: Mario Bava

Condemned in the 1600's as a Witch and grusomely executed,
she returns from the grave to massacre her family survivors,
including her look alike desendant.

This is a true story of this movie and how it stayed in my mind for such a long time.
Recently I joined a Halloween message board that has proven to be just wonderful. I knew I would be happy there because these folks celebrate the hoilday year round. I had been lurking in there for quite sometime before actually joining.

I think hesitation came from the fact that they all seemed so creative in their building techniques and I seem to be more a person serching for ideas, so I wondered if I would have anything to offer.

In looking at the members names and such I came across this photo:

A photo I vividly remember from many, many years ago. A movie that O seemed to have searched for a lifetime. I never forgot the wonderful memories
that went along with this movie. It was a time when I was 8 or 9 years old, mind you that was 40 years ago. One night our dear friend Martha Siska's daughter was babysitting for me and her little sister, Pammy. We were alone in the house just and me and her and her younger sister that was 4 years younger than me.

We were watching tv in the tv roomon their black and white set. Those were the days when you had a front room that no one sat in mainly because you had those uncomfortable plastic covers that were on your couches and chairs and you always took your shoes off when you went in there.....But....the front room had a COLOR tv and we started to watch this horrible movie and decided to not touch a thing but to go and watch it in color.

It was the weekend so we could stay up late and just around 10pm my Mother arrived to pick me up. Well the three of us were so scared to death after this movie got started, so Donna asked my Mom if she could stay until her folks got home from their evening out. There we sat......all 4 of us screamimg watching this movie.

At one point when they were in the middle of some heavy screams the back door flew open and in came Martha screaming at the top of her lungs and she was yelling......"What are you guys doin in the front room?" I'll never forget it as long as I live the fun we had that night and it was my first introduction to a real horror film.

I never knew the name of the movie and for a life time never saw it again until
a few weeks ago when I saw that photo in the new message board. I was reading some of the past entries and came across someone inquiring about her profile picyure and she did not know anything about the picture other than just seeing it somewhere and liking it.

Oh I recognized those big sores on her face immediately!!!! lol!! At that given moment I was a girl with a mission. I knew that with access to the Internet now,
I could probably some how find that movie even without a clue of anything about it. Took about 2 weeks and the luck of coming across some web sites
that had horror films listed by name and the year they were made.

I was thrilled to find this and I owe it to , the gal who had this photo on her profile. It was a lot of years to wonder about something that just seemed to stick in your mind! Sure brought back a lot of good memories. This is where my experience with horror movies that scare the beejeebers out of you started.