BLACK SABBATH
(I Tre Volti Della Paura/The Three Faces of Fear, 1963; d. Mario Bava, w. Alberto Bevilacqua + Marcello Fondato)

THE TELEPHONE rings while camera inventories lush modern apartment (alarm in unoccupied unconscious [below ground level]: message trying to get thru [emphasized in resequenced US version, w/ next story also beginning w/ phone call to solitary woman]) to constant ticking on sdtrk (heartbeat: drama interior; cf wind + howl in next WURDULAK, drip in DROP OF WATER, as of insistent conscience), alighting on bed/pillows (issue psychosexual); stylish Rosy arrives home (animated material emerging

into consciousness: sophisticated fem ideal 2B neutralized; name color of phone: "voice" w/i) before catching call (intuition arriving avant la lettre) but answers next one a minute later (no one there: info coming closer to awareness but not yet clear, welling up like Black Sunday eyes), again soon after (WHO? "You’ll know right before you die": 1 – revelation will kill/resolve her [she complex w/ which mind wrestling] + 2 – realization of Self at point of death), caller going to kill her (1 – "he" psychic force that will void/negate her sense of self + 2 – Self eliminating facet of self) because she’s beautiful (desire to suppress source of arousal).

R-R-RINGs again as she prepares for bed (now threatening revenge: impulsive alarm-ring of conscience seeking similar retribution), followed by footfalls around apartment (guilt zeroing in), so she plugs keyhole + kills lights (mind entering deeper level of sleep-isolation [cf similar DROP actions twd end]) + hides valuables (R-R-RING: "You don’t get it, do you?" – conscious self clinging to irrelevant physical-material reality in face of own extinction); replays footsteps (mind repeating self till she "gets it") to now find envelope slotted under door (information coming in despite w/drawal sleeping mind receiving stimuli it increasingly unable to deal w/; also, intrusion not of being, again, but knowing): news clipping FRANK RAYNER HAS ESCAPED (annihilating animus emerged from repression [R-R-RING: "I’m very close to you," ie facet of self] + sequestered consciousness threatening peaceful dream [heralded by alarm-like bell]; for male filmmakers, chronicle of adolescent eclipsing of own fem qualities by dominating masculine personality).

Rosy calls (ex-)friend Mary (split-off part of RoseMary unity: psyche seeking wholeness) + asks her to come over (reintegrating w/ past aka regressing), when R-R-RING (hanging up on Mary-Mommy yields contact w/ "Frank" self), camera this time following phone cord (umbilical connection: to Rose, Frank, or) to Mary! on other end (horror of vestigial fem behind "killer" masc + revelation of self against Self) asserting "By dawn you will be dead" (she again psychic material 2B resolved by dream); M arrives (film restarting, supplied now w/ new information: terrorized not by animus but by jilted anima-part of self [threat to male filmmakers of negative implications of mother-separation], "revenge" not for locking up masculine energy but for rejecting fem) + insinuates Frank ("an exploiter…" aka pimp – the Father holding sexual possession over the Mother; Mary/vestigial fem-self’s jealousy over supercession by masc’y) wrongfully ratted out by R (betrayal o/t son by the Sexual Mother, she also agent of repression of impending maturity; "…not a killer" – animus victim of bad rap, "he" also possessed of positive aspects).

Mary puts knife under Rosy’s pillow (threatening dream 2B ultimately empowering, and phallus in R’s unconscious) + tranquilizer in tea (reciprocal "weakness" that will lead her to use "strength": inhibiting defenses in order to pull mind down to deeper level of sleep, where issue can resolve itself) before both go to bed (re-unified, as anima + originating mother [2 fem aspects of face-in-envelope that is deepest, secreted Self]); transom reveals night-into-dawn (awareness seeping into mind à la calls + envelope), Mary at desk writing confession (calls ruse to get back w/ Rosy: escape of alleged unbridled masculine threat yielding compensatory return of fem mother-force [Cliff’s Notes version of West post-WWII…and pre-WTC]) as door opens (Real Deal finally entering conscious theater from most-repressed prison-unconscious) + Frank (returning consc’ss + concept of negative animus made flesh – or, archetype embodied by dreaming mind, called forth to enact penultimate twist necessary to foil ego-defenses + bring about convulsive personality change) mistakenly strangles her (first eliminating mother-img, she choking on own placenta: poetic justice for deceitful [not-the-]mother) before R wakes ("Always where you shdn’t be" unconsciousness making last stand) + knifes him dead (ironic recipient of brunt of M’s threats: her animus driving story, his trumping hers + resolving it; ie, manifest [surface reading of dream] content regressive desire to restore wholeness of inner + outer fem-selves [reconciling psyche w/ world] on adolescent emergence of dominant masculine self-img, latent [deeper, underlying meaning] equally regressive urge to stop emergence altogether, as illustrated by closing pan [restating opening one] from R in bed [sexuality] to dead Frank ["arrested" development] to phone [off hook: separated from womb-red "cradling" mother/hips tho still umbilically attached] to Mary[Mommy – also dead: Frank also incest-threatening Daddy who must be eliminated from equation so daughter can separate own i.d. from mother’s + establish independent selfhood]).

THE WURDULAK Camera surveys landscape (à la 1st story apartment: still interior), broken by hero horseman (dominant personality – ego "driving" body awa narrative) who follows corpse-carrying stray horse (sleeping self on random canter thru mindscape) to river (bloodstream/connection), where body discovered (à la Sunday’s similar horseman, there found by pubescent peasant girl: hero same virginnocent) knifed + headless (disembodied dreamer [à la similarly stabbed PHONE Frank]: self’s

distressing recognition of own incapacitated condition); removes dagger (symbolically reinvigorating Self à la similar removing-stake-from-vampire beginnings: mind reviving into dream-state) + guides horse/corpse to middle-of-nowhere house (dream theater, he drawn there by unconscious homing device [vs literal call of framing stories]) he finds unoccupied (soon to be populated by psychic dramatis personæ family: interrelated issues forming complex he there to help resolve), w/ dagger outline on wall (à la Kirlian photograph: spiritual-psychological "imprint" on unconscious, which he fills in) next to 2nd, real knife (img + reality/archetype + embodiment, à la headless corpse [similarly defined by "absence"] + hero).

Introduces self to occupant Giorgio ("Count Vladimir d’Urfe" aristocratic superego soon to meet nihilistic id; "headed for Gersy" never-reached destination to which he frequently refers: maturity, where he deigns to marry homeowner’s daughter), who tells him knife belonged to father Gorka (daggers on wall à la traditional sword/gun over lintel – symbol of rule of patriarchy) + identifies corpse as Alibeq, "Turkish criminal" + wurdulak (confusion/conflation of vampire w/ other scourge à la Sunday: both adversarial satanic Other [loathed, disavowed body]); ravishing blonde Giorgio sis Sdenka feeds Val while brunette Gio-wife Maria feeds son (Sdenka not-the-mother [psychological construct bridging mommy’s desirability w/ lover’s permissibility] transit out of family romance) + Gio tells Val he shd leave before feared father returns (à la previous story’s crook: mind continually fending off consciousness so dream may continue, ultimate goal of which to unite w/ luscious, absorbing unconscious anima-Other), he staying to woo blonde (at risk of self-annihilation, attraction of un/consciousness as that of egg to spermatozoa – eternal threat of femininity to male ego).

Father left to kill Alibeq (Self on quest to rid self of parasitic violent facet of personality/male character, "escaped" in opening story) 5 days ago (work week: purpose of labor restraining animal instinct), specifying he 2B stabbed in heart (appeal to emotions if intellect unfruitful – cf similar off-switches in Golem + Colossus of NY) if gone longer (limited time period à la sleep cycle, termination of father à la dream-consciousness), else he become wurdulak ("bloodthirsty corpses" – reanimated body à la dreamer in sleep – who "yearn for the blood of those they loved most when they were alive" [again, à la TELEPHONE menace]: 1 – drama to resolve Family Romance left "dangling" at end of last story + 2 – vampires dream itself feeding off of "relative" dayworld imgry), his time up at midnight (transitional moment à la adolescence); CHIME! (à la PHONE ring) brings figure across bridge (à la midnight-hour conduit – btwn un/consciousness awa developmental states), of old man (impending adulthood) no one will embrace (he ethereal, metaphoric, à la 30-yrs-previous Boris Mummy) + howling dog dsn’t recognize (mind alienated from body, as he/animus/civilized man from own vicious potential [+ effect of same] "Behind Blue Eyes") as Gorka (Self become not-self in ambiguous dream), w/ wound in heart (already dead: maturity to which Val will never accede).

Inside (threatening material accepted into – as part of – personality, soon 2B rejected as other), demands Giorgio shoot noisy dog (conscience – again, vide TELEPHONE ring + DROP drip – and still-restless body [never seen: vestige, after initial separation from head]), which he does at moment Gorka fondles grandson Ivan (1: familial affection quieting animal instincts; 2: paradox of humanity, that compassion coexists w/ violence; 3: boy’s psychic [off-camera: non-physical] separation from savage ancestral img), then produces proof of killing Alibeq – his head (dreamer’s shock-realization of own condition + recognition that unity/possibility of reconnection [crossing over/back] truly severed; reason dog howled he smelled noggin: intuition trying to warn hapless ego-consciousness), which he also demands be posted outside as testament (to mind’s detachment/isolation, warding off unwanted outside stimuli/interference; also serving to identify personality in whose mind drama taking place).

Val tosses + turns while family discusses father (mind troubling over hereditary masculine i.d.) + Gorka appears in window/at bedside/back outside (dreamer’s shifting perspective + ego’s grappling over association w/ repellant [mature] img) before entering front door (inevitability of integration) + absconding w/ Ivan (entry of adult "stealing" childhood); wakes Giorgio, who finds brother Pietro vamped (proof father wurdulak: consciousness crossed into unconsciousness, throwing mind into riot; also, irrefutability of archetypal masc malignancy [left up to question in last story]) + takes off after dad (too-late effort to rein in rapacious masc/y + adult self-img), returning instead w/ dead son (irretrievable innocence).

Val leads Sdenka out (leaving house breaking from disintegrating family/al ties) + buried Ivan returns (atavistic impulse at decisive moment), mother stabbing Gio to let him in (anima disengaging ego-consciousness in order to permit threatening material in à la PHONE Mary tranq’ing Rosy) + finding in doorway instead – Gorka (regressiveness tied in w/ fear-some face of adult masculinity [ripened negative animus], triggered by sexual attraction) – as couple rides off together (sexual metaphor) to convent ruins (forsaken virginity) complete w/ nun corpse (à la Planet o/t Vampires’ skeletal navigator); while they sleep (psychic union [again, cf TELEPHONE’s same] – final dissolution o/t ego into the Other before reformulating self), Gorka lures Sdenka out (reiterating minutes-earlier Val + Sd: mature self-img now in pwr) + she saves Val by succumbing to family (ego secured by yielding anima back to unconscious; all occurring while V sleeps, ie in his subconscious), he waking to her scream + closing door (alarm at lost youth).

Val returns to house (working way back from unconscious depths), where he finds Sdenka in her bedroom (Gorka’s bite literalizing alluded-to sexualization of horse-ride + sleeptogether) + pledges preference of death over separation (triumph of regressiveness); 1st horrified by her "Baccia mi" (shock o/t sexual fem + of bringing dream-metaphor into reality), soon entranced (ego succumbed to allure o/t lowerclass unconsc), kisses her (immersion in the Other) as camera reveals Mother, Ivan + Gorka in window (3 generations totality of his absorption into eternal archetypal [framing à la icon] continuum; final dissolution, also, of masculine into feminine personality till last movie-scene [ego absented so deepest-darkest unconsc revelation may surface], reordered American version detailing instead unsuccessful mvmt out of dream, from uterine DROP to emergent PHONE to hapless WURD).

THE DROP OF WATER Middle-aged nurse Miss Chester alone in dingy apartment (pulsating blue light outside visual equivalent of later title nuisance, both cool – vs warm orange – uterine-interior aka dankness o/t unregenerate womb/tomb), disturbed by phone call (film coming full circle to restate opening intuition informed now by intervening intelligence) to come to administer to dead Countess (cf last-story Count: what wd’ve become of Sdenka if she’d escaped w/ Val, elapsed time non-REM sleep

where ego subsumed into unconsciousness till re-emerging renewed, reconfigured + advanced), recently cranked Victrola winding down on her departure (ebbing life à la light outside teardrop-shaped window: leaving for shadow realm); housemaid lets her in (moaning feline under chandelier Countess’s soul-familiar – lament of enormous neglected womb-estate full of cats + dolls) + takes her to frightmasked corpse (original film-title allusion to both cause awa victims of fear [1 + same in ambiguous unconscious], all 3 cameo’d in climactic WURDULAK window) whose only friends/relatives (end of family line the consciousness also winding down) "ones who made the table shake" (ie ghosts/memory, cut to tarot table indicating she "medium" btwn death/life, un/consc, fe/male now gone, worlds/distinctions free to intermingle; shock on seeing her also nurse’s horror at death of own connection to the spiritual), she having died in trance during séance (dreamer already unconscious at beginning of story and dream itself – psychic device thru which spirits/unconsc speak).

Miss C zooms in on ring on finger (yonic fetish bejeweled femininity: misplaced focus on dead materialism over living maternity [filmmaker’s cautionary fable on misuse of "medium"]; Countess "as the doctor left her," ie as God made her – intact) while in next room loosened lamp cord (cf chandelier + pooped-out Victrola: entire drooping film-universe) drops down to funerary dress (perverse erotic attraction btwn inanimate objects [including shroud laid out like wedding dress] nearly yielding burn: mind nearly immolating self w/ repressed desire in firetrap unconscious); tips waterglass while stealing ring (drip like hourglass counting time till retribution, ring uroborus linking their lives) then repeatedly closes eyes + swats fly off Countess’s hand (winged soul soon to bedevil her, eyes unblinking conscience).

Back in her room (absence of shots outside/in-transit meaning occurring on different planes of same mental location, Countess’s home the "dead" unconscious [séances also communication w/t Other, "real" world] to which psyche goes to uncover iconic/archetypal img-material to present to consciousness via dream [nurse a secondary medium + midwife to death/unconsc]), placing ring on finger provokes fly attack (nuisance soul disturbing materialistic complacency) + drop of faucet/tub/umbrella (both menstrual + amniotic fluids [drip as of neglected "plumbing"], "broken water" producing horrific offspring); secures window just before pwr outage (à la PHONE heroine’s similar actions: mind w/drawing into deepest isolation) + sees Countess arising from bed (horror-img of crone-self out of both unconsc place of rest + location of [non-]sexual activity; filmmaker’s moment, as well, when dead "medium" takes on life of own), in rocker (disappearance à la WURD Gorka from waking Val, undead fem righteous vengeance-seeker vs he + PHONE Frank: just unconsc/anima vs unjust consc’ss/animus) + approaching upright (coming to reclaim yoni menopausal woman [turning off taps]’s admission of post-fecundity – hourglass water-drip biological clock), driving her to self-strangulation (time up for her/unconsc at climax of dream, vision of grasping old wmn img/recognition to which whole drama leading [cf PHONE’s "You’ll know who [you are] right before you die"]).

Next day, detectives (returning masculine conscious "authorities") observe to similarly aged landlady (closed circle of ring roundelay of unregenerate wmn/anima) how Miss C had prepared nightgown for bed (in similar fashion to Countess-shroud: "dead" sleep/sexuality + subconscious connection btwn wmn), ’lady shooting suspicious look on their noting empty, wrenched ring-finger (misplaced sexual jealousy further closing circle); buzz + drip heralds cops’ turning of Miss’s death-face to her, acknowledgment again of own panic + shock at unregenerate end (cf Psycho; all, presumably, sharing Countess’s end-of-family-line status), final title Volta at last fused w/ its supernatural progenitor (à la Sunday’s climactic blending of i.d.’s + Lisa [and the Devil]’s turned-to-puppet demise, all describing artist’s ecstatic-horrific dissolution of own i.d, with/into art).