DAILY CALL SHEET: AUGUST 19, 2026

Black Sunday (1960) Sentenced to death for being a witch/vampire/all around nasty person, Princess Asa Vajda of Moldavia has a mask full of spikes hammered into her face. A couple of hundred years later, some doctors visiting the country accidentally release Asa from her tomb. They also meet Asa's doppelganger descendant Katia, who invite the two men to stay at her family's castle. One of the doctors becomes smitten with Katia, but Asa has her own designs for the young woman. If she can just get past all the dang crucifixes around the castle, Asa plans to steal Katia's youth to restore her own vitality. The movie is historically significant for horror fans as it's both the first directorial effort from Mario Bava and the film that made an international star out of Barbara Steele. Even without that stuff, though, Black Sunday is just a classic gothic romp.

 

Back in the day in Germany, the fifth Sunday of Lent, these days usually referred to as Passion Sunday or Judica Sunday, was then called Schwarzer Sonntag, or Black Sunday. This name came from the medieval custom of placing black veils on all the crucifixes, statues, and images in churches at the start of Passiontide. The veils are a liturgical sign of mourning, hiddenness, and longing, representative of Christ withdrawing and hiding his glory as the Passion approaches. Only when He rises on easter do the veils come off. While not as widespread as it used to be, you can still find various parishes continuing the custom to this day.

 

Cujo (1983) Both Donna Trenton's marriage and automobile are on the rocks. With her husband leaving town for a business trip, she can't do anything about the marriage at the moment, but the car she can take to their usual mechanic Joe, who lives and works on the outskirts of town. The problem is Joe's St. Bernard, Cujo, who has always been a sweetheart in the past, has recently contracted rabies and chewed Joe into pieces. Naturally, Donna's Ford Pinto finally gives up the ghost as she's pulling into Joe's driveway, so she and her young son Tad are soon at the mercy of Cujo, who makes his presence known quite adamantly. If the pair stay in the car, they'll suffocate in the rapidly rising heat. If they try to make it inside, slobbering death waits right outside the car door. What to do? Some of the early scenes without the dog are a bit of a slog, but once it becomes Jaws with a collar, the movie becomes one of the more enjoyable Stephen King horror adaptations.

 

A lot of the Saints were fond of dogs. St. Augustine, of course, considered them from a catechetical p[perspective, noting, "For even some dogs have been reproved by the Prophet Isaiah, not because they were dogs, but because they knew not how to bark, and loved to sleep. In which place indeed he hath shown, that if they had watched and barked for their Lord, they would have been praiseworthy dogs: just as they are praised, of whom is said, ‘The tongue of Thy dogs." St. Basil the Great's assessment was a little more personal, saying, "Does not the gratitude of the dog shame all who are ungrateful to their benefactors? Many are said to have fallen dead by their murdered masters in lonely places. Others, when a crime has just been committed, have led those who were searching for the murderers." The Desert Father Abba Xanthios was perhaps the most direct, quipping, “A dog is better than I am, for he has love and he does not judge.”