The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962)

This is a slow moving but moderately enjoyable Italian horror movie where the madness of the title character, obviously lingering under the surface from the beginning, finds its way to the outside when he returns home after a decade long absence after the death of his first wife with a brand new one. Robert Flemying is typically moody and mysterious as the title character, first seen performing experiments and giving wife Maria Teresa Vianello an injection of some kind when she starts to have convulsions and quickly dies. After a quick scream of guilt ridden grief, Flemying decides to depart, and returns only when he marries the much younger Barbara Steele who is quickly haunted by the mysterious presence she feels in the house, obviously orchestrated by the housekeeper (Harriet Medin) who claims that the screams they hear are from her demented sister whom she is having committed. Many shots are of Steele looking through a keyhole, seeing a strange figure in a dress just outside her door, but husband Flemying insists that it is her imagination. The real answer is obviously much more shocking than that, although I pretty much figured it out from the beginning and even knew from the experience of having seen dozens of these 1960's gothic horror films how it would conclude.The only real horror element is the thought of poor Barbara Steele being burnt alive while tied upside down, certainly psychologically hand wringing for a first time viewer, but for the most part, this film is extremely slow moving and often tedious. Steele, having played both evil witches and heroines in peril, was perfect for these second string Italian horror films, often photographed oddly with a mouth that in some shots appeared too long and eyes that could sparkle fear or ooze evil (especially in "Black Sunday"). It is obvious from the moment that Silvano Tranquilli appears on screen as a young doctor that Steele will quickly lose interest in her brooding, older husband and fall in love elsewhere, and fret over how to get out of that marriage. Certainly, there have been worse gothic horror films and some made on an even smaller shoe string budget, but had I seen this one before all the others of the same nature, I might have rated it a bit higher....but not much more.

The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962)*** (out of 4) Dr. Hitchcock (Robert Flemyng) administers a drug to his beautiful wife but he accidentally gives her too much, which causes her to overdose and die. The pain causes him to leave him home but years later he returns with his new wife Cynthia (Barbara Steele). It doesn't take too long for the new wife to start seeing and hearing mysterious things, which could be the dead wife.THE HORRIBLE DR. HITCHCOCK is a pretty good horror film from director Riccardo Freda who skips out on blood or graphic violence and instead delivers atmosphere and some great performances. The film became a pretty big hit when it was originally released and it continued to gain new fans as it showed up on American television. There are two different versions out there with the original Italian version running twelve-minutes longer than the American cut but it's the American version that is currently available on Blu-ray and is what I watched.For the most part this is a pretty good film that works perfectly in that "old dark house" way where we're given an innocent woman put into a dangerous situation and we're not quite sure what's going on. Is she losing her mind? Is her new husband playing sinister tricks? Has the dead wife returned? These are the questions that are asked throughout the picture and Freda keeps the film moving at a nice pace. There's no question that it's a well-made film that contains some beautiful cinematography as well as a nice music score. Freda builds up a very good and rich atmosphere that carries the picture to the end.Another major plus is the fact that the performances were so good. Flemyng is very good in the role of the husband because he plays it so perfectly down the middle that you can never tell what he's up to. Then you've got Steele who once again delivers a great performance as the wife who finds herself seeing ghosts and other strange objects. THE HORRIBLE DR. HITCHCOCK isn't a flawless movie but it's certainly an entertaining one.

We really learn a bit too much of Dr Hichcock and his unusual sexual practices until the 15th mark when the movie makes a real start with the eponymous doctor arriving at a county mansion with his new fiancé. For the next hour Ricardo Freda's movie seems to be doing a lot in two directions, Barbara Steele goes exploring the old mansion with a candelabra to find subterranean passages colored by turqoise filters, and Dr. Hichcock snoops around and is embarrassed to be discovered at night at the hospital he works trying to get his kicks on with one or the other buxom dead patient. Barbara Steele gets to faint a lot and there's a scene where the doctor goes out in the rain screaming the name of his dead wife. It's all very high strung and emphatic in the fashion of Gothic horror cinema and Robert Flemyng as Dr. Hichcock takes hilariously unsubtle facial expressions to indicate shock or suspicion or withdrawal. The sexual deviancy promised by the subject matter of necrophilia is largely absent, but some of the shocks are well timed and the sight of a ghastly old woman in a veil almost gave me the creeps, so this should bode well with the horror aficionado.

Gorgeously filmed, totally insane Gothic pastiche from Riccardo Freda holds its marvelously overwrought tone through to the fiery climax. At the center of it is Barbara Steele's Cynthia, the neurotic second wife of the eponymous Dr. Hichcock, who, from the second she arrives in her husband's creaky and apparently haunted mansion, is picturesquely threatened by the hostile maid, by a mysterious figure in white, purported to be the maid's sister, and by her own increasingly mad husband, who was already predisposed to pseudo-necrophilia, but who really starts to tip over the brink as he begins to believe his first wife has come back from the grave. It's all both lavish and ludicrous, and profits from Steele's incredible screen presence and the weight of its own images. Spectacular use of color, as well. Essential viewing.