Tonight I watched a weird and creepy little film called "The Terror of Dr. Hichcock" (1962), directed by a guy named Riccardo Freda. It was made in Italy, using English lead actors who appear to be speaking Italian, or attempting to, because the dialogue is clearly dubbed. Usually I avoid movies like this, as 97% of them range from bad to terrible (think Roger Corman goes to Italy), but as I was scanning the racks at West Valley Libe, something on the dvd box caught my eye. The movie was released by a company called Sinister Cinema, which you can think of as being on the same level, quality wise, as Alpha Video, the company we have dubbed the "anti-Criterion". Sinister Cinema does a public service by releasing on dvd old forgotten horror films, many of them made overseas and all of them likely past their copyright expiration date. As with Alpha Video, you are not gonna get a restoration with Sinister Cinema, and the picture quality is only gonna be "watchable" at best, but what you will get is a movie that might've slipped past your radar, but which could have some redeeming value, some aspect that will hold your attention.
"Dr. Hichcock" proved to be such a film.
When we first see the good doctor (played by an actor named Robert Flemyng), he is standing in a cemetery. The setting is London in the year 1885, a few years before Jack the Ripper. Ol' Jack doesn't have anything on Dr. Hichcock, though, because the Doc is quite a sicko. He's in the cemetery, right as the movie starts, and the first thing he does is to hit a gravedigger in the head with a blunt instrument. It's the middle of the night, because as you know that is the time when graves are dug, haha. So, just as the digger is shoveling out the last few spadefuls of dirt, Doc Hichcock knocks him on the head and opens the casket the digger was preparing to bury.
I must interject here to ask that the squeamish or easily shocked among you please drop out for a moment. Have you covered your eyes? Okay, thanks.
I mean, in light of the things we hear about in today's world, what I am about to describe is not that shocking, but on second thought - it is.
Dr. Hichcock is a necrophiliac, and after he opens the coffin, in which a beautiful young woman lies in repose, he proceeds to feel her up. Again, what we actually see onscreen is "not that shocking", but then again......maybe it is. There's no nudity, and the camera doesn't linger, nor is the scene very long, yet it is nevertheless shocking and disturbing to watch the crazy doctor run his hands nervously over the dead woman.
Okay, so that part is out of the way. Now we are inside the doctor's large and elegantly decorated home. His beautiful young wife is giving a piano recital for a few guests in their living room. Behind a curtain lurks the housekeeper, a stern-looking middle aged woman in a black uniform, with her silvery hair pulled into a tight bun. As the recital ends, the pianist/wife announces that she is tired and will retire to her room for the evening. At this, the doctor signals to the hidden housekeeper from a hallway. She meets him in the wife's bedroom, and assists him while he shoots his wife full of an unknown drug.
We aren't told what it is, but it apparently maintains her vitality.
The next morning, the Doc is at the local hospital, cheerfully sewing up the head of the poor chap he bonked the previous night; the gravedigger, who isn't aware, obviously, that the doctor was his attacker. All is well for the moment, but then that evening, when it is time for his wife's injection, something goes wrong. She is given an overdose, and dies. The doctor is grief-stricken and inconsolable. He declares that he must move away from the house, and from London, to preserve his sanity.
Cut now to some unspecified period of time later. The doctor is returning to his former home. He is reinvigorated and ready to start over with his new bride, played by the great British horror queen Barbara Steele. Though a happy newlywed, Steele is a little unnerved by the ambiance inside the mansion. She takes note of the unfriendly housekeeper, and all the paintings of the doctor's first wife, which still adorn the walls. His manner toward Barbara is formal rather than loving, and he tells her that under no circumstances is she to enter the former wife's bedroom.
So whattaya think she's gonna do, first chance she gets?
What happens when I tell you not to think of a pink elephant? "Whatever you do, don't think of it"!
Things start getting really spooky around this time. The doc keeps leaving late at night to head over to the hospital. Another beautiful young corpse is laying in the morgue and he can't control himself. Twice, he is nearly caught in the act by a young intern (the rest of the cast is played by Italian actors who are also dubbed). When he gives a false reason for his presence in the morgue so late at night, the intern accepts his explanation, but begins to develop a suspicion of the doctor, which increases one night when - after a party - he is asked by the doc to escort Barbara Steele home, and he sees the interior of the mansion for himself.
Barbara Steele will make a discovery of her own that will place her in grave danger.
Do you see what I did there? "Grave" danger? Pretty good, eh?
"The Terror of Dr. Hichcock" is a minor gem of a ghoulish little fright flick. For a low buget film that was reportedly shot in 14 days (which Barbara Steele squeezed into her schedule during a break in the production of Fellini's "8 1/2"), the atmosphere created by director Freda is very haunting. His use of colored lighting surely influenced Dario Argento of "Suspiria" fame, and he also uses a dread-building orchestral score to great effect. Robert Flemyng is disquieting as the cold and calculating doctor with a sick secret, and the beautiful Barbara Steele is great as always. She had a talent for projecting vulnerability and real fear into her characters in many English horror films of the 60s and 70s; you have no doubt seen her before, perhaps in a Hammer movie or two.
Though the picture quality was substandard, verging on poor, I am gonna give "The Terror of Doctor Hichcock" Two Strong Thumbs Up. For the budget he had to work with, Riccardo Freda created an artful and genuinely frightening film, with a taboo premise that he treated with care and did not exploit.
It was a great way to start the Halloween Movie Season. I recommend looking for it yourself, if you can find it on Netflix or at your local Libe. Or, you can simply purchase it from Sinister Cinema. ////
That's all for now. Do-or-die game coming up in a couple hours for the Dodgers. I'll be peeking through closed fingers at this one, way too nerve-wracking to watch straight up. And if you think that's weird, remember that I'm the guy who used to sit out in the garage or walk around the block during close games between the Lakers and Celtics in the NBA Finals back in the 1980s. :)
It's just too much for me, lol! But if I turn on the TV and the Dodgers are up, say 7-1, then I can watch with no problem!
See you tonight! Go Dodgers!
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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