This is what happens when a woman marries an unsuitable but respectable man, and a man marries too hastily on the rebound. I know, his wife is 'dead' and it's been twelve years since her interment. Given the cat is still around, and as spry as ever, it feels more like twelve days, and nights...
It's curious how quick some reviewers and fans are to fling the word masterpiece at any old cobblers. To call this a masterpiece would be like calling a pot of instant noodles a moveable feast. Still, the eyes of Barbara Steele are always fetching. Here she is the new wife of a necrophiliac surgeon. His first wife died from an accidental overdose of sleeping draught, during one of their nightly games. Or did she?
The dubbing is, well, dubious. The music is consistently overwrought, so much so one always knows when the next unscary scare is coming. Or am I being unfair? Actually the music is pretty spinetingling stuff. The setting is atmospheric. The elements cobbled together derive more from Edgar Allan Poe and his Gothic antecedents than Hi(t)chchock. A perverse doctor. A black cat. A phantom corpse bride. A dark and stormy night. Another dark and stormy night. A creepy housekeeper (that at least recalls Hitch's Rebecca, in a very small way). The administering of drugs to trap a victim (also a bit reminiscent of Notorious). The necrophiliac elements are played rather too coyly. The actor apparently was most unwilling. He just doesn't look lascivious enough for a man with such dismal desires. He has the face of a strangler, not a corpse cuddler.
It builds to an impressively nasty final act, which gave me heebie jeebies, and that's all one really needs from a flick like this. No masterpiece but effective in parts.
It's curious how quick some reviewers and fans are to fling the word masterpiece at any old cobblers. To call this a masterpiece would be like calling a pot of instant noodles a moveable feast. Still, the eyes of Barbara Steele are always fetching. Here she is the new wife of a necrophiliac surgeon. His first wife died from an accidental overdose of sleeping draught, during one of their nightly games. Or did she?
The dubbing is, well, dubious. The music is consistently overwrought, so much so one always knows when the next unscary scare is coming. Or am I being unfair? Actually the music is pretty spinetingling stuff. The setting is atmospheric. The elements cobbled together derive more from Edgar Allan Poe and his Gothic antecedents than Hi(t)chchock. A perverse doctor. A black cat. A phantom corpse bride. A dark and stormy night. Another dark and stormy night. A creepy housekeeper (that at least recalls Hitch's Rebecca, in a very small way). The administering of drugs to trap a victim (also a bit reminiscent of Notorious). The necrophiliac elements are played rather too coyly. The actor apparently was most unwilling. He just doesn't look lascivious enough for a man with such dismal desires. He has the face of a strangler, not a corpse cuddler.
It builds to an impressively nasty final act, which gave me heebie jeebies, and that's all one really needs from a flick like this. No masterpiece but effective in parts.