Diabolique (1955)

Synopsis

Storyline:
The wife and mistress of a sadistic boarding school headmaster plot to kill him. They drown him in the bathtub and dump the body in the school’s filthy swimming pool… but when the pool is drained, the body has disappeared – and subsequent reported sightings of the headmaster slowly drive his ‘killers’ (and the audience) up the wall with almost unbearable suspense…
Written by
Michael Brooke <[email protected]>
User Reviews: Scare the crap out of you!

I don’t hand out many 10s. Some movies don’t really require much thought or analysis. In the end all that matters is what happened to you when you first saw it.

I remember when I first saw this. Nothing scary at first, but the nastiness of the place and the people is effortlessly shown. And then the bad stuff starts to happen.

Ugliness…shock…suspense…shock…mystery…eeriness…awful shock.

I remember, though it must have been forty years ago, the climactic scenes with my neck hairs standing up, sweat on my face, clutching the theater armrests like I was in danger of falling, and finally realizing I was weeping- not tears of sadness, tears of helpless terror.

I envy anyone seeing this for the first time.