Catching Up On The Classics: Diabolique (1955)

Diabolique is one of those movies that reminds me why I love movies in the first place. It's a brilliant movie that doesn't really need to do a lot to be as brilliant as it is. Diabolique is so many things all rolled into one - a classic noir film, a suspenseful mystery, a twisted drama - and it all leads up to one well-known and stunning climax.

At a boarding school in France, the wife of the cruel principal and his mistress secretly plot the man's death to finally be free of his abuse. After drowning him in a bathtub and dumping his body in the school's murky pool, they think they are safe and their plan has worked. But when the pool is drained, they find that his body has disappeared. People start claiming that they've seen him around and physical clues also lead them - and an inquisitive private detective - to believe that something very mysterious has happened.

The movie's French title, Les Diaboliques, translates to "The Devils" and I guess that refers to the two women. There's Christina, a teacher and the principal's frail wife who suffers from a heart condition. She's married to Michel (not me), a guy who is a total dick, and physically and emotionally abuses his wife and his mistress, Nicole. She's also a teacher at the boarding school, and is this hot little blonde femme fatale who I thought was pretty awesome. Nicole and Christina have apparently known about each other for a while and have actually developed somewhat of a bond. Their relationship seems a bit scandalous seeing as how they don't hide the fact that they are "friends" from anybody at the school, including Michel. His attitude toward their relationship is interesting, too. He doesn't care. He's that much of an asshole that he doesn't think these girls can do anything against him.

This movie plays out very much like a stage play. There's not a lot of action and the film mostly consists of talky-talky between the characters. Of course that's not a bad thing because the audience gets to know the main characters and is able to feel all their same feelings of confusion and fear when the plan goes awry. There is also not a lick of music to be heard during the film, except during the opening and closing credits. This increases the suspense as the mystery goes on and makes the audience feel like they are in on these women's dirty little secret, but are just as lost as they are as to what has happened to Michel. Diabolique is a movie I like to refer to as being quietly brilliant, as the story is strong enough to keep you enthralled and doesn't need a lot of frills or fuss to make it intriguing.

Vera Clouzot is breathtaking as Christina and expertly plays her as both meek and sickly, but also as woman who has had enough and will do what needs to be done for herself and others. Under the control of Nicole, Christina finds her strength, even if her morals haunt her throughout the ordeal. Simone Signoret craftily portrays Nicole, the brains behind the operation, as strong and confident but not one to take any crap from anybody. As the audience finds out later on, she's the kind to hug you with a knife in her hand, if you know what I mean. Paul Meurisse is slimy and mean as Michel, and some of his scenes of him mistreating the women were quite risque for the time and were wonderfully played. The shot of him dead in the bathtub is classically creepy and made me gasp just because of how freaky he looked. All they needed to do was give him scary, dead eyes and place his wet hair just so and they had one fantastic image that will be in my memory forever.

So, thanks to Bravo and its "100 Scariest Movie Moments" list, I already knew the ending to Diabolique before I saw it. The awesome thing was that I didn't remember that I already knew the ending. And holy crap was I ever thankful for my bad memory because I would have missed out on almost peeing on myself when Michel got out of the bathtub.

What made this twist so great was that throughout the whole movie, you're thinking of all these possible scenarios for why his body went missing and who else could be involved. Literally, almost every idea went through my head - except for the most obvious one. So subtle, so genius. Granted, it was all set up so perfectly that you (hopefully) would have never thought that Michel was still alive. We saw Nicole drown him in the bathtub; we saw his dead body in the bathtub; we saw his dead body in the wicker trunk. Christina's worsening heart condition is also set up wonderfully. It's not that cool that she had to die, but she seriously has one of the best deaths in movie history. Ever. To be literally scared to death and do it so beautifully, and in a way that scares the shit out of the audience as well, is an awesome way to go, in my book.

(I do strangely feel the need to mention the similar, but more funny and less scary, death from Child's Play 3. Not nearly done as well, but it makes me laugh to think of it.)

My goodness, I am in love with Diabolique. It is just such a tight, successful mystery and noir that had me completely entranced. A new favorite has been born!

Catching Up On The Classics: Carnival of Souls (1962)

Carnival of Souls is one of those movies that I've been looking forward to seeing for a long time. It is constantly being regarded as one of the best movies you've never seen, and a classic among black-and-white horror, despite its low budget and limited release. Already knowing the famous shock or twist ending to the movie, though, I wondered if this would hurt my first-viewing experience. And sadly, it kind of did.

After Mary is the lone survivor of a car accident that killed all her friends, she goes on with her life and moves to Utah where she has taken a job as a church organist. But strange happenings follow Mary wherever she goes, like seeing a ghostly man around corners and in mirrors. Mary also seems to be inexplicably drawn to an old pavilion in her new town: Does this place hold the answers to what's been going on with her?

Candace Hilligoss is surprisingly quite perfect in the lead role of Mary Henry. That still frame of her up there is one that I've been seeing around for years, and I have always just loved it - even though I hadn't seen the movie at the time. The look on her face and her body positioning almost looks like a painting to me, like an artist that captured a perfect moment in time, of confusion and fear. And now that I've seen the movie, I love that image even more. 

Anyway. Hilligoss does wonderful through the whole movie with a role that is never clearly defined. Sure, Mary seems somewhat confident and clear in her ideals and what she wants, but she's also very much a mystery. She doesn't much like the company of other people, and though she plays the organ for a living, she is not a church-goer herself and instead seems to see religion as a little silly and unimportant. But has she always been like this or is the result of her experience in the car crash? Mary is indeed a mystery and remains so until the end, and Hilligoss's mannerisms and facial expressions clearly convey all the conflicting personality traits of the character.

The only thing that bothered me about Hilligoss, and which in turn hurt some of the more possibly effective scenes, was that she did the "old movie scream." I hate the old movie scream. Do you know what that is? It's the really, really annoying way that women used to scream in old movies - hands flying up to the face or into the hair, screaming in a way that is far too dramatic for the situation. Hilligoss does this a couple of times here and it definitely annoyed the heck out of me. 

Sound becomes a important element in this film at times, or rather the lack of it in certain scenes. These are perhaps the best parts of the movie - the two scenes where Mary realizes that she has become invisible to those around her and that she cannot hear any noises in her environment. The sound of the pipe organ that Mary plays, a monstrous instrument that sounds incredibly creepy, is also important as it adds to overall eerie feeling of the movie. 

But the movie goes a little off from this feeling in the scenes with Mary's pervy neighbor, John Linden, which I frankly did not get the importance of. I get that she doesn't want to be alone because she fears that the ghoulish man she has been seeing will come after her if she is, but what of the rest of the scenes with this guy? Subtlety is not Linden's forte. In so many words, he quite boldly lets her know that he wants to get into her pants even though he doesn't know her at all, and that is the only purpose that this character serves - to be pervy and annoying. He is not needed and all his disgusting innuendoes take away from the main point of the story and Mary's character.

Some of the editing choices in Carnival of Souls were a bit hackneyed for my taste, as well. In the scenes with all the ghosts that Mary sees, whether real or when she goes into those weird trances, the editing and camera made things confusing at times. I hated the part where Mary jumps onto a bus and sees it full of the ghosts. There's an outside shot of her getting on the bus, then a POV of her seeing all the ghosts in the seats, and then a shot of her running away from the bus again. The lack of a reaction shot from Mary or something that established that she was on the bus with the ghosts made this part look very amateur, as if they forgot to get a shot during production but didn't really care during the editing process how it looked. 

At the same time, many of these scenes have wonderful individual shots that were very creepy and effective. Loved the scene of the ghosts dancing around all fast, and the shots of the various ghosts coming up one by one out of the water. Very cool looking. There's also a great overhead shot at the beginning where Mary is sitting at the pipe organ and you just see how incredibly massive this thing is and how small and insignificant she looks next to it. The scene where the ghost turns around in the doctor's chair could have been a lot scarier if Hilligoss didn't do that stupid old movie scream. And of course, my favorite shot of all is when Mary is emerging from the water after the car crash onto the muddy bank. I still don't know what it is about that shot, but I love it, and it's iconic, so you should love it too.

Now, I said before that knowing the ending to Carnival of Souls - that Mary actually died in the opening car crash - almost ruined the experience of watching it. I was very confused and frustrated throughout because, knowing she was dead, I was expecting a movie of her wandering around trying to figure out what happened to her or something. Instead, Mary almost immediately goes about her normal life, remembering the crash but just not how she survived it. If, as the title suggests, the ghostly man and the people at the carnival were other souls trying to take hers, and it was just her soul that went on living, how is she able to interact with other people and touch things? Wouldn't she be more like a ghost than a corporeal being if her body was still in the car?

So while this cult classic didn't completely live up to my expectations, I can't deny that I still love the story, the main character, and some of the really great standout sequences that make Carnival of Souls a movie worth a look for anyone who studies or just loves film. Some kind of variation on the twist ending has been done to death by now but this is one of the originals, and you should definitely watch it.