Everybody has their kinks, whether they will admit it to even themselves. In any relationship, there is doubtlessly some give and take around each person’s, including whether some are disclosed at all. I can’t imagine what I would do if I had any illegal vices. 1962’s The Horrible Dr. Hichcock opens with Maria Teresa Vianello humoring husband Robert Flemyng’s interest in necrophilia by allowing herself to be drugged into unconsciousness.
But then he gives her too high a dosage, and so she dies. I’m still uncertain as to whether he deliberately did that or not, as I assume sex with a real corpse would be more appealing to him than with a pretend one. But it is affecting his work as a surgeon, where he is asked by a peer whether he will at least consider resuming the use of anesthesia for surgeries. This startled me, as I can’t believe he was operating on people without putting them under. Oh, and Flemyng also seems to be hanging around a morgue a bit too much, where there happens to be the corpse of a recently deceased woman.
Flemyng announces he has to go away, as everything in the house reminds him of his dead wife. That there was a giant painting of her right next to him when he said this probably didn’t help. He is away for twelve years, returning with Barbara Steele as his new wife. I find it odd he is startled to see a window lit in an upstairs window of the family mansion, seeing as to how he told the housekeeper (Harriet Medin) to maintain the place in his absence. He probably should have kept a groundskeeper on the payroll as well, given the yard is an overgrown mess.
This is a very gothic setting for a very gothic film, and all manner of gothic things start happening. There is the mysterious woman in white who Steele sees wandering the grounds in the night. There is the obligatory door that cannot be opened. There is the housekeeper who hates the new mistress. Oh, and that housekeeper also has a mad sister who may or may not be in the house as well.
Steele is perfectly cast in rather threadbare production. With her distinctively large eyes and cheekbones, she belongs more completely to gothic horror than almost any other actor.
Unfortunately for almost everybody concerned, this is one of those Italian productions where all the lines were recorded in post. It is very obvious the Italian supporting cast is not speaking English—at least, their lip movements in no way sync up with the soundtrack. That inevitably makes it difficult to take the film seriously, and it is even unintentionally funny at times.
Speaking of the soundtrack, the sad print that was the source for this blu-ray has a persistent warble that also impacts the viewing experience. There is one scene early on where Vianello is giving a piano recital, and the resulting tones are so distorted as to leave me speculating what it was actually supposed to sound like. But there is a disquieting quality added by the poor quality of the video and the audio, as if we are watching something that is not entirely legitimate.
This emphasizes the danger I felt in one particular scene, where a four-poster bed goes up in flames and the actors appear to be at risk of catching fire themselves. I couldn’t help but wonder the budget was so low as to make even fire safety a low priority, given there are such shoddy elements as the front of the house in some shots just being a painting.
There aren’t many surprises in The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, though I was stunned to see a theme of necrophilia in a picture of this vintage. It is a subject still taboo to this day. I know I don’t care what consenting adults get up to, but it would be hard to claim a dead person had consented to being violated after their demise. The next time I have a procedure where I am to be put under, I am going to carefully scrutinize all that paperwork about living wills and all that, just to make sure I’m not agreeing to be somebody’s putrefying sex doll if I shuffle off this mortal coil.
Dir: Riccardo Freda
Starring Barbara Steele, Robert Flemyng, Harriet Medin
Watched on Olive Films blu-ray