Diabolique: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray] Reviews

It's quite amazing how one great film can come to influence so many others. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s masterful 1955 thriller Diabolique was indirectly responsible for two of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces: Vertigo and Psycho. When Hitchcock failed to secure the screen rights to the novel Celle qui n’était plus by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac which served as the basis for Diabolique, he commissioned their next book which turned out to be the novel on which he based Vertigo. After spending much money on the glossy color adventure North by Northwest, Hitchcock remembered how much Diabolique had thrilled him with its low cost and black and white imagery adding layers of suspense to the story, so he was determined to do something similar leading to Psycho. Two masterpieces born from a masterpiece, and all three movies became films which writers and directors for television and movies have stolen from for decades. It might be possible to see Diabolique for the first time now and be ahead of the director’s game, but one can certainly imagine that audiences in 1955 had never seen anything like this dazzling house-of-mirrors chiller where nothing is ever quite what it seems. Like the best films with twist endings like Psycho, The Usual Suspects, and The Sixth Sense, Diabolique continues to be a fun film to revisit on multiple viewings to see how carefully and expertly the director has laid out his mine field waiting for us to step on each carefully placed little trigger. 

For the complete review, go here.