Review of The Horrible Dr. Hichcock

A film about necrophilia? Well, it must be sewer-wallowing filth on celluloid, right? No, actually this is a real movie, and even quite good one, trusting on the strong, twisted Gothic atmosphere. The colour photography is good and the sets are nice mixture of beautiful 19th century interiors and Gothic dungeons. Script by genre veteran Ernesto Gastaldi (with direct nods to movies like Rebecca!) was directed by Riccardo Freda, a cult name who apparently despised the dreary and ditch-water-dull realistic cinema. The queen of Italian Gothic, English-born Barbara Steele, is the beautiful heroine, and her striking period-dressed presence (the period being Victorian England)is another of the film's assets. The score is suitably dramatic.