31 Days of Horror Part II: Day 23 [Top 250 Friday] – #192: Diabolique (1955)

 

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Cast: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel

Screenplay: Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jerome Geronimi

116 mins. Not Rated.

IMDb Top 250: #192 (as of 10/23/2015)

 

I saw Diabolique last night. I wasn’t entirely impressed. Let me explain.

Diabolique is the story of two women, Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret, Room at the Top, The Army of Shadows) and Christina Delassalle (Vera Clouzot, The Wages of Fear, The Truth), who conspire to murder Christina’s husband, the cruel Michel (Paul Meurisse, Le Deuxieme, Lunch on the Grass). After they commit the crime, Michel’s body goes missing and the two women are thrown into a chilling conspiracy of deceit.

I thought the visuals of the film were fine. The actors capably perform in the film. I really enjoyed Vera Clouzot in particular. There are some great aspects of this film.

One big failure of this film, though, is the pace. I’m not one of those people who discredits older black-and-white features for problems of aging, but this one kind of bored me a bit.

Now the ending itself was pretty sweet. I still felt somewhat underwhelmed by it, but I feel like that could be because I heard about it before I saw it.

Diabolique isn’t for everyone. It is definitely a slow burn, and I just wasn’t really feeling it. I hope you will feel differently, but for me, it just didn’t do it.

 

2/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

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