The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock

The Horrible Dr Hitchcock is one of the cornerstones of the Italian Gothic cinema. This was a mini-genre that was begun with the success of Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960), which in turn had been inspired by the successes of Hammer Films and Roger Corman’s Edgar Allen Poe films, and saw a prolific output of works over the next decade. Dr Hitchcock is cited as one of the great classics of Italian horror cinema, although upon reviewing it today this reputation seems somewhat overrated. Director Riccardo Freda piles on a great deal of the atmosphere that these films specialized in. There’s almost an overkill of the tropes that were central to the 19th Century Gothic potboilers of Ann Radcliffe and Wilkie Collins – ominous glances through the keyhole of the dead wife’s white dress and boots, of hangman’s nooses left in a room, the doctor chloroforming his first wife and seeming to be poisoning the second one, the wife with a psychiatric history waking up to find skulls in her bed and the like. It’s all run over with oodles of atmosphere – heavy mist, rich golden photography and old Gothic houses. And of course it features cult queen Barbara Steele whose wide, haunted eyes became a central fixture of 1960s Italo-horror.

You can see what gave so many people room to vaunt  Dr Hitchcock’s classic status. But ultimately it is only a handful of Gothic cliches. Beneath these and Riccardo Freda’s atmosphere there’s not much in the way of supporting rationale. We’re never sure why the cheekily named Dr Hitchcock is poisoning Barbara Steele off. Or up until the end whether it is the wife’s ghost or whether the wife is still alive. And when we do find out that the wife is alive, there is no explanation offered as to why. The atmosphere carries the film but you can’t help but feel a plot would’ve taken it even further. (Although part of the problem here, one suspects, is that this, the American version of the film, is missing some 12 minutes from the Italian version, which concentrate more the doctor’s necrophiliac fascinations. With these present the film may well make a whole lot more sense).

Dr Hitchcock was popular and Riccardo Freda and Barbara Steele reunited for a sequel The Spectre/The Ghost (1963). Dr Hitchcock was probably the most famous film made by Ricardo Freda. He did direct a number of other horror films including I Vampiri/The Devil’s Commandment (1957), Caltiki the Immortal Monster (1959), Maciste in Hell/The Witch’s Curse (1960) and Murder Obsession/Delirium (1982). (Moria)