Year: 1962
Duration: 01:23:48
Directed by: Riccardo Freda
Actors: Barbara Steele, Robert Flemyng, Silvano Tranquilli
Language: Italian(English subtitles)
Country: Italy
Also known as: Raptus, L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock
Description: London, 1885. The famous Dr. Bernard Hitchcock suffers from a split personality. During one of the attacks, he kills his wife. Heartbroken doctor leaves the country, but many years later returns with a new young wife Cynthia. Soon start of the hallucinations – she starts the ghost of his first wife Hitchcock.
Review: Italian director Riccardo Freda may the most important influence in horror because with his influence they may not have been a director named Mario Bava. Who just happens to be LaMort’s favorite director of all time. This gothic tale of necrophillia that owes a lot to E. A. Poe is Freda’s masterpiece. Not counting Freda other 2 masterpieces – I Vampiri (1956) and Caltiki – il Mostro Immortale (1959) because we all know Bava actually directed those two. Of course it stars the incredible Barbra Steele in perhaps second greatest horror role next to Bava’s Black Sunday. This film was also Written by one of the greatest Italian writers Ernesto Gastaldi who also wrote WHAT? / The Whip and the Body for da Gawd Bava.
Funny thing is this film is most certainly a loving tribute to the man who invented modern cinema who also had a deep dark perverse nature like the main character in the film. Yes, they both have the same name sort of. LaMort always wondered if they spelt his name wrong in the title to prevent and type of lawsuits change by the insanely dark nature of this film, but everyone knows that Rebecca (1940) and Vertigo (1958) are about sleeping with dead. It is like Gastaldi and Freda were trying to show everyone Hitchcock was a pervert like Stanley Kubrick did years later. When he made Eye Wide Shut (1999) he was stating the obvious very loudly, TOM CRUISE IS GAY!!!! Yes Freda’s Dr Hichcock film have added a weird new dimension to post modernism and subversion to the cinematic landscape.
This is about a doctor who likes giving his beautiful wife propofol, so she is dead asleep during sex because that’s the only way he can get it up. One night by ACCIDENT he gives his wife too much propofol, she dies just like Michael Jackson but she looks better in death then he did. Actually this whole film has that same incredible beautiful darkness that those crazy Italians are famous for!! Years later the doctor finds a new wife, Barbra Steele and decides to move back into his old mansion where he lost his first wife. Soon enough the Hichcock is serving his beautiful brunette milk in bed….
One of the most incredible things to watch for in this perfect film is the scene and shots Robert Wise stole for his excellent film The Haunting (1953). Funny enough LaMort thinks it’s the best scene in that other classic film. I think the two films were made too close together so it may be a coincidence.
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