One of the greatest horror-suspense studies ever composed. Henri-Georges Clouzots devilish thriller about two women who conspire to knock off a sadistic boarding-school headmaster (Paul Meurisse) one of the women is his wife, the other his mistress has all the dark humour and clever tension of a Hitchcock masterpiece. Simone Signoret as the peroxide-blonde mistress is the harsher of the two would-be killers, while Véra Clouzot is shivering and simpering as the wife. Its a great yarn, with a delicious twist (we won't be diabolique and ruin the end), as the ladies dispose of their victim but then must deal with creepy signs that their plan might be coming unstuck. Clouzot's cloying, invasive direction brilliantly cranks the impeding doom to a suffocating frequency making Les Diaboliques not just a remarkable film, but a distinctively affecting one. It imprints in the subconscious with wickedly vivid excellence.
Film and UFC obsessive with a passion for scribbling words about them. Avid NFL fan and big Chelsea supporter too.
Film Studies degree graduate from the University of Brighton.
