Diabolique (1955)

Les Diaboliques ([lɛ djaboˈlik]), released as Diabolique in the United States and variously translated as The Devils or The Fiends, is a 1955 French black-and-white psychological thriller feature film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel. It is based on the novel Celle qui n'était plus (She Who Was No More) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. The story blends elements of thriller and horror, with the plot focusing on a woman and her husband's mistress who conspire to murder the man; after the crime is committed, however, his body disappears, and a number of strange occurrences ensue. The film was the 10th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 3,674,380 admissions in France.

Clouzot, right after finishing Wages of Fear, snatched the screenplay rights from Alfred Hitchcock. This movie helped inspire Hitchcock's Psycho. Robert Bloch himself, the author of the novel Psycho, has stated in an interview that his all-time favorite horror film is Diabolique.

Now considered a classic of the horror genre and film in general, the scene in which Christina's husband emerges from the bathtub ranked #49 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Synopsis

A second-rate boarding school is run by the tyrannical and mean Michel Delassalle (Meurisse). The school, though, is owned by Delassalle's teacher wife, the frail Christina (Clouzot), and Delassalle flaunts his relationship with Nicole Horner (Signoret), a teacher at the school. Rather than antagonism, the two women are shown to have a somewhat close relationship, primarily based on their apparent mutual hatred of Michel, who is physically and emotionally abusive to both.

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