The Horrible Dr. Hichcock

It's 1962, and there were certain things you just couldn't talk about. Well, it has to be said that those things are still, rightly, considered a bit too much today. In any case, the horrible secret of Dr. Hichcock remains such while watching the film because censorship didn't hold back at the time. But luckily, there are sources and interviews that explain everything better to us.

According to various reports, the film was supposed to open with Dr. Hichcock knocking out an undertaker, uncovering a coffin, and having sex with the corpse. Necrophilia. That's the horrible secret. The scene was cut. It was 1962, right?

Even so, The Horrible Secret of Dr. Hichcock by Riccardo Freda, who signed as Robert Hampton to have more appeal to the audience, is a fine example of gothic horror, indeed one of the best in the Italian scene. I don't know if I've already said it, but it's 1962, and yes, looking at it today, with today's eyes and tastes, it surely seems a bit boring and a bit dusty. And that's normal (even though a contemporary critic called it boring as well). It's normal for the story to develop slowly and heavily amidst the heavy draperies and fabrics of the villa where it is set, in a London that is actually Villa Perrucchetti in Rome but seems to come straight out of a Poe story. And with a title that pays homage to and cites good old Alfred, albeit without a "T," to whom this work owes something. And it acknowledges that.

Freda, working on a screenplay by Enrico Gastaldi, directs as skillfully as always. The cinematography by Raffaele Masciocchi, with its saturated colors and a setting suspended between reality and fantasy, completes the rest, making everything aesthetically magnetic.

Freda's horror doesn't involve monsters, as we know, despite what the title might suggest and despite the discussion of the dead. But it's better this way. It terrifies with tension, madness, and the perdition of the protagonists, struck by a crescendo of anguish and delirium. And it achieves its goal also thanks to the great performances of the two leads. Barbara Steele, who had already gained fame with Bava's Black Sunday and Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum, is, as they say, a perfect scream queen, whose expressions and magnetic gaze perfectly convey all the sufferings of her character. Alongside her is Robert Flemyng, a British actor with extensive theatrical experience, whose demeanor makes the titular character very interesting. The necrophile. Dr. Hichcock.

He is a respected doctor, a luminary who has invented an anesthetic that allows him to perform rather complex surgical operations. A serum that he also uses for recreational activities, that is, with his wife (played by Maria Teresa Vianello), whom he puts into a state of apparent death and then makes love to her. But one day, purely by chance, a wrong dose of the anesthetic kills her. The doctor goes mad with grief and leaves London.

Twelve years later, he returns. And with him is his new wife (Barbara Steele). However, life in the villa is not easy; the woman immediately senses a certain hostility towards her. Hostility from the place, from the objects, and from the housekeeper (Harriet Medin). Reassured by her husband, she then discovers a shocking truth. Which is not just the horrible secret of the title.