Hooptober XII | 25/31 | Written by Ernesto Gastaldi
London 1885
A grave digger works at night. Bernard Hichcock, in fancy attire, sneaks into the graceyard and strikes the gravedigger over the head. He pries open the coffin and feels up the woman’s body inside.
By day, Bernard is a surgeon with a patented sedative. By night, he plays games with his wife, Margaret, during which he injects a bit of the sedative into her before sex. The routine continues the following evening, but he goes harder on the sedatives and accidentally kills her.
He leaves his home to escape her memory. Twelve years later, he has found a new wife, Cynthia, and brings her back to the estate. The aged Martha greets them. A woman’s screams — Martha’s ailing sister, she claims.
That night, Cynthia looks outside and sees what looks like Margaret, but Cynthia assumes it’s Martha’s sister. She tries to sleep, but scratching sounds awaken her. After a few days, she complains to Martha, but Martha has taken her sister elsewhere. So who is trying to get in at number?
Death will take you as you sleep. Sleep as deeply as death.
Stray Thoughts
- Great use of color. Subjective lighting for the characters’ internal states. Very angular.
- Gothic vibes are off the charts. Facets of Rebecca with the shadow of the dead wife looming over the house.
- Also, heavy Hammer aesthetics at times, but more dynamic cinematography. I love those fast-zooms!
- I love the decor of the, uh, sleep sex room?
- I’m surprised a movie this lurid receives an English-language release!
- Dr. Hichcock is a disgusting little freak, yeah? And the film is more sympathetic to him than the title suggests.
- Wonderful costuming. Not necessarily period-correct, but Steele gets an assortment of delightful gowns and frocks.
- Moments of this movie are genuinely horrifying!
- Steele is fantastic. The white eyeliner is outrageous.
- Everyone in this movie is really good at coming up with cover stories for their lies.
- Robert Flemyng contorts his face into moments of horror that sometimes work and sometimes resemble Don Knotts.