Diabolique (1955)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Diabolique (1955) -- H. G. Clouzot

The wife (rich and with a heart condition) and the mistress (bitchy Simone Signoret) plot to kill the husband, a real jerk.  The first half of the film shows this in excruciating detail.  They succeed.  Then, the body goes missing.  Horror sets in.  A detective stumbles in (to lend some very brief comic relief in an otherwise bleak misanthropic film).  Perhaps someone else knows, perhaps there is something more sinister from beyond the grave (er…swimming pool)? Clouzot bought the rights to the story from Boileau and Narcejac before Hitchcock could get them (they later wrote Vertigo for him) and he tries to turn the screws tighter than the Master could (until Psycho perhaps).