Les Diaboliques (Diabolique) (The Devils, The Fiends) (1955)

I was about to say that I first learned of this film from Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments but, while that was the first time I ever saw anything from it, thinking back, I realized I actually first heard of Les Diaboliques back when I was around twelve. When we first got the internet around the Millennium, I immediately began searching around the web for info on various horror and science fiction films I'd, at the most, only read about. Among the stuff I looked up was info on Alfred Hitchcock's films, particularly Psycho and The Birds, the two I was most intrigued with, and in researching the former, I read that, after its release, Hitchcock got a letter from an angry father whose daughter had refused to take baths after seeing Diabolique and now, was refusing to take showers (Hitchcock's purported response, in his usual dry wit, was, "Send her to the dry cleaners,"). Because the article used the U.S. release title, it made me believe Diabolique was another film by Hitchcock that I'd never heard of and I only gradually learned it was actually a French horror-thriller in a similar vein to his work. Again, the first time I saw anything of it was on The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (and, while re-watching it, I've realized that they misspelled the French title, which has led to me misspelling it in the past), when they showed the scene near the end when the supposedly dead husband rises from the bathtub, causing his wife to have a heart attack. They mentioned in the very brief segment how, at the time, it was said to have "out-Hitchcocked Hitchcock," and Leonard Maltin remarked that the ending almost caused audience members to have heart attacks themselves. Over the years, I've also learned that, besides Hitchcock himself being a great admirer, Hammer screenwriter Jimmy Sangster was heavily influenced by it when writing the studio's psychological thrillers and it also influenced William Castle in making the same sort of movies later on in his career. As for me, I finally saw Les Diaboliques when I was lucky enough to find the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray at McKay's and I agree with the consensus that it is a very good movie. The first hour or so is especially well-done, as is the general mystery of what's going on, and the performances are also excellent all-around. On the other hand, the twist, however well done it is, is also a bit problematic in a couple of ways, and I also think the film goes on a little too long and introduces some contrived elements, but, on the whole, it is a very well-made and executed thriller.

Just outside the city of Paris is the Delassalle Boarding School for boys, a decrepit, decaying building run by Michel Delassalle, an abusive and cruel tyrant of a man who makes everyone around him, including the students and the staff, suffer. The two who really bear the brunt of his sadistic personality are his Venezuelan wife, Christina, a frail woman with a heart condition who actually owns the school, and Nicole Horner, his mistress, whom he physically abuses. Despite the open affair, Christina and Nicole are actually friendly with each other, bonded by their loathing for Michel. With a three-day weekend coming up, the two of them hatch a plan to rid themselves from him once and for all. That Friday, they drive up to Nicole's hometown of Niort and the apartment building where she lives, along with two other tenants to whom she sublets. There, Christina calls Michel, demanding a divorce, and he, in turn, heads up to confront her about it. The two women then put their plan into motion, with Nicole filling up the bathtub in her apartment and adding a sedative to a bottle of liquor. Despite her apprehension over the plan, Christina goes through with it when Michel arrives, refusing to give the divorce and attempting to smooth-talk her into dropping it. He ends up drinking several glasses and, when he falls asleep, Christina and Nicole drown him in the bathtub. The next day, they drive his wrapped body back to the school and, late that night, dump him into the nasty, black swimming pool. The school reopens the next day and the two of them go about their business, waiting for Michel's body to surface. When it never does, they have the pool drained, only to find that the body has disappeared. This drives the two of them half mad with confusion and fear and severely affects Christina's ill health. Then, the suit Michel was wearing is returned from the dry cleaners, they find a key to a hotel room he's said to have had for some time, and one of the students claims Michel recently punished him for breaking a window. And later, when the school photograph is taken, Michel's image appears to be in the window behind the students and staff. As her conditions worsens, Christina believes that Michel either survived the attempted murder or has returned from the dead and is now coming for her and Nicole.

Alfred Hitchcock attempted to buy the film rights to the novel, She Was No More, by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, but was beaten to it, purportedly by just a few hours, by French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot, who proceeded to adapt it into a screenplay himself, along with his brother, Jean (who used the pseudonym, Jerome Geronimi). Clouzot had begun as a screenwriter in the 1930's and had made a short film in 1931, although ill health prevented him from making his first feature until the early 1940's, by which point France was under German occupation. He reluctantly began working for the German film production company, Continental Films, first as a screenwriter and then as a director, with his first film being 1942's The Murderer Lives at Number 21. His follow-up, 1943's Le Corbeau, a thriller about poison pen letters, got him in trouble with numerous organizations like the Catholic Church, the Vichy regime, and the Resistance press, and also led to him being fired from Continental. After World War II, Clouzot and other filmmakers were tried for collaborating with the Germans and he was banned from filmmaking for life, although support from his peers led to the sentence being reduced to just two years. Once the ban was lifted, Clouzot entered the most successful period of his career, particularly with his 1953 film, The Wages of Fear (William Friedkin's 1977 film, Sorcerer, is a remake), and Les Diaboliques, which was his immediate followup. But his prestige didn't last, as the emergence of the French New Wave led to him falling out of favor with French cinema in general, and he fell into depression when his wife, Vera, who starred in several of his films, including this one, died of a heart attack in 1960. Clouzot's own failing health stifled production on his film, L'Enfer, which was ultimately abandoned, and after making a series of television documentaries, he made one last feature, 1968's La Prisonniere. He fell ill during the making of that film as well and, though he wrote some screenplays throughout the 70's and planned to direct again, he died in 1977, at the age of 69.

The two protagonists of the story are a pair of very unlikely friends: Christina Delassalle (Vera Clouzot), the wife of the boarding school's principal, and Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret), his mistress. Besides this strange circumstance, which includes the affair being public knowledge at the school, the two women's personalities are very different. Christina is very demure, soft-spoken, and traditionally lady-like, whereas Nicole is much more rough around the edges, with a hard,

steely exterior masking a suppressed but noticeable anger and frustration. You can also tell she's rather "worldly," with experience in life that Christina couldn't even imagine. The source of their closeness comes as a result of their being victimized by the cruel and sadistic Michel Delassalle. Though he's the principal, Christina, who's originally from Caracas, Venezuela, actually owns the school but can only watch helplessly as Michel barely spends anything on the place's upkeep, leading to the children and staff suffering from sparse, nasty food. This, along with Michel's general mistreatment of the kids, upsets the already fragile Christina, who suffers from a heart condition, which her mean-spirited husband mocks at every turn, and that's when he's not physically abusing her. Besides manhandling her, he flat-out rapes her at one point. As for Nicole, while she's much tougher than Christina, she's recently received a black eye from Michel. This constant abuse prompts the two women to plot to rid themselves of their tormentor once and for all, although Christina, who's too afraid to simply divorce Michel, as her religion sees it as a sin, is very reluctant to go through with it. Nicole, however, talks her into it regardless, telling her that they'll never have a better chance than the long weekend that's coming up. That Friday, they drive up to Nicole's home in Niort, with Christina still doubting that they'll be able to go through with it. Nicole, however, tells her that she doesn't know her, and it's gradually revealed she has something of a sordid past, as she comments that she "resigned" from high school. She also comes close to admitting that, when she and Michel first began their affair, she was counting on his promise that Christina would soon die from her heart condition, and later says that she's seen plenty of dead men in her life.

Nicole assures Christina that she's thought of everything and, when they arrive at her apartment, she sets the plan in motion by phoning Michel and having Christina demand a divorce, luring him up there. The next day, she gets everything together, including the nylon tablecloth to wrap Michel's body in, the drink she laces with a sedative, and fills up the bathtub for the deed itself. Christina, again, gets cold feet and attempts to back out, but when Nicole becomes frustrated, warning her that

Michel might try to murder her over the divorce, she gains a new resolve. Nicole then goes upstairs to speak with her subletting tenants in order to distract them from seeing Michel enter the building. Now alone, Christina nearly breaks down crying out of fear of what she's about to do, and she becomes panicked when she hears the sound of Michel's approaching footsteps outside. She manages to pull herself together enough to let him in and insist on her desire for a divorce. After a

conversation where she lies about having a lawyer, Michel claims that Nicole has turned her against him and tries to manipulate her by telling her of the monetary and public ramifications of the divorce. Spotting the bottle, he finally drinks the drugged liquor and, eventually, begins to doze off. As he slowly but surely falls asleep on the bed, Nicole returns, finishes filling up the bathtub, and after they destroy his return ticket, carry him into the bathroom and place him into the tub. Nicole shoves his head under the water just as he starts to wake

up, and after he stops struggling, she has Christina bring her a heavy lion statue on the fireplace mantle in order to hold him down and finish the job. The next day, they load a wicker basket containing his body, wrapped in the tablecloth, into the back of the truck and drive back to the school. Despite some snags here and there, like a drunk soldier attempting to hitch a ride in the back when they stop at a gas station and the realization that water is leaking out of the basket, they manage to make it back and drive onto the campus grounds. There, they drop him into the neglected, unkempt swimming pool.

When school starts back the next day, they anxiously wait for Michel's body to be discovered, counting on it to float to the surface, but after a whole day passes, Christina infers that she wants the pool to be drained so they can get it over with. Nicole is against this but, when she sees how worked up Christina is getting, agrees to do so within another day. During recess the next day, the boys knock a ball into the pool and Nicole takes the opportunity to have one of them find the body.

She feigns accidentally tossing her keys into the water and has one of the boys, who claims to be a champion skin-diver, go down and get them. He comes back up with Michel's lighter and thus, Nicole uses that as an excuse to have the pool drained. After an hour passes, Christina, knowing it should be drained, anxiously rushes out to it, only to faint on its side when she sees what's in it, or rather, what's not in it: Michel's body. After she's examined by the doctor, she and Nicole fret about

what's happened, as she prays to a small statue of the Virgin Mary. Nicole initially suggests that someone must've moved the body, although she can't imagine how they could've done so without being seen, and then, they're faced with the possibility that Michel might still be alive. The dry cleaners deliver the suit he was wearing at the time, and when they go to the dry cleaners, they learn that a man fitting his description brought the suit in. They're also given an Eden Hotel room key that was found in the suit's pocket and go to the hotel to

investigate. There, Christina learns that, though Michel has a room there, he's rarely, if ever, seen. The fear of what's going on causes the two women to begin turning on each other, arguing about who's most culpable in the crime and threatening to call the cops and pin the crime entirely on each other. Christina actually does dial the police at one point but Nicole stops the call. Undeterred, Christina attempts to turn herself in the next day, but Nicole shows her a newspaper article about a corpse being found in the Seine river. Their relief is short-lived,

as Christina goes to the morgue to confirm it, only to find it's not Michel's body. Moreover, Alfred Fichet, a retired policeman turned private detective, overhears her and gets involved with trying to find her husband, much to the women's chagrin.

When one of the kids, Moinet, claims to have been recently punished by Michel for breaking a window with a slingshot, Christina's health worsens, worrying everyone around her, especially Nicole. Then, Michel's figure seems to be in the background of a school photo, terrifying them both and unnerving Nicole to the point where she says they need to get out. Christina, however, is in no shape to travel, and now, having lost all hope, tells

Nicole to just go, saying she doesn't want to see her again. Despondent and feeling that Christina now hates her, Nicole leaves. Now alone in the dark school by herself that night, Christina, after confessing everything to Fichet, gets the feeling that she's being watched and then stalked, leading to the twist ending that involves her, supposedly, dying of a heart attack.

As I've already made clear, Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse) is beyond contempt, and that's putting it mildly. A heartless, sadistic bully, he abuses just about everyone around him, including the young boys who attend the boarding school, both by pinching pennies that leads to their being underfed and having to eat cheap, nasty food, and by being downright mean to them in person. Early on, when Christina and Nicole catch a kid drawing on the side of the building and warn him that such an act could lead to him being forced to stay at the school over the long weekend, Michel immediately goes and bars him from leaving the school anyway. Christina calls him out on this, citing how the kid got good grades, but Michel says, "There's no reason to degrade school grounds," and walks off, the punishment standing. Later, when the kids are being loud and rowdy at dinner, he yells that he'll keep them there all weekend if they don't shut up and you know from that earlier incident that he's not kidding. He's not much better to the staff, ordering around two teachers, Drain and Raymond, in particular and also forcing them to dine on fish that's a day or so old and cheap wine, which they're only allowed two glasses of per meal. And then, of course, there's how badly he treats both Christina and Nicole, with the former, whom he playfully calls "Cricri," getting the worst of his verbal and mental abuse. He mocks Christina's delicate condition, remarking, "She's a cute little ruin. She doesn't risk anything. Ruins are indestructible," and later, when she gets upset over Michel's treatment of the kids and says she'd like to die so she'd never have to see him again, he says, "Die, my sweet. Die quickly. We'll have a nice funeral for you, and we'll finally be rid of you. The school won't suffer, and I'll feel much better." Earlier, when she'd refused to eat the fish, he forced her to, saying she needed to set an example and made her do it with all the kids watching. And, as if that weren't bad enough, he's also physically abusive to both of the women. Not only has he given Nicole a black eye but he's seen manhandling Christina at one point, forcing her to kiss him. But the most appalling thing he does to her is after dinner, when the dining room is empty except for the two of them. He remarks that the weekend will be a "three-day honeymoon" and forces her into a corner, where he rapes her.

The next morning, Michel is intrigued when he learns Christina left with Nicole, and later, when she calls him from Nicole's home in Niort, demanding a divorce, he becomes angered and makes his way up there to confront her. Upon arriving, he admonishes her for making him come all that way and having to do so in a manner where no one would notice him. He's further surprised when Christina stands her ground about the divorce, despite what her religion says about it, and

when she makes up a lie about having hired a lawyer, he's angered by both the very notion and of her telling this lawyer all of their most intimate secrets, remarking, "To think you grew up in a convent." He's about ready to go and confront the lawyer, but she stops him by admitting she never did meet with one. Saying she still wants the divorce, though, Michel, like a true manipulator, tries to softly talk her out of it, noting the cost and the scandal that could result, saying it could lead to

her losing the school. He also claims that he went along with the idea of the school just for her, that they could've been living comfortably had he been able to go into business for himself but, "I did it all for you. I don't regret it. But when you throw me out, it upsets me, Cricri. It really upsets me." However, he completely ignores Christina trying to talk about how miserable he's made her life, saying that Nicole has turned her against him. For a moment, she seems to fall for his manipulation and attempts to stop him drinking the drugged liquor,

only to make him spill some of it on his Prince of Wales suit, enraging him. He orders her to get a towel and wipe it off, but when she goes to do so, he smacks her and snarls, "There! It doesn't pay to be nice to you. I'll train you, girl." With that, she doesn't stop him and fills his glass back up as he chugs it down. Ordering her to wipe his suit clean with some hot water, he insists that the two of them are going to leave right then and get back early the next morning. That's when the sedative hits him and he sits and then lies down on the bed, with Christina unbuttoning his coat and taking his shoes off. He tries to fight it, saying they must leave, but he eventually passes out and Christina and Nicole do the deed.

After Michel's body is dunked into the swimming pool, only to have disappeared once it's drained, his presence is still felt, as evidence piles up that he's either still alive or has returned from the dead to get his revenge. First, it's in a distant manner, with his suit being delivered from the dry cleaners and the discovery of a hotel room he's supposedly had for a long time but has rarely ever been seen at. But then, it gets closer and closer to the school and the women themselves, with the kid, Moinet, claiming

Michel punished him for breaking a window and confiscated his slingshot, which Christina later finds in her bedroom, and the really creepy moment when he seems to be standing in the window behind the students and staff when the school photo is taken. Finally, it culminates in the climax, where Christina is all alone at the school late at night and appears to be stalked by Michel's vengeful spirit, who manifests in the bathtub and rises up out of it in front of her, causing her to die

of a heart attack. But then, it's revealed that this whole thing was actually an elaborate plot by Michel and Nicole to kill Christina and sell the school in order to live the good life. Unfortunately for them, Alfred Fichet overhears them talking about how their plan has succeeded and they're arrested.

Speaking of Alfred Fichet (Charles Vanel), I find his appearance and role in the film to be rather contrived. He just happens to be hanging around at the morgue when Christina goes there to see if the recently discovered corpse is Michel and becomes interested when he overhears her confirm it isn't. He then introduces himself as a retired police commissioner and private detective and, as the two of them ride in a taxi on her way back to the school, he offers to alert the police commissioner of her missing husband and to help find him. Christina attempts to politely turn down his offer but Fichet insists, saying it's no risk to her. He interviews people at the school, looks through the paperwork in Michel's office, and inspects his wardrobe to see what's missing, leading to a moment where Christina tells him she "thinks" Michel was wearing a gray Prince of Wales suit when she last saw him, only for Fichet to close a door and find it hanging on the back. He comes to the conclusion that Michel is likely not dead but just missing and that Christina is too much of an alarmist. He then leaves to do more checking around through his connections, but comes back later, when Christina is alone in her bedroom, and rather creepily sits near her bedside until she awakens (when she asks why he's in there, he answers, "I was just looking at you,"). He prompts a confession out of her by claiming he's found Michel and he'll be along soon. She also tells him of Michel's body disappearing from the pool and Nicole's involvement in the crime, and while he doesn't really believe her, he goes to confirm the details. He just starts to realize she was telling the truth, when Nicole and Michel apparently succeed in scaring Christina to death. However, Fichet overhears them talking about their success and walks in, saying that, depending on the judge, they could get fifteen to twenty years. That, I think, is Fichet's only function in the story, aside from inadvertently putting more stress on Christina and Nicole by investigating Michel's disappearance, as well as adding to one of the possible readings of the ending; otherwise, his role feels pointless. Henri-Georges Clouzot had used a similar character in a previous movie, so it was likely an addition he just liked, and I will say that his jovial, carefree attitude does lend this dark story some levity.

For pure comic relief, Clouzot uses the characters of Monsieur and Mademoiselle Herboux (Noel Roquevert and Therese Dorny), a married couple of teachers to whom Nicole sublets one of the apartments in her building. Nicole views them as little more than a means of making extra money and as pawns in her and Christina's scheme to murder Michel. When Michel's arrival is imminent, Nicole heads upstairs to visit the Herbouxes in order to keep them from seeing him arrive, and

also plans to use them as part of their alibi. Later, when Michel has passed out from the sedative and Nicole goes back down to fill the bathtub, the pipes hum very loudly, much to Monsieur Herboux's annoyance, as he tries to listen to a radio quiz show. He's so into the show that he acts as though he were the contestant, yelling out the answers and then saying he'd like to go on. The pipes then hum even louder, to the point where he can't hear at all, and he becomes belligerent, yelling, "I can't hear a thing! Right when I'm winning 32,000 francs!", and, "Bitches! Bitches! Daughters of bitches!" He even prepares to write Nicole a "registered letter," all while his wife sits by and rolls her eyes at his idiocy. Long after the sound stops, Herboux refuses to go to bed, saying the noise will start again when she drains the water and that he can't sleep near "Niagara Falls." The next day, after showing some contempt for the money he thinks they must make, he goes to take a nap, when Nicole then decides to drain the tub. Now thoroughly irate, he pounds on the floor with his shoe, saying he can't wait for the women to leave. He later gladly helps Nicole carry the wicker trunk containing Michel's body down to the car out front, all the while talking about what a shame it is they're leaving so soon. This leads to several moments where the body is almost revealed, and the Herbouxes, in talking about how dangerous the roads, unknowingly give the women more to worry about when Herboux mentions the number of policemen they're likely to find deployed throughout the countryside.

Among the memorable characters at the school are Plantiveau (Jean Brochard), the nightwatchman and custodian who, as the investigation into Michel's disappearance goes on, becomes frustrated at the idea of various people being able to get on and off the school grounds without his knowledge; Monsieur Drain (Pierre Larquey) and Monsieur Raymond (Michel Serrault), two teachers who are often put upon and ordered around by Michel, and are not too broken up when he

disappears; and Moinet (Yves-Marie Maurin), the most significant of the students in that he's the one who suggests Michel is lurking about the grounds by claiming he punished him for breaking a window with a slingshot. Though no one believes him, with Nicole calling him a pathological liar who once bragged about fighting a lion at a fair, and an early moment proved him to be rather sneaky, he sticks with his story, even when it leads to him being made to stand in the corner for six hours. He seems vindicated when Michel and

Nicole's plot against Christina are exposed. At the very end of the movie, Moinet ends up breaking another window with his slingshot on the day school is closing down due to the ensuing scandal. Monsieur Drain admonishes him for this and asks how he got his slingshot back; Moinet claims that Christina gave it to him, suggesting that Christina may have pulled a switcheroo on her tormentors.

Although Les Diaboliques is frequently described as Hitchcockian, and Henri-Georges Clouzot was said to have found any comparison between himself and the Master of Suspense to be very flattering, it differs sharply in its extremely dark tone, with little of the humor Hitchcock frequently employed, and visual aesthetic. While Hitchcock certainly made his fair share of dark films with ambiguous and pessimistic endings, Clouzot turns that up to eleven here, plunging the viewer into a world that's relentlessly bleak, decadent, and

nihilistic. Very rarely is the sky not completely overcast, and while there's never a scene where it's raining, it often looks wet, muddy, cold, and miserable. There's nothing glamorous here, either, as the Delassalle Boarding School is portrayed as a murky-looking place that's fallen into horrible disrepair and neglect, with both the students and the staff having to dine on food that leaves much to be desired, both in freshness and quantity, while Nicole's apartment building in Niort is a low-rent place with very small rooms. Even the hotel

Michel is said to have a room at, while not shabby or rundown, can hardly be described as five-star. And then, there are the main characters, made up of a reprehensible, abusive man who's awful to everyone around him and doesn't appreciate the two beautiful women in his life; his mistress, whose affair with him is public knowledge at the school; and his delicate wife, whose high hopes and dreams she had when she emigrated to France were all but dashed by the monster she made the

mistake of marrying. Throughout the film, you watch Christina get manhandled, smacked around, and even raped by Michel, talked into participating in his murder by Nicole, prepare herself for the outcome of his body being found, only for the body to disappear, and become terrorized when evidence mounts that, one way or another, Michel is coming back for revenge. And then, it culminates in her dying of fright and the whole thing revealed to have been a plot to kill her by none other than

Michel and Nicole. This dark, nihilistic vision is said to have reflected Clouzot's own personality, as those who knew and worked with him described him as a very negative person, one without much faith in humanity and who went through some pretty extreme measures to get the performances he wanted, including hitting and even slipping drugs to his unsuspecting actors!

The rather drab look that Clouzot created with his cinematographer, Armand Thirard, makes the black-and-white come off as especially murky and unpleasant-looking. Even daytime shots of the French countryside when Christina and Nicole are going to and coming from Niort aren't exactly picturesque, and the exterior nighttime scenes are often pitch black, to the point of almost feeling like a film noir. While there's a fair amount of darkness in the interior scenes throughout, it's during the climax, when Christina wanders about the dark

school all alone, where you have a lot of great stuff done with light and shadow. Clouzot also never gets all that fancy with his camerawork but there are a handful of memorable shots and reveals, such as a close-up of the water draining from the bathtub (something of a prelude to the similar shot Hitchcock would do in Psycho), a shot of Christina fainting by the side of the pool and a wide pan following her students running to her revealing that Michel's body isn't at the bottom, a moment in

Michel's hotel room where a door slowly opens in front of Christina until her reflection in the mirror on its back is completely centered (it turns out to just be a cleaning man), the moment where Alfred Fichet closes a door behind him to reveal the very coat of Michel's that Christina has described as missing, and the creepy close-up of Michel's eyes at the end when he turns and pops the fake contact lenses out.

Les Diaboliques is another movie that was mostly shot on location, especially for the exteriors, with the Chateau de L'Etang-la-Ville standing in for the Delassalle Boarding School. This place was apparently just as rundown and in disrepair in reality as it appears in the film, including the nasty-looking swimming pool, which becomes the film's centerpiece in many ways, as the opening credits play over it and it acts as something of an overall symbol for the negativity and feeling of decay that permeates the story. The interiors, which were

likely done at Saint-Maurice Studios in Val-de-Marne, as I mentioned, don't look much better, thanks to the lighting, the sense of claustrophobia from those narrow hallways and small rooms, and that notion that the place is falling apart. While there are some genuinely good one, I also like how rowdy and rambunctious the kids are in general, as they're often running around, yelling, getting into mischief, fighting, spreading rumors and gossip about the teachers and staff, and acting like wild 

animals, such as when they protest about the nastyfood during the scene in the dining room and when they're almost going into full-on Lord of the Flies mode in Christina's classroom before she walks in (this feels much more true to life than depictions of school I've seen in other films around the same time, like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, where the kids are so well-behaved and disciplined that they virtually protest when Annie Hayworth says they're going to leave school early). Speaking of which, the fact that Nicole's students are never that rowdy in her classroom or when they're leaving her class is a testament to how she's a much sterner and tougher teacher than Christina (she slaps Moinet when she becomes frustrated with his supposed lying about having seen Michel).

Though some shots of Christina and Nicole driving to and from Niort (which Clouzot changed from the book's setting because it happened to be where he was born) were obviously done in front of a process screen, there's plenty of stuff that was actually shot on actual roads and the surrounding countryside, such as in Yvelines, which was also the location for Nicole's apartment, in the town of Montfort-l'Amaury. While it probably looks better in reality, in the film, the place is given an oppressive, unpleasant look and feels thanks to the

cinematography, the overcast skies, and that sense of it being cold and wet. The building's interiors, including both Nicole and the Herbouxes' apartments, are fine enough but, as I said, you can tell this place is definitely for people with very low incomes, as the apartments, while definitely homey and nicely furnished, especially Nicole's, are very small, composing of just one room that acts as a living room, dining room, and bedroom all in one, and with a separate one for the bathroom. This same confined, low-rent sort of aesthetic can also

be used to describe the dry cleaners, which Christina and Nicole briefly visit after Michel's suit is delivered, and the Eden Hotel, where Michel is said to have a room, although the latter is the most high-class location in the film by far. Finally, one place that was not done in a studio at all was the morgue, which was actually the Institut Medico-Legal in Paris, with its long corridors with high ceilings, large storage area where the corpses are kept, a large elevator used to bring one of the bodies up to the next floor, and the small, confined identification room.

Another of the many changes Clouzot made from the book was switching the genders of the murderers; in the book, it's the husband and his mistress attempting to murder the wife, only for the twist at the end to reveal a lesbian relationship between the women. Though it's been suggested that he made this change in order to give his wife a much bigger role than she would have had if they'd stuck with the original character dynamic, and not to avoid problems with the censors due to the lesbianism, it did result in a close and somewhat

intimate relationship between Christina and Nicole. Throughout the movie, Nicole is seen looking after Christina, fussing about her heart condition and how she looks, and is also often trying to make her more assertive and tough, rather than the fragile, delicate, and overtly feminine person she is. Though they never flat out call it a lesbian relationship, their friendship, in spite of the affair between Michel and Nicole, is seen as both unusual and somewhat taboo by those at the university, especially Monsieur Drain when he

comments on it at the beginning of the film. The women do come off as something of a couple during the section in Niort, as they look like they're moving in together when they arrive and kind of set up house in Nicole's apartment. At one point, regarding the single bed in the room, Michel asks Christina, "Whose bed is this? Hers or yours?", and she answers, "Ours." Later, after they've seemingly drowned and left him in the bathtub, you see she wasn't kidding, as the two of them are in the bed

together. Their fights and arguments about Michel after his body disappears make them feel like a bickering couple, and when Christina sends Nicole away near the end, her reaction, asking if she hates her, comes off as someone who's heartbroken that their significant other doesn't love them anymore. Granted, in the end, their relationship is revealed to have been all part of Nicole and Michel's plan to kill Christina, but you can't help but wonder if there wasn't just a tiny bit of actual affection she may have developed for her.

Speaking of Christina, the notion of her being a Catholic repeatedly comes up throughout the story, often presented in stark contrast to the very sinful act of murder she believes she's committing. It's also a big part of her internal conflict, especially given how she doesn't even have the courage to divorce Michel because her faith sees it as a deadly sin, and even after the horrible things he does to her, she's still torn because of it, crossing herself and praying when Nicole brings the nylon tablecloth to wrap up Michel's body. There's also a

kind of Last Supper thing here, as right before Michel arrives, Christina nervously munches on a very small pieces of a loaf of bread, and while she never drinks it, the bottle of drugged liquor on the table could be seen as a stand-in for the traditional wine. And Michel's body disappearing from the pool and the feeling of his presence afterward could be seen as something of a resurrection after his supposedly lethal baptism, while Christina seems to view the growing threat as some sort of

divine punishment, as she's seen praying to a small statue of the Virgin Mary right after the discovery and also attempts to go to confession the next day, only for Nicole to remark that the only way she may receive absolution is to turn herself in, which she tries to do. I've never heard or read anyone else bring this up when discussing the film; rather it's something I myself noticed on my most recent rewatch. And while it's nothing major in the grand scheme of things, I thought it would be interesting to point out.

The first hour or so of the film is where I feel it's at its best, starting in how it does a really good job of setting up the dynamics of the characters by showing what a scumbag Michel is and making it easy to understand why Christina and Nicole want him gone. Once the women drive up to Niort and Christina calls Michel in order to lure him there with the threat of divorce, there's that feeling of a ticking clock the following night, as they wait for him to arrive and Nicole prepares everything. At

the same time, there's also the conflict of Christina's hesitation, which grows and grows the closer it gets to zero hour and the more Nicole finalizes everything, such as by buying the nylon tablecloth to wrap up the body, drugging the bottle of liquor she bought, and beginning to fill up the bathtub. In the midst of this, they hear the sound of the train whistle, signifying it's almost time, but when Christina hears the sound of the water running, her nerves give out and she attempts to

call the whole thing off. Nicole manages to talk her back into it and Christina appears to gain a new resolve, when Nicole leaves to go upstairs and distract the Herbouxes. Left alone, Christina glances at the bottle of liquor on the table and cries silently, still trying to come to terms with what she's about to do, and munching on some bread. As she tries to calm herself, she then hears the sound of Michel's approaching footsteps outside. Silently exclaiming, "My God!", she goes and meets him at the building's front door. After she leads him into

the apartment, they have their back and forth where Michel attempts to make her come back with him and, when she stands her ground and insists on the divorce, he tries to sweetly manipulate her out of it. As I said before, he almost succeeds, but when he yells at her and slaps her when she causes him to spill liquor on his suit, she goes along, plying him with more and more of the drugged drink. When the sedative hits him, she gets him to lie down on the bed, unbuttons his suit, and removes his shoes. She pours the rest of the liquor down the sink in the bathroom and turns out the light, but is startled to hear the bathtub running again. Michel is also startled by it but quickly falls unconscious.

It turns out Nicole came back down and entered through a door in the back of the bathroom. As she finishes filling up the tub, she and Christina walk into the bedroom, where Michel has fallen asleep. As he murmurs in his sleep, apparently dreaming, Nicole forces open one of his eyes to make sure he's thoroughly drugged. He doesn't budge at all and she decides they can now take care of him. She finds his return ticket and restaurant bill and has Christina burn them, while she goes back into the

bathtub and turns off the faucet. With that, they carry him into the bathroom, over to the tub, and place him in the water. As Christina watches, he starts to wake up right before Nicole shoves his head down into the water, with air bubbles spewing out of his mouth. They quickly stop, as do his movements, and Nicole tells the shocked Christina to grab the statue, meaning the one sitting atop the fireplace mantle. She shakes her head, not knowing what she means, but when Nicole specifies, she goes, grabs it, and carries it into the bathroom.

Nicole takes it, uses it to hold Michel's body down, and then has Christina go and grab the nylon tablecloth. However, Christina's fragile health causes her to bend over on the side of the bed, coughing, forcing Nicole to grab the cloth herself. She then spreads it across the top of the tub and leaves it there. She turns out the light and joins Christina, telling her it's over, and closes the bathroom door behind her. Christina suggests they load him up and get him back to the school right then and there, but Nicole says they need to remain in order to have a rock-solid alibi for their whereabouts at the time of Michel's death. The scene ends on the faucet dripping onto the tablecloth, as Christina sits in bed while Nicole sleeps next to her.

The next afternoon, they finally drain the tub, much to Monsieur Herboux's annoyance when the noise interferes with his attempt to take a nap. While the water drains, Christina slides the wicker trunk they brought with them across the hall and into the bathroom. She looks at Michel's face as he lies there, dead, and mentions how horrible he looks to Nicole, who sits on the edge of the bathtub, nonchalantly holding the statue and smoking a cigarette. As the last bit of water goes

down, they hear Herboux smacking the floor above them with his shoe, attempting to give them a taste of the aggravation they've given him. In the next scene, he's helping Nicole carry the trunk out of the building and down to the car, when he slips and drops it hard on the ground. The lid on Nicole's side pops open but she quickly closes it back. They then try to tie the lid down, with Nicole having to keep them from opening it up and "taking some stuff out." Herboux tries to talk her into using an old tin trunk he has but Christina rushes out, telling

him that the two of them are already late enough, as Nicole manages to tie it down. She and Herboux then manage to lift up the trunk and slide it into the back of the car. They close the back doors and Nicole joins Christina up in the front seat, where she's already started the engine. Mme. Herboux gives them something for the road and tells them to be careful, that the roads can be dangerous. Herboux responds, "They have mobilized 1,500 policemen. You'll find one at every crossroad," unknowingly causing Christina some apprehension. With that, the two women drive off.

As Herboux said, they come across a cop directing traffic at a crossroad, causing a moment of tension for them. They manage to get past him without any problems and, with that, Nicole declares themselves scot-free; Christina, however, describes themselves as monsters but Nicole says she's fine with that, as long as Michel is the one person they've killed. However, they run into a bit of trouble later when a drunken soldier approaches them for a ride while they've stopped at a gas

station. While Nicole goes inside to pay for the gas, the soldier asks Christina in the driver's seat if she's going to Tours. Even though she says she isn't, the soldier asks for a lift anyway, giving her a sob story of how he'll be "thrown in the slammer" if he's late in getting back to his base. He becomes belligerent when she still refuses and accuses him of being drunk, and attempts to climb into the back of the car. Christina gets out and attempts to keep the soldier from climbing in, only for him to fall on

the edge of the floorboard. She shouts for Nicole, and when she and the man who runs the gas station come out, the latter admonishes the drunk, telling him to get out or he'll push him out himself. Hearing that, the drunk gets out and staggers on up the road. The manager, seeing water on the floor near the wicker trunk, offers to clean it up, thinking it was the soldier's doing, but Nicole tells him not to worry, saying they don't have time. She closes the doors and gets back in the front with Christina,

telling her that the nylon tablecloth is leaking. They make it back to the school late that night and use Michel's personal horn signal to get Plantiveau to let them in. Plantiveau shows up at the gate and when he's surprised to see it's not Michel, Nicole feigns ignorance as to his whereabouts. He opens the gate for them and Christina, despite her exhaustion, drives on in. They turn off the headlights as they drive onto the grounds and park next to the swimming pool. They get out and prepare to finish the job, although Christina is both

so tired and weak from her condition that she nearly collapses into Nicole's arms. Nicole manages to snap her out of it and they drag the trunk out of the back, when Christina gets into a coughing fit that Nicole tries to muffle. Finally getting the trunk out, they maneuver it over to the side of the pool and Nicole unlocks and opens the lid. She removes the nylon from Michel's head but, before she can do anything else, a light comes on in the top window of the building across from them. They take cover behind the car, Christina

telling Nicole it's Pascual, who often gets up at night to use the bathroom. Though they fear he might look out the window, they hear the toilet flush and the light goes out. As the clock strikes midnight, they quickly open the trunk's lid, turn it over to the side, and dump Michel's body into the pool.

The next day, as school starts back, and amid rumors that Michel is missing, they wait for someone to find the body. There's a moment where, as she teaches a language class, Christina tensely looks out the window at the pool. At one point, she watches as Plantiveau approaches the edge of the pool and appears to see something. She stops her teaching as she watches him stick a rake down into the water, the film quickly cutting back and forth between her watching and her POV of what he's

doing. But, he just fishes out something small that fell into the pool and dumps it on the ground. With that, she goes on with her teaching, and that night, as she and Nicole are grading papers, she hints that she wants the pool drained. The next day, at recess, the boys kick a ball into the pool, which horrifies Christina, although Nicole says she was counting on it. As the boys try to fish the ball out, Christina, saying her heart is about to explode, begs Nicole to do something. Nicole has her give her a set of keys

and, once the bell has rung, she calls to the boys, telling them to go and get the pole necessary for skimming the water. As the boys clamor for the keys, she tosses them to Soudieu, a boy standing at the edge of the pool. Intentionally, she undershoots her throw and the keys fall into the water. Commenting on how bad that throw was, Soudieu strips down to his underwear and dives into the water after the keys. The boys and the women gather around the edge of the pool, watching the water intently, as air bubbles come to the surface.

The boys wonder whether or not he's drowning, given how long he's down there, and Christina is, again, horrified at this. Soudieu then surfaces and holds up something he says he found in the mud at the bottom; instead of the keys, it's a lighter that Nicole identifies as belonging to Michel. Climbing out of the water, he hands the lighter to Nicole, saying he couldn't find the keys because of how murky it is at the bottom. She sends him inside to put his clothes back on and then "suggests" to Christina that the pool should be drained.

Christina, now almost catatonic from fear, nods and says, "Yes. Have it emptied. Send Plantiveau over." Nicole walks the rest of the boys inside, while Christina stands by the edge of the pool, looking at the slimy water. Plantiveau is sent over and, after warning Christina not to fall in, is told that she wants the pool drained. Though he's reluctant to do it at the moment, she pays him extra for it and he agrees, saying it'll take an hour.

She returns to her classroom, where her students are messing about, until one who's acting as a lookout sees her coming. He also tells them to be cool, seeing as how she's upset. They all stand up at their desks when she walks in, but when she doesn't acknowledge them and sits down at her desk, leaning her head against her clasped hands, the one boy motions for them to sit back down. When she looks up and sees them all staring at her with very serious expressions, she tells them to

knock it off and attempts to continue with the lesson from before. Getting no response to her question, she says, "Well, I'm waiting. I'm waiting." She looks up at the clock on the wall, as a dissolve reveals that a complete hour has almost passed. She checks her watch and, looking out the window to see Plantiveau climbing down into the now totally drained pool with his rake, she rushes outside. The kids, as well as Nicole, follow her to the window and watch as she goes to the side of the pool, looks down into it, and collapses. The kids and Nicole rush out to her side, as the camera pulls back to reveal that Plantiveau is skimming the pool's slimy bottom, where Michel's body should be, but isn't.

From here until we get to the climax, despite some effective moments, the film starts to drag a little for me, as we get into Christina and Nicole wondering what happened to the body, turning on each other, and finding evidence that Michel is either still alive or has come back from the dead for revenge. First, his suit is delivered from the dry cleaners, then Christina and Nicole go to the dry cleaners to find out who brought the suit in, with one of the women there describing a man who fits Michel's description to a T. She also gives them a key to

a room at the Eden Hotel, which was in the suit's pocket, and Christina goes there and makes her way into the room. After looking around, she gets a scare when a door suddenly opens, but it turns out to just be the cleaning man. He tells her that no one ever sees Michel and he doesn't even know if he comes to his room at all, as the bed is always made. After a tense scene between them when Christina attempts to call the police but Nicole stops her, we get the moment where Nicole shows her a newspaper story about a body having been

found in the Seine River. Christina then goes to the morgue to confirm whether or not it's Michel and, naturally, it's not. This is when the character of Alfred Fichet enters the story and we spend a while with him as he tries to figure out what's going on. There should be suspense as to whether or not he's going to find something that will make him suspicious of the women, like in the moment when Christina describes the suit Michel was wearing the last time she saw him and he closes the door to see

it hanging on the back, but, as I said, I find his character to be rather pointless and he never does become suspicious of them, anyway, so this section doesn't really grab me. After Fichet leaves for the time being, Christina and Nicole, along with Monsieur Drain, come across the boy named Moinet as he acts out a punishment he claims Michel gave him. Later, Christina and Nicole find the slingshot he says Michel confiscated after he broke a window with it, adding more and more to

their paranoia, especially Christina's, who has to be given a sedative in order to sleep. The next day is when the school photo is taken and, after it's developed, some who look at it claim to see Michel's figure in the window behind them. Thus, Nicole suggests she and Christina take off, but Christina sends her off on her own, resigned to her fate.

The climax begins late that night, after a scene where Fichet returns and, upon hearing Christina's confession, goes to check her story out, first at the pool and then in the garage, where he finds the wicker trunk and the nylon tablecloth. After the school is locked up, the students are put to bed, and the lights turned out, Christina lies in bed, having a fitful sleep, when a door at the end of a hall around the corner from her bedroom opens, a shadow emerges, and someone's gloved hand is seen going across a railing. She's awakened when someone

briefly turns on the hall light outside and she, in turn, switches on her bedroom's lights. She looks out her window and sees someone turning on the lights as they move through the hallway in the section of the building across from her. She sees a shadow in one of the windows and then, walks out of her room and creeps down the dark hallway, to a corner up ahead. Someone is then shown walking in the darkness, and, as Christina, hearing their footsteps, demands to know who it is, they go into another room. She tensely rounds the corner,

breathing heavily, and, seeing a slightly ajar door with a stream of light coming out from under it, heads towards it, unaware that someone is now coming through a door behind her. As she approaches the door at the end of the hall, she hears the sound of a typewriter, frightening her all the more. She heads on to the door, with the sound continuing, and when she reaches the door, it slowly opens from the inside. She creeps into the room, which is Michel's office, and sees some

gloves and a hat sitting next to a typewriter with a piece of paper in it. Walking over to the paper, she sees that "Michel Delassalle" is typed all over it, in various manners (a possible influence for Stanley Kubrick?). The lights then go out and Christina, now terrified, runs out and back down the hall to her room. She closes and locks the door behind her and, coughing and gasping, goes into the bathroom. She puts a bit of water from the sink on her forehead, then looks and gasps when she sees an

apparent vision of Michel's body lying underwater in the bathtub. Even worse, he rises up out of the water, first in a sitting position and then standing all the way, a sight that causes her to slump to the floor, gasping and choking. When he stands up completely, water dripping off him, she literally drops dead in front of the door.

That's when we get into the final revelation, as Michel removes the contact lenses that make his eyes look lifeless, steps out of the bathtub, and walks over to Christina's lifeless body. Holding up her arm, checking for a pulse, and then watching it flop back down when she lets go of it, he walks into the bedroom, opens the door, and signals for someone. As he opens the wardrobe to get some dry clothes, Nicole comes in, asking if it's over, and the two of them embrace and kiss. Michel grabs a suit coat out of the wardrobe and slips it on, as they talk about the ordeal they've been put through by Christina and how long it took for her to die. They then discuss how rich they'll be once he sells the school, only for Fichet to walk in, revealing that he overheard them and that the only thing they're going to get out of this is a prison sentence. 

This is what the entire movie is constructed around and what it's most famous for, even if the twist's details aren't as well known to the general public as that of something like Psycho. In fact, as Alfred Hitchcock would with that film five years later, Henri-Georges Clouzot attempted to keep the twist from being revealed to those who hadn't yet seen it. He not only asked that those who came in after the movie began showing not be allowed into the theater, which Hitchcock would famously make a requirement for seeing Psycho, but at the very end,

there's a title card that implores the audience not to spoil it for their friends. And while it may not have been the very first movie to be predicated on such an unexpected surprise in the story, it's certainly influenced numerous other movies in the decades since, including those of Hitchcock himself and the work of M. Night Shyamalan, to name a few. But, like all those movies, this leads into the inescapable dilemma that, once you know the twist, your subsequent viewings of Les

Diaboliques can never provide you with the same experience as your first. Now, for me, those subsequent viewings of it, Psycho, and others have still been entertaining and fulfilling, and I think it's a testament to good filmmaking and storytelling when a movie can provide with you so much more than just the initial surprise and delight of having been fooled, but that first viewing is something you can truly only have only once. Even Psycho, which is one of my absolute favorite horror movies, and

movies, in general, and which I've watched countless times over the years, has never quite had the same impact since that first viewing when I was around twelve or thirteen. After that, the most truly special and unique experiences I've had with it have been in watching others who've never seen it experience its twists and turns for the first time, and it'll be the same with Les Diaboliques in the future.

As for the twist in and of itself, it is really well thought out and the explanations for how they pulled it off, from the dead-looking contact lenses and the revelation that, during the night in the apartment, Michel managed to quietly get out of the tub, to the notion that he simply acted like a dead body all throughout the ride back to the school and when he was dumped into the pool, make sense. It also works when you look back at it in retrospect. First, you realize that, after Nicole first pushed Michel's head under the water, she sent

Christina out into the main room to get the lion statue in order to give him time to come up for air and, when she walked back in with the statue, he had just gone back under, which is why Nicole is looking down at him (when Nicole goes to take the statue from Christina, you can see a few air bubbles come out of Michel's mouth). Second, she does the same thing after she's handed the statue, this time sending Christina to get the tablecloth, and since we only get a brief glimpse of her about to put the statue on top of his body, we can guess

that, once Christina went out to get the cloth, only to nearly collapse on the bed, Nicole probably placed it on the floor. All of this also explains the urgency in Nicole's actions and how she shouts at Christina to hurry in getting her what she needs. When she neatly places the cloth over the bathtub, it's likely to leave enough room between it and the surface of the water so Michel could breathe. And after he got out of the tub that night, Nicole took Christina to a cafe for a while the next morning to

give him time to get back into it, as well as put in the contacts. Of course, then you have to think about how good Michel must be at acting like a corpse and wonder how he was able to breathe during all that time he was wrapped up in the nylon and crammed into that wicker trunk, as well as how he knew when he could get out of the swimming pool without being seen, but those are little nitpicks that don't matter in the long run.

The only major issue with the twist that I can come up with is how overly complicated their plot to murder Christina was. Why not just off her in a simpler, yet easy to explain away method? If they didn't want to do it at the school because they were afraid people would be suspicious, given how the affair was public knowledge, why not just actually commit the murder in Niort, with Nicole and Michel drugging Christina when she least expects it and then either drown her in the bathtub or strangle her? After that, they could've gotten back

to the school and dumped her body in the pool like she and Nicole had planned to do to Michel. Or, at the very least, they could've gone through with their plot up to when they dumped Michel in the pool, then have him appear to and frighten Christina to death later that very night. Why was it necessary to go through the drawn-out charade of making it seem as though Michel was stalking them, either as a ghost or as a survivor of their plot? Had they not prolonged it, Fichet wouldn't

have gotten involved and it would've gone off without a hitch. Speaking of which, I was initially going to ask what the point was of Christina acting as though the man they found in the Seine River was Michel, but then I remembered it was to keep her from going to the police. Still, she sure was lucky that a man just happened to die in both the same manner and on the same day as Michel. And why didn't Nicole accompany her to the morgue in case, after she discovered the body wasn't him, she again attempted to go to the police and confess?

Fortunately, all of these holes that you can poke into the plot when viewed through the lens of the twist do come only in retrospect, as the film quickly transitions into the ending, where the school is closing down in the wake of the scandal. And it's here that it makes up for the objectively flawed and possibly disappointing revelation by leaving you with a fascinatingly ambiguous scenario. The one boy, Moinet, again gets into trouble for breaking a window with a slingshot and, when he's admonished for it this time, he says

Christina gave him back the slingshot and told him to have fun with it. Like before, he's claiming to have seen and spoken with a character who's supposed to be dead, and like when he continuously claimed to have been punished by Michel the first time he broke a window, he's sent to stand in the corner as punishment, insisting he's not lying about having seen Christina. As the movie ends there, you're left to ponder the same questions as during much of the latter half: did Christina somehow survive her apparent heart

attack or has she returned from the dead? The last time you see the slingshot, Christina has it with her in her bedroom, as she and Nicole discuss how it could've ended up there. Plus, when Moinet is confronted by Monsieur Drain at the end, he confirms that Christina's body was taken away earlier that very day. So, either Christina figured out what was going on out at the last minute and, possibly with help from Fichet, proved to be just as good at playing dead as Michel, or she's now a

ghost haunting the place where she died... or Moinet could be lying and using the same story as before to explain away his having stolen the slingshot from the bedroom. It's never even confirmed that he actually did see Michel earlier and, as Nicole and Monsieur Raymond suggest, he could just be a screwed up kid who did something wrong, made up Michel dolling out a punishment in his mind, and proceeded to carry it out, even going as far as to confiscate his own slingshot as part of it. Obviously, that would make for a pretty big coincidence, given that Michel was actually lurking around, but, again, you just don't know.

Except for the opening credits and the ending title cards, Les Diaboliques is totally without score, another thing it has in common with some of Hitchcock's films, particularly Rope. However, the music that is here, composed by Georges Van Parys, is quite memorable. It starts out as a discordant, screeching string piece accompanied by very harsh horns but then, during its second half, it's replaced with ghostly, singing children voices and a church organ, before transitioning back into the strings and horns. It's 100% nightmarish, with a very memorable melody to it, and makes for a great introduction to the dark story that's about to unfold, with a more downbeat version of it heard at the very end.

If you're a fan of Hitchcockian suspense-thrillers with horror overtones and have never seen Les Diaboliques, you owe it to yourself, as it is one of the best of its kind. It's a well-constructed and directed film, with great performances from all the actors, a dark, nihilistic tone and visual aesthetic that's consistent throughout, albeit with sprinkles of levity and humor, an intriguing mystery, a very suspenseful climax, and a surprising twist, all before it leaves off with an ambiguous ending that you can provide your own answers for. It does have some drawbacks in that, after a certain point, it starts to feel drawn out, the third act introduces some contrived elements, and the twist, while executed nicely and well thought out, is a bit problematic, both in the same way as most thrillers constructed entirely around one and also when you really think about how overly complicated the conspirators made it for themselves. But, on the whole, it is definitely a classic in its genre, one of the best French horror films, in my opinion, and makes for a rewarding viewing experience.