Thriller Rated NR
“…finds its tonal footing in the final third, when Jung-ho makes the transition from darkly comic clown to film-noir anti-hero.”
Thriller Rated R
“…seems to be about the awfulness and inhumanity of vengeance. But watch how the film moves.”
“There’s only one Diabolique worthy of its name, and it’s waiting for you at the video store.”
“…gives you a sense of the discomfort, fear and even paranoia that may have been in the air regarding the burgeoning field of psychoanalysis.”
“…mostly enjoyable for the way each of the three leads offers a twist on classic noir archetypes.”
“…takes a while to move beyond mere melodrama and reach a proper place of weirdness, but when it finally does, boy do things get bizarre.”
“…captures the way adolescence blurs far more lines than the one between youth and adulthood.”
“As the twists piled on, I found them increasingly strained and eventually alienating.”
Overwrought to contemporary eyes, perhaps, but still troubling and, in its own way, powerful. Adapted from the Patrick Hamilton play, this 1944 screen version features Charles Boyer – baritone a-rumble and eyebrows a-wriggle – as Gregory Anton, new husband to Ingrid Bergman’s Paula Alquist. Paula has survived one trauma – as a child she discovered
Thriller Rated NC-17
"…wears its sleaze like a ratty stole dug out from a bin at the ‘thrifty.’"
