Lo spettro

Riccardo Freda, an Italian director of skill who directed many Sword and Sandal films of the 60's as well as horror greats like I Vampiri, does a very serviceable job directing this thoughtful, mood-laden sequel of sorts to his earlier effort The Horrible Doctor Hitchcok. One does not need to have seen that earlier effort to follow what goes on here as they are really entities unto themselves with the same characters just going through different circumstances and having different motivations. In this film Dr. Hitchcock(living in Scotland - very implausible given the Mediterranean looks of most of the cast) is bound in a wheelchair and has nothing but sickly pity for himself as he wishes to die. Helping him remain alive is a local doctor giving him some sort of concoction to live and, of course, no love triangle would be complete without the love object of the other two sides - sultry, hypnotic breathless Barbara Steele - the 60's queen of the horror film - particularly the Gothic horror film. Steele is not a great actress by any stretch. She is lovely to look at and has the most impressive pair of - yes, I know where I could go here but really I intended to say eyes the entire time. Freda creates a slowly building tension between the central characters and the story is nothing exceptional in terms of creativity. You have seen this story before in various adaptations. Freda does; however, have a flair with the camera lens, and I was really surprised at how well he, the actors, and the story all combined to make an interesting film experience. The rest of the cast is all serviceable with Elio Jotta as Dr. Hitchcock being particularly effective and Harriet Medin(who was in the previous Hitchcock film also as a maid) doing a nice, creepy job as Catherine the housemaid. There are some very powerfully shot scenes: the tomb scene is genuinely eerie and the final denouement is quite good. Loads of atmosphere make this one of the best of its kind.

Barbara Steele is great as the conniving wife of Dr. Hitchcock in this, Freda's sequel to The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock. She conspires with Dr. Hitchcock's physician (who is also her lover) to do away with her old, sick and wealthy husband, which leads to the old revenge-from-beyond-the-grave storyline. While clichéd and (mostly) predictable, this film remains a must-see for fans of atmospheric horror and, in particular, Italian horror films of the 1960's. Riccardo Freda's excellent work combining lighting, sound and camera movement creates an eerie and foreboding atmosphere which overcomes the films weaknesses and gives healthy punctuation to the films shocks. This movie is well worth tracking down, and is certainly deserving of wider recognition than it has thus far received.

This film perhaps holds up better than the first Dr. Hitchcock film and can be seen with or without that film. It stands on its own. A good film for people to be introduced to director Freda's work with. It gets better with repeated viewings and the music score is very good. This is not, just as none of his films are, a supernatural movie. So just know that going in. The film still has a good Gothic feel to it. Sadly there is no really good DVD release version of the film. There is a key and very graphic murder scene that is either cut down or cut completely out of several versions available. Without that being intact the impact of the later part of the film is really reduced. Think about Psycho if you basically cut out the shower scene. Not that this is in Psycho's league but this scene I'm talking about really makes this film work. It would be nice if Freda's films got a box set release of proper versions of his film. He started Mario Bava's career and Argento says Freda had more of an influence on him than Bava was. For now you have to really look hard and watch pretty lousy versions of his films to try to discover him as a director. It's worth the effort but would be nice for him to get some decent releases.

As you might expect, this film is really quite similar to Riccardo Freda's earlier horror flick "The Terror of Dr Hitchcock", although for my money; I'd say this one is slightly better. The two films share a director and a lead actress in common, as well as a lead character name. This film firmly fits into the 'Gothic' side of Italian cinema, which Steele often starred in, and Freda makes excellent use of this style with some real standout cinematography. It became clear that Riccardo Freda was, in fact, a hack; as it turned out that the great Mario Bava did most of the work on a lot of his films, and his later stuff - Tragic Ceremony and The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire to name a couple - was a million miles away from being brilliant. This film would appear to be Freda at his best, therefore, and it's actually not bad. The plot centres on Dr. John Hitchcock; a cripple who wants to die. His wife is, naturally, having an affair with her husband's doctor, and pretty soon the two of them conspire to murder Dr Hitchcock for his money. However, they didn't bargain for him haunting them after his death...

The film's title suggests that it's a ghost story, but I would say that The Ghost is more of a mystery chiller. There's not a great deal of real bona fide horror, and to be honest; I felt the film was a little too talky and would have proffered it to be a bit more visceral. The film's main draw is, obviously, Barbara Steele and the 'Queen of Horror' looks great throughout the film. The decor and set design is great too, and these allow Freda to build an oppressive and macabre atmosphere, which benefits the plot line quite well. The main problem with the film is the fact that a lot of it feels really amateurish. The dubbing is atrocious (even more so than usual) and some of the things the characters say are ridiculous. Whether or not that's down to the translation, I don't know. The climax is the best part of the film for me. Of course, it's not a completely sense-making ending and there are a few holes left; but it's a nice twist at least, and it does justify the shortfalls of some of the rest of the movie. Overall, I won't go as far as to say that The Ghost is a horror classic; but it's good entertainment, and fans of Gothic horror will enjoy it.

Riccardo Freda's "Lo Spettro" aka. "The Ghost" of 1963 is yet another delightfully uncanny Italian Gothic Horror film starring the wonderful Barbara Steele (my favorite actress), and while it cannot possibly compare to the absolute highlights in Steele's career, such as Mario Bava's masterpiece "La Maschera Del Demonio" ("Black Sunday", 1960), Roger Corman's "Pit and the Pendulum" (1961, also starring the great Vincent Price) or Antonio Margheriti's "Danza Macabra" ("Castle of Blood", 1964), this is another mesmerizing experience that no lover of Gothic greatness can afford to miss. "Lo Spettro" is a sequel to Freda's earlier Gothic Horror film, "L'Orribile Segreto Del Dr. Hichcock" ("The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock", 1962; they obviously left out a "t" in order to avoid legal difficulties), also starring Steele, which I haven't yet seen. Her character is named 'Margaret' in this film whereas the name was 'Cynthia' in "Dr. Hichcock. This film doesn't require having seen "Dr. Hichcock" , however.

Scotland, 1910: The brilliant, but critically ill, wheelchair-bound Dr. Hichcock (Elio Jotta), who needs to take lots of medications against his mysterious disease, is working on a serum to cure paralysis. His beautiful young wife Margaret (Barbara Steele) is having an affair with his assistant/colleague Dr. Livingstone (Peter Baldwin), however, and the two do not intend to wait for the old Doctor to pass away by natural reasons. Shortly after his funeral, creepy things begin to happen in the uncanny mansion...

As mentioned above, the ravishing Barbara Steele, is my favorite actress, and she is once again great here. In my humble opinion, no other actress was ever capable of blending incomparable beauty with a genius for the uncanny as it is the case with this unchallenged Goddess of Gothic Horror, and no other actress ever will. Under the solid direction of Riccardo Freda, Miss Steele plays yet another typical role with typical greatness. As the credited director of the first (post-WW2) Italian Horror film, "I Vampiri" of 1957, Freda deserves praise as one of the pioneers of Italian Horror, though it must be said that it was actually the great Mario Bava (my choice for the greatest Horror director of all-time) who completed that gem and who is arguably responsible for its greatness. Besides our beloved Barbara, the rest of the cast is also very good, especially Elio Jotta is great as the sinister Dr. Hichcock. William Baldwin is good enough as Dr. Livingstone, as is Harriet Medin as the housekeeper, and the cast furthermore includes Umberto Raho, whom Italian Horror fans might recognize as a regular supporting actor in many films (including Margheriti's "Castle of Blood", Bava's "Baron Blood" and Ubaldo Ragona's "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price).

The film is almost entirely set inside Dr. Hichcocks eerie, castle-like mansion, which is a terrific setting for old-fashioned Goth-Horror indeed. Franco Mannino's score, which mainly consists of an eerily beautiful theme that is replayed throughout the film, greatly increases the film's rich atmosphere. Overall, "Lo Spettro" is not one of the greatest films in Barbara Steele's filmography, but it still is a very good and creepy Gothic Horror film that none of her fans could possibly afford to miss. Barbara Steele is once again stunningly beautiful, and brilliantly sinister - I simply cannot find enough words to adequately praise this wonderful lady. Barbara, we worship you!