La Maison des Mystères

Last night, I couldn't sleep and turned on the tv, catching this movie. It seemed so familiar, yet I was sure I'd never seen it before. Turns out, I had seen Diabolique with Sharon Stone. Exactly the same movie with just a couple of variations such as location and names. See both and compare. I liked them both.

I liked this movie and it gave me the "heebie-jeebies" when I first saw it. (I spook easily)It has the classic elements of a good old fashioned Southern ghost story. Throw in a little voo-doo and a New Orleans cemetery and it doesn't get much better. However, having recently seen "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" with Olivia DeHavilland and Bette Davis, there are certain elements that are brazen ripoffs from the DeHaviland/Davis work. Makes me think less of the more recent of these two films. Odd and eerie seeing Ms. DeHavilland playing such an ugly, selfish and mean character...she will always be Melanie Wilkes in my mind. It took me a minute to recognize Agnes Moorehead as Velma....she looked completely different from her role as Endora on "Bewitched."

"House of secrets" is adapted from the book of Boileau and Narcejac and of course from the movie and new script by Clouzot. it begins like the french masterpiece "les Diaboliques", then adapted a shorter passage from the book and then ends again like Clouzot's movie. We all know that "les Diaboliques" adaptation by the Clouzot brothers was far different from the book, and the husband's resurrection is their idea (and not in the book), so why their name isn't in the writing credits? This tv version has some interesting scenes. When Melissa Gilbert gets frightened with her poor heart condition, she really looks like Vera Clouzot in the Clouzot movie. It is also interesting that a woman directed the movie and adapted it in a french part of the United States, at la Nouvelle Orléans (with carnaval sequences and cajun concert). But the best scenes are with Bruce Boxleitner, a psychotic husband, with two great impressive frightening scenes (not including the bathtub ending, rather poor). I prefer this tv version of "les Diaboliques" much more than french tv version "les Démoniaques with Aurore Clément (the only positive point of this 1991 version).

The big screen and television never tire of recycling the plot of the classic French film, Le Diabolique. This is the second (at least) TV movie based on the Diabolique plot, the other that I know of being Reflections of Murder with Tuesday Weld and Joan Hackett from some years ago. Diabolique was remade as a feature film with Sharon Stone and the gorgeous Isabelle Adjani in the early '90s.

In this version, the school has been changed to a medical clinic and there's some voodoo thrown in for good measure.

If you haven't seen any of the other movies, you will find the story intriguing. If you have, you may still find it interesting. After all, this is one of the classic stories of all time. But see the original, which stars Simone Signoret. I saw a rotten print of it and loved it anyway.

I really love this movie, it would be awesome if in real life those who do reap what they sow like they did in this movie. I loved Cicely Tyson she really adds that special touch to the movie. I love when she says. the cops can't help you love, I'M THE ONE WITH THE MAGIC!!!