For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Day 5 prompt was Schoolhouse Screams. I had Michele join in on the fun tonight and pick the movie. There were a few movies that we have seen over the years that go with the theme like Carrie, Jennifer’s Body and even Nightmare on Elm Street, but as I said earlier we are trying to watch movies that are not in our normal rotation. We chose, Diabolique (1996).
Storyline
The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed attempt to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The strain starts to tell on the two women as a retired police investigator who is looking into the disappearance on a whim begins to think that they know more than they are telling, and their mental state is not helped when their victim is seen, apparently alive and well by one of the pupils.
What we Think of Diabolique
This was not a horror or even a scary movie. It reminded me of one of those made for TV suspense movies.
Diabolique is not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but it is just too easy to forget. There is really nothing special about this movie. Everything you see has already been done in a dozen other movies and it just misses any tension and blood chilling moments to make this a good movie. The cast must have tried hard to make this movie work, but the characters are too flat and never ask the best of the actors’ talents.
The story is about a tyrannical headmaster of a boarding school for boys. He’s married to an ex-nun, but has several mistresses next to her. One day, his wife and one of his mistresses decide to kill him, because they can’t stand the man and his behavior no longer. But the man isn’t so easy to kill as they expected…
I’m sure the original feature must be very good, but this one isn’t. As I already said, it isn’t the worst movie that I’ve ever seen, but I will soon forget about it.
3 out of 10
Trivia
Kathy Bates plays a woman who had a single mastectomy due to breast cancer. Years later, Bates herself contracted breast cancer and had to have a double mastectomy.
In The Flintstones (1994) there is a character named Sharon Stone and the real Sharon Stone was asked to play herself, but Stone had already signed on to appear in this film and had to decline. A decision that she later claimed to regret.
