Helen, a mute girl, works as a maid at a sinister mansion where a psycho killer happens to reside...
Enjoyable melodrama with several effective suspence scenes.
Dorothy McGuire is instantly believable in the lead. Her moving performance elevates THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE above it's genre origins to the level of true drama.
Good story (the final killer identity reveal is no big surprise, though) and excellent monochrome photography are also worth noting.
This Robert Siodmak film has undoubtedly influenced the early horror films of Jess Franco - GRITOS EN LA NOCHE and especially LE SADIQUE BARON VON KLAUS (both from 1962).
Dario Argento included an explicit visual reference to THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE in his 1975 giallo classic PROFONDO ROSSO.
Recommended to those who don't need their horror to be graphic and enjoy B/W Academy ratio compositions.
Franco is a big Siodmack fan--he's one of the directors often cited by Franco as his favorite (he tends to swap "favorites" a lot). This is an excellent film that both anticipates the giallo sub-genre and shows what it could have been (a lot more than the forgettable waste of space it mostly was). This is one of the flicks I recommend to today's overly young anti-b&w Philistines. It has even brought a few of them around.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by, cinemarchaeologist.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree, The Spiral Staircase is important for the development of gialli, and is just a damn fine film on it's own.
It withstands repeat viewings well and has made me want to check out more Siodmak. The visuals are grand. It would be hard to imagine The Spiral Staircase in colour. Or with graphic violence. It just wouldn't be the same.
I also agree that a lot of the films in the giallo genre are rather forgettable, shallow affairs, remarkable solely for their style/kitsch value, but hardly ever emotionally engaging.