Little work is needed by director Henri-Georges Clouzot to make you despise the antagonist of Diabolique with the proverbial fury of a thousand suns. The classic French thriller begins with talk of boarding school principal Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse) physically abusing his current sex toy, Nicole (Simone Signoret), who’s comforted by fellow teacher Christina (Véra Clouzot), who’s married to that son of a bitch.

Yes, Michel lives where he works where he fucks, openly, with wife and mistress knowing about the other, yet remaining as friends. It’s tough to be jealous when the man you share is a complete and utter prick — to you, to his employees, to his students. No wonder Christina wants to divorce; Nicole gives her the confidence to ask for one, but that’s merely a ruse for their plot to murder him.

It happens soon in the two-hour film — drugging and then drowning him in the tub — leaving the two ladies — and their audience — roughly 90 minutes to sweat it out as guilt mounts when the corpse vanishes. Threading the suspense in a methodical, drawn-out fashion of which Alfred Hitchcock was a master, Monsieur Clouzot (The Wages of Fear) eventually crafts a quilt of questions we can’t wait to see answered, just as we couldn’t wait to see Michel murdered.

With the devilishly delicious Diabolique‘s stellar rep, its big reveal scene may be known to many who’ve never seen it. That included me, and yet, I still couldn’t figure everything out before Clouzot chose to show us. Yes, its two hours run a little slow in patches, and the husband so hateful that he may as well have a swastika armband, but the overall story works so well, its continuing influence on so many other movies is simply undeniable. —Rod Lott

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In one of those palatial estates that resembles more of an art museum than a residence, an elderly, wheelchair-bound man tells grandchildren Evelyn and Kitty — naughty and nice, respectively — the legend of the spooky painting in his study: That tired of all the pranks and abuse, the Black Queen killed her evil sister, the Red Queen, only for the Red Queen to come back to life for revenge, killing the Black Queen and six others.

That’s basically the entire plot of The Red Queen Kills 7 Times, as Evelyn and Kitty embody the ladies of the legend. In one of their many scuffles started by Evelyn, Kitty accidentally kills her sibling. Older sis Franziska (Marina Malfatti, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids) helps her hide the body and spread the falsehood that Evelyn “went to America.”

Years later, a grown Kitty (Barbara Bouchet, The French Sex Murders) is a fashion photographer, and with the death of her grandfather, it appear as if Evelyn has resurrected herself, as a black-gloved, red-caped, white-masked, VW bug-cruising, dagger-wielding serial killer — all the better to milk the crimson stuff out of this gripping-enough giallo.

While no classic, the final film of director Emilio Miraglia (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave), Red Queen works on all the levels a giallo should: The mystery is intriguing, the killer is creepy, the music (by Bruno Nicolai) is swinging, the fashions are mod, the architecture is modder, the blood is bright red, the title is head-scratching, and the women are drop-dead gorgeous — sometimes literally. The running time is also a bit bloated, but since some of that entails one Sybil Danning at the beginning of her career and donning her birthday suit, I’m letting it slide. —Rod Lott

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When it comes to Stephen King adaptations, some are good and some are bad. Secret Window — based upon one of the quartet of novellas from his Four Past Midnight collection — is one of the better ones of the ’00s, although still far from a classic.

Coming from writer-director David Koepp, it’s a tension-ratcheting thriller in the mode of his work on Panic Room or Stir of Echoes, about a nearly divorced author (Johnny Depp) struggling with writer’s block in a remote cabin in the woods. Having moved out after catching wifey Maria Bello whoring herself out to Timothy Hutton of all ordinary people, he’s a bit depressed, taking lots of naps in his bathrobe and eating Doritos.

His idyllic surroundings turn icy when a mysterious, hat-wearing hick named Shooter (John Turturro) shows up on his porch leveling charges of plagiarism. Depp doesn’t take him too seriously at first, so Shooter puts a screwdriver through his dog’s head; ergo, Depp pays closer attention.

I liked Secret Window up until the last 15 minutes, when the twist just comes off more silly than surprising. But even a cold-hearted bastard like me has to appreciate its rather perverse final shot. —Rod Lott

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When Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code hit it big — and “big” really isn’t an accurate word for it — it was inevitable that Hollywood would pounce to make it into a movie. It also was inevitable that the result would mine box-office gold. What I didn’t expect is that said motion picture would be a leaden, crashing bore.

Say what you will about Brown’s book — that means you, offended Catholics and people who now pretend they never liked it when they totally once did — but there’s no denying that sucker had a pace that rivaled a toddler after downing a sippy cup full of Red Bull. By comparison, Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code — already overlong at 149 minutes — crawls on the floor, about as speedily as the assassinated character who opens the film, with every scene drawn out past its welcome, overstuffed with interminable speeches. There’s something to be said for brevity – a concept likely eradicated from Opie’s brain once he won the Best Director Oscar.

It makes one colossal mistake: treating the source material as if it were literature. Look, I loved reading Code, but it’s a B-level thriller. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman treats it as if it were a work of serious art, where every sentence had been constructed with precious care, like a Jenga tower, with designs on a Pulitzer Prize. In doing so, the fun is sucked clean out of it, leaving us with one history lesson (and quasi-history lesson) after another, all of which numb our attention. Although it hews closely to the original story, there’s nothing here that sheds light on why the novel sold 2 bazillion copies and counting.

Things distract us: Tom Hanks’ ill-advised academic mullet, Audrey Tautou’s neck mole, Ian McKellen’s shameless honey-baked ham of a performance. The listless tempo carries with it an unintended side effect: highlighting how entirely preposterous Brown’s puzzle-upon-puzzle plot is. Never mind how an old man with mere minutes to live could plant hidden clue upon hidden clue by the razor-thin chance that the people he intended to follow it would indeed — one wonders why the treasure hunt be so elongated when, honestly, it needs no steps beyond the first one. That’s something easily forgiven in the reading experience (if thought is even given to it at all), but maddeningly apparent in the movies. —Rod Lott

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Complain all you want about the sequels and Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake, but in reality, the made-for-TV Psycho spin-off known as Bates Motel does more damage to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film than anything else. Cross Psycho with The Love Boat and you get this utterly miserable, hour-and-a-half comedic thriller.

Bug-eyed, open-mouthed Bud Cort (Harold and Maude) stars as Alex, the best friend of Norman Bates during all their institutionalized years. Upon death, Norman has left the Bates Motel to Alex, who plans not to level it, but reopen it. Upon his release, he has to contend with all sorts of crazy things that confuse and puzzle him so, like fast food drive-in speakers and Lori Petty in a chicken suit.

Adding a café and fountain, Alex reopens the place to quite an eager crowd. First, suicidal writer/aerobics instructor Kerrie Keane (The Incubus) shows up with plans to off herself in the tub. Then Khrystyne Haje (that tall redhead from TV’s Head of the Class) intervenes and drags her to an impromptu sock hop with all her friends, where she’s hit on by a career-nadir Jason Bateman. This all prompts Keane to reconsider the value of life, although she’s been hit on by Jason Bateman and has come into contact with Lori Petty, chicken suit or not.

Bates Motel offers one ray of hope when it appears that Mother Bates — in a Scream-like outfit — has come back to kill off the guests, but that quickly becomes a double Scooby-Doo ending. Absolutely, profoundly pathetic. —Rod Lott

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