The Horrible Dr Hichcock

One day the necrophiliac tendencies of Dr Hichcock (Robert Flemyng, The Quiller Memorandum) go too far and his wife dies from an overdose. Bereft, the doctor leaves his house but returns years later with a new wife, Cynthia (Barbara Steele, Black Sunday). The house they return to is eerie and Cynthia hears strange things, meanwhile, she doesn’t realise Dr Hichcock intends to use her body to re-animate his dead wife's corpse. Released at the height of the Italian horror boom that was produced in the wake of the influence of Hammer’s era-defining horror productions, director Riccardo Freda (The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire) and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (The Whip and the Body) create a dark and wicked gothic horror that brings in sly allusions to the work of Alfred Hitchcock while the period detail of Victorian London provides a lush backdrop. 

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2023 2K restoration of the film from the original negative presented in three versions across two Blu-rays:
• Disc 1: the original 87-minute Italian version The Horrible Dr. Hichcock [L’orrible segreto del Dr. Hichcock]; and the English dub of the complete 87-minute Italian cut Raptus: The Secret of Dr. Hichcock; 
• Disc 2, exclusive to the limited edition: the re-ordered 76-minute North American version The Horrible Dr. Hichcock
• Audio commentary by critics Kat Ellinger and Annie Rose Malamet
• Audio commentary by Tim Lucas analysing the different versions and distribution history of the film
• New interview with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (2023)
• Visual essay on Bluebeard in gothic film by Miranda Corcoran (2023) 
• An interview with Madeleine Le Despencer on necrophilia and taboo gothic (2023)
• Trailer
• Gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic and author Chris Fujiwara on the film; an archival piece by Alan Y. Upchurch, Tim Lucas and Luigi Boscaino on the making of the film featuring interviews with Freda, Steele, Flemyng and others; and a critical overview by Cullen Gallagher
• Limited edition of 5000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings 
  

Year: 1962
Cert: 15
Format: Blu-ray
Region: B
RAD026BDLE
EAN: 5060974680504
Release date: 23/10/23

Press:

[A] “gothic masterpiece, a macabre poem as perverse, powerful and fascinating in form as Poe’s best work...Its morbid oneirism, deployed with a perfect control of colour, rhythm and atmosphere, brilliantly integrates such play with fragments of film history into its compelling fantasy texture." - Tom Milne and Paul Willemen, The Encyclopedia of Horror Movies