I couldn't stop thinking about how much this movie felt like a Hitchcock movie. It turns out, Hitchcock wanted to make this movie but lost out on the rights to it. This led him to make Psycho. All that makes perfect sense. The suspense, the acting, and the third act twist all fit with what Hitchcock was doing at the time.
I'll admit, I didn't see the twist coming, even though I really should've. Given 60+ years of suspense movies refining the beats of this kind of story, the way it plays out is pretty predictable now. I'm going to blame the fact that it's in a foreign language. That distracted me from reading into the performances too much, which could've made me more suspicious.
It's fun to trace "the perfect murder" through time in cinema. The plan in Diaboloque is supposed to be so clever, but it's full of obvious problems that audiences see now immediately. You can see how audiences became more sly to the tricks between Dial M for Murder and its pseudo-remake A Perfect Murder. I remember being impressed by all the thought that went into the Murder By Numbers murder in 2002. Would I still now? Essentially, any great murder scheme is destined to look silly or quaint a decade later. Still, the emotions of it play out well in Diabolique, and that's all that matters at this point.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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