The Ghost (1963) – Review

Riccardo Freda’s The Ghost is an elegant, gothic slice of Italian horror that manages to be both gloriously atmospheric and gloriously silly at the same time. Starring Barbara Steele in one of her many doomed-wife roles, the film dresses up jealousy, greed, and betrayal in velvet drapes and candlelit corridors. It’s the kind of movie where everyone whispers about death in a castle that’s practically wallpapered with cobwebs, yet no one ever stops to wonder if maybe moving out of the place would solve half their problems.

We open in “Scotland, 1910,” which looks suspiciously like Italy with some dry ice and a couple of kilts in storage. Doctor Hichcock (Elio Jotta), our resident wheelchair-bound madman, spends his days injecting himself with poison because, apparently, medicine in 1910 meant trying to kill yourself until it made you stronger. His housekeeper, Catherine Wood (Harriet Medin), moonlights as a séance medium, because of course she does. I guess if you’ve got a creepy castle, you’ve got to make rent somehow. Doctor Charles Livingstone (Peter Baldwin) is stuck babysitting this whole circus, tasked with giving the poison shots like some sort of unpaid intern at Evil Mayo Clinic.

Could someone please check his credentials?

Meanwhile, Margaret Hichcock (Barbara Steele) has had it up to here with her husband’s “Hey, maybe poison is the cure!” lifestyle. So, she does what any sensible gothic wife would do: she starts shacking up with Livingstone, the only other eligible man within candlelit distance. She bats her giant Barbara Steele eyes, says, “Please murder my husband,” and Livingstone shrugs and says, “Sure, why not.” A little skipped antidote later, Hichcock is six feet under, and our adulterous duo are already picking out curtain fabrics and divvying up the inheritance.

“This isn’t going to bite us in the ass later, right?”

But alas, wills are tricky little beasts, and Hichcock had the foresight to edit his with all the charm of a booby-trapped treasure map. Margaret gets the castle and some furniture, but only a sliver of the real fortune; the jewels and cash are conspicuously absent. Catherine pipes up that the missing key to the loot is buried with hubby, because who doesn’t keep track of what dead men carry in their pockets? Cue a midnight field trip to the family crypt, where romance takes the form of prying open your husband’s coffin with your lover. And of course, once the corpse is disturbed, things start going bump in the night: spooky whispers, shadowy figures, and Barbara Steele looking fabulous while pretending to be terrified.

It’s gothic horror 101.

Margaret unravels fast. Catherine convinces her that Livingstone has been hiding the missing jewels, “evidence” turns up in his bag, and Margaret straight-razors him in a jealous frenzy. Then the real shock: Doc Hichcock strolls back in, very much alive, revealing he only used a mild dose of curare that’s now paralyzing her. He shoots Catherine to frame Margaret, but accidentally drinks the suicide gin she’d mixed for herself. Margaret smashes the antidote, laughing, while Hichcock seals himself in a secret chamber. When the police arrive, they find only Margaret—paralyzed, cackling, and promptly arrested for Catherine’s murder.

“We all go mad sometimes.”

Stray Observations:

• The movie was marketed in the U.S. as a sequel to Freda’s The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, even though the characters and storylines don’t really connect. But hey, gothic branding sells!
• Barbara Steele is once again married to a brooding creep who spends his free time plotting either her death or her possession. At this point, it’s basically her 1960s brand.
• Doctor Livingstone is introduced as a competent young doctor… and spends the rest of the movie making the worst decisions possible.
• The two lovers stop Doctor Hichcock from committing suicide multiple times, but later they plot his murder. I’m starting to think these two are not all that bright.
• Catherine was Hichcock’s accomplice in this whole gaslighting scheme, but he murders her as an extra nail in his cheating wife’s coffin. What a dick.
• Hichcock walking out of the shadows, suddenly “cured,” is one of those horror twists that’s equal parts chilling and hilarious.

“I’m the master of gaslighting.”

Freda knew his way around gothic horror, and The Ghost is proof that atmosphere can often carry a film further than logic. The castle interiors drip with candlelight, shadows, and creeping fog, courtesy of Raffaele Masciocchi’s excellent cinematography, with every frame boasting that perfect “haunted oil painting” quality you’d almost want to hang on your wall, preferably in a hallway designed to unsettle guests. Unfortunately, what Freda giveth in visual flair, the dubbing immediately taketh away: the English-language track is more inept than ever, with voices that sound either oddly flat or unintentionally comedic, often killing the gothic tension by making you wonder if anyone’s lips were actually connected to the dialogue or if the actors were moonlighting in a broom closet recording booth.

“Doctor, why don’t any of us have Scottish accents?”

That said, Freda’s sense of pacing is stronger here than in some of his other films, balancing long stretches of melodrama with sudden jolts of horror—razor attacks, apparitions, poisonings—that make the film feel both grandly operatic and satisfyingly pulpy. His staging of Barbara Steele’s descent into paranoia is especially effective, utilizing mirrors, shadows, and bursts of violence to keep us guessing whether guilt, ghosts, or both haunt her. Most importantly, he never lets the Gothic mood collapse into parody. Even when the script flirts with outright silliness, his firm-handed direction and confidence in the material ensure that The Ghost feels like a genuine continuation of the Italian gothic wave that flourished in the early ’60s.

This film gets bonus points for atmospheric hauntings.

Barbara Steele, as always, is the linchpin. With those enormous, haunted eyes and a face that can shift from fragile victim to lethal predator in seconds, she elevates The Ghost from creaky melodrama to something hypnotic. As Margaret, she is conniving, passionate, and ultimately undone by her own greed. Yet, Steele infuses her with such vulnerability that you can’t help but root for her—even as she’s slashing her lover to bits with a razor. Her true gift lies in embodying both the gothic heroine and the femme fatale at once; few actresses could cry, scheme, seduce, and cackle with equal conviction, but Steele makes it look effortless. In the end, she becomes the film’s true ghost—not the pale spectre of Dr. Hichcock, but a woman trapped between roles, doomed to wander the candlelit corridors of Italian horror cinema forever.

Barbara Steele is the poster girl for toxic relationships.

In conclusion, The Ghost is a lush, gothic melodrama dripping with atmosphere, intrigue, and Barbara Steele’s inimitable presence. Riccardo Freda directs with visual flair, Masciocchi’s cinematography provides painterly gloom, and the story twists itself into the kind of operatic betrayal that only Italian horror could pull off. Yes, the dubbing is hilariously bad, and yes, the plot occasionally feels like it was scribbled on the back of a séance invitation, but the mood is strong enough to forgive the flaws. For fans of Steele or of Italy’s gothic cycle, this is a must-watch cobwebbed gem.