Also released as
- Diabolique
- The Devils
- 室情杀案
- 魔鬼双姝
- De bezetenen
- Dábelské zeny
- Oi diavologynaikes
- Sheytan sefatan
- Shayateen
- Akuma no yôna onna
- The Fiends
- Диаболичните
- Diabolské ženy
- Les diabòliques
Filed under
Les Diaboliques
Les Diaboliques is a 1955 French psychological horror film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
The film Hitchcock tried to buy and missed. Ends with a title card asking you not to spoil it.
goreledger editorial rating: 8/10 · Read the review
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The film Hitchcock tried to buy and missed by hours, after which he bought Psycho instead.
A headmaster's wife and his mistress conspire to kill him. They do. The body will not stay where they put it.
Clouzot shoots a boys' boarding school as a place of permanent damp and bad food, and the school is the point: everything happens in institutional corridors under bad light, with children present.
The bathroom sequence is the one, and it is the direct ancestor of every reveal in this category.
The end titles ask the audience not to spoil it for people who have not seen it, which was almost unheard of in 1955.
Clouzot's treatment of Véra Clouzot, his wife, during the shoot was reportedly brutal. She died of a heart attack five years later at 46.
Goreledger editorial rating
8 / 10
A body that will not stay where it was put, shot in a school that is permanently damp and institutional. The bathroom sequence is the ancestor of a great many later reveals. Better on a first viewing than a second, which is the only real complaint.
Our opinion, not an average. How we rate
Goreledger editorial profile
Describes the film, not its quality: high gore means very gory.
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Trailer
The sleeves
The same film, sold as a different film in each territory. Click any of them.
Where to watch
Germany
Finland
UK
USA
Legal sources only. Availability data from JustWatch via TMDB.
Checked 9 Aug 2026
Written about
- Films still banned in Britain and the cuts that stand
No list of films banned in the UK exists: the titles still missing whole are held back by standing BBFC cuts, by councils and by rights holders.
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- Next in Psychological: The Bad Seed (1956) →