Shock

Alfred Werker’s Shock is a fun little thriller with a clever premise: a female hotel guest (Anabel Shaw) witnesses a psychiatrist (Vincent Price) murder his wife and falls into a state of catatonic shock, then that same psychiatrist is called to treat her and tries to convince her that she’s crazy. Price’s Dr. Cross has been having an extramarital affair with his nurse Elaine Jordan (Lynn Bari), a passive femme fatale who encourages Cross to embrace his criminal tendencies every step of the way. There’s a powerful creepiness factor in several scenes, especially when Lt. Paul Stewart (Frank Latimore) comes home to find his wife frozen in shock and when an older male patient in the psychiatric hospital breaks out of his room and attacks Elaine. Werker makes extensive use of fades to black, low angles, and low ceilings to make the doctor’s country cabin appear to be closing in on him; creeping shadows seem to reveal as much as they hide, like when Elaine’s jewelry gleams in the dark by the fireplace as if she too comes most alive when the light recedes.