DOMINIQUE is dead… or is she? Find out on Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray/DVD combo.

Ever since she fell down the stairs one night a year ago, wealthy Dominique Ballard (Jean Simmons, BLACK NARCISSUS) has not been quite right. Her seeming forgetfulness and unpredictable temperament are not nearly as worrying as the voices she hears in the night and the specter of a hanging skeleton wearing her bracelet that she encounters in the conservatory that is not there when she seeks the comfort of husband David (Cliff Robertson, CHARLY). Instead of David's sculptress half-sister Anne (Jenny Agutter, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON), Dominque seeks to confide her fears that her husband is trying to drive her mad to the new chauffeur Tony (Simon Ward, HOLOCAUST 2000). Afraid of losing his job, Tony reluctantly turns her away, after which Dominique hangs herself. No sooner is she buried than David starts hearing the piano playing her favorite tune in the night and her apparition appears to him sometimes even in broad daylight. Despite the assurances of Dr. Rogers (Ron Moody, OLIVER!) that Dominique is dead, David desperately needs to believe that she is alive and turning the tables on him, especially when a double tombstone is ordered for burial plot with his date of death already engraved.

One of a string of "stop me if you've heard this one before…" British thrillers influenced by Henri-Georges Clouzot's LES DIABOLIQUES, DOMINIQUE is well-acted, elegantly directed by Michael Anderson (LOGAN'S RUN), beautifully shot by Ted Moore (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE), and scored by David Whitaker (SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN), but the proceedings just trudge along with the elements of the familiar twists merely shuffled around with two truly hair-raising moments. While there may be some pleasure in seeing Robertson's character terrorized by the same means he used against his wife, the predictability of everything makes it seem as though former Amicus producer Milton Subotsky missed the news that Hammer was not producing features anymore and furthermore that they had given up on psycho-thrillers nearly a decade before. Robertson, Simmons, Agutter, Ward, and Moody all get above-the-title billing while everyone else is credited as guests stars; and that is indeed pretty much what they are, with Judy Geeson (INSEMINOID), Michael Jayston (THE HOMECOMING), Flora Robson (BEAST IN THE CELLAR), David Tomlinson (MARY POPPINS), and Jack Warner (THE LADYKILLERS) as purely functional characters who appear and disappears as needed for expository purposes. While nothing original, DOMINIQUE might still prove diverting to viewers steeped in British filmmaking and the crossover of mainstream actors, directors, and technicians into the genre during the seventies British slump in production.

Released theatrically by American Cinema Releasing, DOMINIQUE was most accessible on VHS from Prism Entertainment with memorable clamshell cover art reproduced on the inside of Vinegar Syndrome's reversible cover and a trailer that preceded a number of their releases. An unauthorized bootleg edition titled AVENGING SPIRIT with an incredibly misleading horror cover was available later from Impulse Video and the old video master would also appear in increasingly putrid-looking form on various PD DVD labels. Vinegar Syndrome has rectified this with a 2K scan of the original camera negative. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer is a true revelation, with Moore's Bava-like gel lighting schemes and the occasional smudged filter effect transforming what once looked like a dark and flat into a production befitting the pedigree of its cast and caliber of its crew. The elements are spotless apart from one or two blue negative scratches. The DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono track is clean with underlaying hiss reduced without producing digital artefacts, all the better to appreciate the film's use of sound as much as the picture enhances ones appreciation of the visuals. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided, although they twice mistake the word "bequest" for "request."