The Mephisto Waltz (1971)
Directed by Paul Wendkos
A frustrated pianist himself, music journalist Myles Clarkson is thrilled to interview virtuoso Duncan Ely. Duncan, however, is terminally ill and not much interested in Myles until noticing that Myles' hands are ideally suited for piano. Suddenly, he can't get enough of his new friend, and Myles' wife, Paula, becomes suspicious of Duncan's intentions. Her suspicions grow when Duncan dies and Myles mysteriously becomes a virtuoso overnight.
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What critics compared The Mephisto Waltz to
Biller is a brilliant student of the genre, and she fills every scene with a nudge-and-wink reference to a host of forebears, including George Romero’s wicked B-movie Hungry Wives (also known as Season of the Witch), Ted V. Mikels’ creepy and garish Blood Orgy of the She Devils, and Paul Wendkos' utterly strange and beguiling shocker The Mephisto Waltz, which featured Alan Alda playing against type as a demonic classical pianist.
Their floodgates having opened for a while by the success of “Rosemary’s Baby,” such exercises were occasionally major-studio releases (“The Mephisto Waltz,” “The Pyx”), but more often grade B to Z (“Simon King of the Witches,” George Romero’s “Hungry Wives,” Ted V. Mikels’ “Blood Orgy of the She Devils”).
Hereditary showed the influence of claustrophobic and occult movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Mephisto Waltz .