Hichcock then shoots Catherine, his accomplice, in the back and makes Margaret touch the gun to incriminate her. Finally, the glass of gin Margaret poured for herself, he makes a toast to her ill health and drinks it. When he realizes it is poisoned, he begs Margaret for the antidote. She laughs and destroys the vial. Hichcock seals himself inside a secret room behind the bookshelf, locking himself in. The police arrive and arrest the laughing and paralyzed Margaret for Catherine's murder, carrying her out of the room. When Canon Owens, the parish priest, arrives and hears muffled noises from behind the library bookshelf, he addresses Hichcock's portrait with the words, "I told you, Doctor Hichcock, the devil is a very real person." He then leaves the room. "The Ghost" was shot in Rome. It is a Gothic re-imagining of the film "Les Diaboliques" (1955). The Italian production crew are credited by aliases. The music score is credited to "Franck Wallace", whom Italian magazine "Bianco e Nero" and the "Monthly Film Bulletin" claim is a pseudonym for Franco Mannino. When Beat Records re-released the score, they found the tapes credited to Francesco De Masi who is not credited in the film. "The Ghost" was released in Italy on March 30, 1963, where it was distributed by Dino de Laurentiis. The film grossed a total of ₤175 million lira on its theatrical release. Freda said that the censors did not object to any of the film's content. The film was later released in the United Kingdom in February 1964 and in the United States on February 18, 1965 in Dallas. In a contemporary review, The "Monthly Film Bulletin" stated that "Pictorially the film is a knock-out" while the dubbed dialogue is "more inept than ever". The review concluded that "The Ghost" was "a splendid exercise in Grand Guignol" Leonard Maltin awarded the film two and a half out of a possible four stars complimenting the film's atmosphere, calling it a "Measured, moody horror, let down by routine plot".