Hitchcock

We’re in a Hitchcock moment. “Hitchcock,” the movie starring Anthony Hopkins, was recently in theaters. “The Girl,” which focused on the directors “thing” for cool blondes, was on HBO. And check out the classic movie channels. There always seems to be a Hitchcock movie showing.

It’s been 37 year since Alfred Hitchcock directed his last movie, “Family Plot.” But I’m not the only one who can’t get enough of him.

Why? Because he made scary movies that were truly frightening without tons of Hollywood blood. 

Today, the idea of not showing a monster or a murder on screen is unheard of. Most people would wonder what's the point of not seeing the horror in a horror movie? But that very idea is what made director, Alfred Hitchcock the master of horror and suspense.

Hitchcock, who was the mastermind behind films such as Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo, The Birds, North by Northwest and Dial M for Murder, used genius techniques revolutionizing scary movies.

For example in Rear Window he shot the entire movie in one room, using the camera to serve as the eyes of the protagonist, Jimmy Stuart. We only saw what he saw. This caused suspense and made the audience feel as though they were experiencing his situation.

In his most credited film, Psycho, Hitchcock created the famous shower scene. This is one of the most notorious scenes to ever be filmed in cinema's history, and yet we never see the victim (Janet Leigh) get stabbed. We see a knife being brought down to her body, but the camera cuts away before we see the outcome. After three minutes the audience is shown blood running down the drain. Unlike horror movies today, we can imagine what happened but we will never see it.

Critic Bill Gibron said "Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho set the standard and post-modern horror has been hobbling to catch up ever since."

The decision not to show the actual stabbing is not the result of 20th century cinema values. The effect of cutting away before we see the stabbing is a method of suspense and horror. It makes viewers never want to take a shower again. The camera cuts and angles make it appear as if the camera is our eyes in that horrific situation. The viewer feels as if they are in that shower.

"All those who still get a chill every time they step into a hotel shower, say aye. That, you see, is the power of Psycho." said critic Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com. 

The planning and filming of Psycho are appreciated and depicted in the 2012 movie Hitchock. 

The sad truth is, that we rarely see this methods in today's scary movies. The directors of recent films such as Cabin in the Woods and Silent Hill seem to believe that as long as blood, guts, monsters and murder are on screen, the audience will be scared and entertained. Rather than build suspense and keep the audience on the edge of their seats, the graphic pictures are enough to entertain and satisfy today's audience.

Today's movies rely on graphic images rather than nail biting, edge of your seat suspense. This may be enough to satisfy some people, but not me. There has to be some sort of build up to all the horror, otherwise it becomes repetitive.

Here is the infamous shower scene in Psycho. Try not to be scared the next time you take a shower.