Review of Frenzy (2015) by Tyler M — 31 Mar 2012

I never thought I'd say it but...I think I have to...

They say that Hitchcocks later works, dealt a lot more with sadism and violence than his older works...Unfortunately that's not exactly a good thing...For anyone that might have ever thought I had a biased opinion here's a review for the books...

The Story: A man is accused of raping and killing women, all signs point to his guiltiness (is that a word?). The only problem? Well, you could probably guess, he's innocent. He spends the majority of the film running from the law and hiding, all the while the killer is going at it with whoever he can get his hands on. It doesn't really have the great sense of style as his other works did, the cinematic flair that fills his other mystery and suspense films is, for the most part, absent here. It's got more graphic violence than his other films, and it's even got nudity. I prefer his cleaner violence to the more extreme, and as we all know nudity in films if not done right, should just not be done at all.

The Cast: Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Anna Massey...Jon Finch is Mr. Blaney, the wrongfully accused man. He's got a violent past and makes for the perfect suspect. He's not necessarily a great actor here, but he gets the job done fairly effectively. Barry Foster, is the murderer. He's not one of the better Hitchcock villains. On the outside he's a pretty likeable guy, but on the inside he's one evil son of a sea biscuit. Like Finch, he's not an extraordinary actor, but he does manage to get buy here. Anna Massey, what can be said about her? Well, this could be said, she's not the standard leading lady, she doesn't have that sense of grace and elegance that other Hitch. leading ladies have. She's the leading lady who the audience really doesn't want to see killed, but you know damned well you wouldn't be satisfied if she lived... Perhaps my biggest problem with this film is, that none of the women in this film really had that great beauty that his other leading women were known to have... All in all, the cast isn't amazing, but neither is this film, it accomplishes what it's set out to do, but only barely...

One to Five Scale: 2.

I never thought I see the day when a Hitchcock film received a score lower than a four...But I guess I didn't really know what his later works were like. This one isn't one of the better Hitchcock films. Die hard fans will want to see this for the simple fact that it was made by a great director, but others may want to steer clear and check out some of his other films instead... And if you've never seen a Hitchcock film, don't start with this one, because it's not truly representative of what his work was really all about... This is yet another case for too much for too little...Too much sex, too much violence, not enough character development and story.

Tyler.