Review of Frenzy (2015) by Jake R — 16 Nov 2008

On the surface, this sounds like a classic Hitchcock thriller, in his thickest vein of the 'wrong man' and a race to a heart pounding climax. But, when you watch it, it just isn't, is it?

No one can doubt that Hitch's quality dipped towards the end of his career, 1963's 'The Birds' being his last genuine all-round classic. After that, experimentation with big stars like Connery and Newman in an effort to recapture James Stewart's magnetic presence and ability, failed dramatically, as well as Hitch's Chaplinesque determination not to change along with the social and technological changes happening in the business. With 1969's 'Topaz' being his last American-made film he returned to Britain to make a film there for the first time since the mid 1930s. What audiences and critics got with 'Frenzy' must have been quite a shock.

Suddenly embracing the seemingly endless freedom offered in terms of cinematic content since the New Waves of the 1960s, 'Frenzy' comes replete with newfangled profanity and an almost necessary tendency to show graphic nastiness. While the rape and violence are a long way being 'A Clockwork Orange' they are instantly much more overt and explicit than anything Hitch had ever done, and which he didn't outdo with his final feature 4 years later. While this new spiciness might seem to slot perfectly with Hitch's natural propensity for gleeful sadism something else has been infused.

There's an attempt to make a cross-over into the more viewer-savvy film making style modern audiences are familiar with. Gone are the traditional acting styles and melodramatics; in come 'naturalism' and a disregard for generic styles. When you hear the awkward 'cheeky chappie' dialogue the commoners of Covent Garden spout you feel like you're watching a crappy '70s British copycat of Tarantino. The verisimilitude sits uneasily with the occasional throwbacks that litter the picture.

Hitchcock's trademark camera wizardry is practically silent, except for a few tiny sparks of old habit. Artifice is rejected in favour of shooting in natural light, which looks even more weird than the griminess of 'Get Carter' or 'The French Connection'.

Then there are the performances. Everyone is composed of a mish-mash of theatrical and cinematic styles, often in the same scene, which makes it hard to take anyone seriously, let alone marvel at their ability, if they have any. If one must find standout turns they would have to be Jon Finch and Barry Foster as the hunter and hunted, but even then both have qualities that seem repellent and unpleasant.

After everything, the murdered themselves are gruesome to behold, all wide eyed and grotesquely-expressioned. That all the women are incredibly sexy only pushes Hitch's blatant mysoginy further into people's faces. And then, risibly, 'humour' is sandwiched between the goings on, making one wonder if they're watching some bizarre cross between 'Straw Dogs' and 'Kind Hearts and Coronets'.

Hitchcock on a bad day is still worth a look, if only for the curiosity value. But this is an odd feature to have on his CV, and while it does give some (mostly guilty) pleasures it nevertheless has none of the timelessness of his powerhouse classics, which every preceeding decade back to the 1920s contained. 'Frenzy' is not 'Psycho' for the 1970s, but it at least proves the old master hadn't lost his flair for making entertainment, even at the ripe age of 73.