Frenzy (1972)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
London is terrorized by a vicious sex killer known as The Necktie Murderer. Following the brutal slaying of his ex-wife, down-on-his-luck Richard Blaney is suspected by the police of being the killer. He goes on the run, determined to prove his innocence.
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What critics compared Frenzy to
A grisly strangulation explicitly recalls Frenzy; Wasikowka’s wound-up response to it goes a good deal further than Hitch could (even at that late point in his career).
He’s a spectral presence that never achieves full definition, though he is pretty handy when he gets a belt around your neck — not unlike the necktie killer of Hitchcock’s Frenzy.
The Hitchcock allusions don't stop there: India is a taxidermist, like Norman Bates in "Psycho"; and a strangulation that occurs is as ugly as the one in "Frenzy."
Wright throws in references to Michael Powell’s notorious thriller Peeping Tom and to Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy among other films.
Us reminds me of the dark comedy from Frenzy, the social construct from They Live, and the comfortable absurdity of a world gone made from The Trial.
It’s a clean break, not unlike the sea change that occurred with Michael Powell when he made Peeping Tom , or Alfred Hitchcock, with Frenzy .
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That's why my vote for the next Caruso/LaBeouf knock-off goes to "Frenzy," which features just a few characters and a streamlined story.
With a nod to Hitchcock, specifically “Frenzy,” the interaction between the two investigating cops tries to bering humor to a story that by then has become too dark for that.
Match Point has some of the feeling of Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972).
There's a lot of latter-day Hitch on display here, To Catch a Thief and Frenzy, and even a touch of Ren� Cl�ment, who last adapted the Highsmith novel and called it Plein soleil (Purple Noon).
When Hitch used drabness, as in Frenzy (1972), it had clarity.
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Screenwriter Anthony Shaffer had previously penned critically praised adaptations of Sleuth and Frenzy (for Alfred Hitchcock).
I am referring, of course, to the 1973 The Wicker Man directed by Robin Hardy and written by Anthony Shaffer at the absolute peak of his influence - it was three years after Sleuth was staged, and one year after it was filmed in the same year as Shaffer's script for Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy - and not at all the Neil LaBute/Nicolas Cage thing from 2006 , as has come to be regarded in later years as one of the truly misbegotten projects of the 2000s, and a film that has never been described by anyone as "all-time perfect" in any context at all.
Written by Anthony Shaffer, who also adapted Hitchcocks "Frenzy" and penned both the play "Sleuth" and its later film version, the film masterfully builds a sense of discomfort and dread in the viewer, even though nothing particularly scary happens through the bulk of it.