13: Frenzy (1972)

Despite Hitchcock being well into his decline, his 1972 film FRENZY is a tiny blip of greatness from the once infallible filmmaker. After changing the genre forever with Psycho in 1960, Hitchcock struggled to find his place in this new world of dark thrillers he helped create. Where once thrillers could revel in ambiguity and innuendo, now audiences craved the overt brutality that was increasingly unavoidable in the world around them. Hitchcock, after nearly a decade lost at sea with either unsatisfying pulp or dry espionage thrillers, returned to his British roots with this violent and uncompromising serial killer film. It is still a ‘wrongly accused man’ story in the classic Hitch fashion, one can’t help noticing the key difference between this film and the director’s previous work: when once the master of suspense would turn away from a story’s more graphic elements, Frenzy forces you to watch as sadistic murders play out with crushing verisimilitude. In this sense, Frenzy feels less related to Psycho than the other serial killer classic from 1960: Michael Powell’s disturbing masterpiece PEEPING TOM.