hitchcock Archives - The DVD Guide

18 May

Why The Woman in the Window Fails to Channel Alfred Hitchcock

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This article contains The Woman in the Window spoilers. Joe Wright’s The Woman in the Window is not shy about its Hitchcockian influence. It’s there in both subtle and overt ways from the very first scene. During one of the film’s opening shots, the camera pans around Amy Adams’ ridiculously spacious New York City brownstone and passes a television screen that is inexplicably playing the ending to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) in slow-motion, with Jimmy Stewart wrestling against the grip of an out-of-frame Raymond Burr. With a very similar premise to Rear Window—a slightly deranged New Yorker pries into…

14 May

The Woman in the Window Review: Netflix’s Hitchcock-lite Is a Couple Years Too Late

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With the level of talent on display in front of and behind the camera of this high-concept thriller based on the best selling ‘grip-lit’ novel by A. J. Finn, it’s no wonder there was huge buzz when the film version of The Woman in the Window was first announced. But after an initial postponement for rewrites and reshoots, and a second due to COVID, The Woman in the Window arrives with slightly less fanfare than anticipated. The timing hasn’t helped the film, but that’s not the only problem with this twisty crime story that totally loses the plot by the…

11 Mar

From Hitchcock to Star Wars: What Makes a Great MacGuffin

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In the fall of 1939, director Alfred Hitchcock stood before Columbia University to tell a story we can only hope he invented. With a ruthless, dry delivery, Hitch spoke of two Scotsmen on a train. One of these fellows carried with him a mysterious package he says is a “MacGuffin.” When the other man asks what exactly is a MacGuffin, the carrier responds, “It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.” What an odd response, the other guy thinks. After all, there is no such thing as highland lions! When he points this out though, the MacGuffin’s owner…

22 Oct

Rebecca: Leaving Hitchcock Behind for Something Darker

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This article contains spoilers for the film and book versions of Rebecca. Leave it to Ben Wheatley to remake Alfred Hitchcock. The younger British filmmaking iconoclast has been nothing if not provocative with his filmography so far, which includes the disturbing horror-crime hybrid Kill List (2011), the serial killer black comedy Sightseers (2012), the psychedelic, very weird A Field in England (2014), and the unsettling dystopian nightmare, High-Rise (2015). But with Rebecca he takes on not just a classic Hitchcock film, but the master’s sole Best Picture winner. Why not, right? We’re being facetious, of course. Wheatley’s version of Rebecca…

13 Oct

78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene

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The screeching strings, the plunging knife, the slow zoom out from a lifeless eyeball: in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock?s Psycho changed film history forever with its taboo-shattering shower scene. With 78 camera set-ups and 52 edits over the course of 3 minutes, Psycho redefined screen violence, set the stage for decades of slasher films to come, and introduced a new element of danger to the moviegoing experience. Aided by a roster of filmmakers, critics, and fans?including Guillermo del Toro, Bret Easton Ellis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Eli Roth, and Peter Bogdanovich?director Alexandre O. Philippe pulls back the curtain on the making and…

hitchcock

Why The Woman in the Window Fails to Channel Alfred Hitchcock

The Woman in the Window Review: Netflix’s Hitchcock-lite Is a Couple Years Too Late

From Hitchcock to Star Wars: What Makes a Great MacGuffin

Rebecca: Leaving Hitchcock Behind for Something Darker

78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene

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