As the horror scene began to ramp up in the 1960s and shake the genre to the core with the likes of Psycho and Peeping Tom, British Horror production company, Hammer Films who had made a significant mark during the mid-fifties reinventing classic Universal horror movies such as The Curse of Frankenstein; The Mummy; and Dracula were hardly resting on their laurels or cast to the shadows. At least not yet. Having already brought Baron Frankenstein to the screen with a sequel entitled The Revenge of Frankenstein, Hammer would inevitably turn their attention to the prince of darkness, although curiously, despite Christopher Lee still being attached to the Production company, and a script under the title Dracula the Damned in the works, this idea was shelved in favour of a whole new direction without Lee attached.
The sequel initially under the working title, Disciple of Dracula would centre around another vampire called Baron Meinster. At the outset this script would have another hero in mind called Latour to deal with the Baron but he would soon be curtailed in favour of bringing back Peter Cushing to play the infamous vampire hunter, Van Helsing. This was not an easy task however as Cushing was not immediately enlightened by the script on offer, so another writer, Edward Percy was called in to redraft it before he would sign on the dotted line.
The female lead, Marianne Danielle would be presented to Yvonne Monlaur to play opposite David Peel as Baron Meinster. Amongst the cast would be Freda Jackson (Henry V; David Lean’s Great Expectations) and Maritita Hunt (also Great Expectations as Miss Havisham) bringing an amount of gravitas to the presence on screen.
Once again the always reliable Terence Fisher was at the helm to call the shots and ensure that all things tied together neatly. It would be go-to editor James Needs though who would be congratulated for managing to ensure that the film would meet the deadline cast by Universal. The result would see huge success for TheBrides of Dracula, especially in Japan, UK and the States and the thirst for more Dracula stories would be requested, which Hammer was all too keen to oblige. The synergy of all those involved meant that Hammer were at the peak of their success and the 60s would only produce more Gothic-infused horror.
If ever there was a movie that defined horror films and launched the genre to a new level, it is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. So impactful was the film upon the popular consensus, that it would shift the perspective and inspire future filmmakers but upon its release it would not receive such high accolades, mainly directed at the melodramatic choices and these sensationalistic tendencies from Hitchcock were based purely on shock value, labelling Psycho as a gimmick.
The reason Psycho holds such a lofty position over 60 years since its release, is not just the shift in tone, whether it was the surprise murder of Marion (Janet Leigh) a third of the way through the movie, or the identity of Norman’s mother, but the psychological components that drive deep into the heart of the narrative. The stylised elements that Hitchcock adds to the film are the eloquent touches that allow these conceptual components to flourish.
Like Peeping Tom released earlier in the year, Psycho plays with the voyeuristic approach to the narrative, luring the viewer into the seemingly fragile Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a man traumatised by the emotional abuse of his mother. This is more noticeable when Bates removes the painting to look through a peephole at the unwitting Marion has she undressed. The male gaze and the seduction has never before been dallied with in a high-profile feature.
There are also strong symbolisms embedded throughout that entrench the foundations that it was built upon. Amongst the questionable character traits that keep the audience guessing, there are also twists and turns of vulnerability and exploitation that thread throughout. These executions on delivery would leave audiences feeling anxious or unease, daring to go where movies had feared or were unable to do so relaxed views on the Production Code; an act of self-censorship imposed by the industry. The fact that Psycho overshadowed Peeping Tom for broaching similar themes seems unjust, where one director would rise to prominence and be forever remembered for his film, whereas the other would be doomed to a fallen career as a result.
That’s not to say that Psycho doesn’t deserve to have the recognition bestowed upon it, The performances by the film’s leads, Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins and Vera Myles are at their most renowned and for good reason. Perkins’ flickers around with Bates’ personality casually swinging from likeable charm and gaining our sympathy to an unsettling picture of a man who is on the brink of reality.
I’ve yet to remark on the score by Bernard Herrmann, whose jarring strings punctuate the now infamous shower scene in stark contrast to the muted, darker and intense scenes. The use of tension as it slowly wrenches up though Arbogast’s (Martin Barlsam) investigations and the pursuit of truth from Marion’s sister Lila (Leigh) and Sam Loomis (John Gavin), Marion’s lover drive our own hopes that our suspected protagonist will prevail before the veil is firmly drawn from before our eyes.
There are countless areas that I could wax lyrical on but these have been discussed on other platforms before, Needless to say, it takes place here (rightfully) for its entry into the 1960s horror retrospective. With three sequels, a dubious remake, and a TV series all centred around Norman Bates have further cemented its status and will forever be immersed in our collective psyche.
“Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? It’s fear.”
The third entry into my 1960s Horror Retrospective is the simply majestic Peeping Tom, a film by a master of his craft, Michael Powell (The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus) but its controversial style would be torn apart by critics, leading to the downfall of Powell and his producer Nat Cohen.
Peeping Tom began life in the mind of Leo Marks, a cryptographer during the Second World War and described by people in the film industry as a deep thinker. His collaborative efforts with Powell for a script centred around Sigmund Freud fell through on the belief that Hollywood were also considering making a film about one of science’s greatest thinkers. It was then that Marks proposed a film on socophilia, where one’s sexual desires are aroused when observing or watching people. The single grain of thought would generate the genesis of Peeping Tom, the story of a man, Mark (Karl-Heinze Bohm) a sensitive, scarred individual who find satisfaction in filming women just at the point of death when he kills them with a bayonet that has been fitted to one of the legs to his cine-camera. What makes this act all the more disturbing is that Mark has also attached a mirror to the camera, forcing his victims to witness their last breath and thus capturing the true essence of fear.
There is more than meets the eye when initially watching this feature. Peeping Tom is a disturbing mix of sexuality at the hands of a repressed man, who has been reduced to the background of society, unable to mix with anyone due to his own inhibitions. We later learn that this was due to an overbearing, manipulative father, who would play psychologically and mentally disturbing mind games with Mark. This is the heart of Freudian theories, where the patriarch is the result of our own weaknesses, fuelling rage and anger and the want to destroy. This is demonstrated further by Powell casting himself as the father figure in the home movie, and casting his own son as the young Mark, a harrowing thought if you delve deeply into the psychosis of this. Powell though was no stranger to remonstrating his opinions and anger to stir up the film set, normally at the behest of the camera crew, but the cast equally felt the oppressive way that the director would conduct himself on set, providing an edge to the filmmaking. On one occasion, this was pushed to the extreme when Powell insisted on Otto Heller, the cameraman remove a protective lens from an arc light, the cameraman refused before Powell carried out the deed himself. The actions would cause blistering on actress Pamela Green’s skin and her eyes were swollen shut as a result. Allegedly if she had looked directly into the naked light, it could have caused blindness.
It is also a sweeping statement on society and how when individuals’ repress their own thoughts and feelings, they will manifest in dark and disturbing ways.
Furthermore, Powell would intensify the audience’s own portrayal in the murderous acts by placing them in the camera’s eye. We are voyeurs in these sadistic acts and willing participants throughout.These sexual subjugation would stem from the first killing of a prostitute, all from the viewer’s perspective, before working towards secretive, pornographic shoots from above a newsagency. The character of Milly (Pamela Green) would be the most voracious, and the scene in question would be Green claiming to be the first nude in a mainstream British feature film. There’s also the harrowing way in which Mark murders Vivian (Moira Shearer) on the set of a movie under the guise of shooting his own feature. It’s little wonder then that audiences and critics were shocked and appalled at the time, compelling cinemagoers away from the cinema and nearly burying the movie in the process.
One of its strongest advocates was Martin Scorsese who helped bring the movie to a modern audience and funded the restoration process. He would remark from his own observations and love of the film that ‘Peeping Tom shows the aggression of filmmaking), how the camera violates…’ It was clearly a feature that was progressive and hard hitting, which upon release proved too hard to handle for some viewers, but it still remains one of the most striking horror features to have been made, and perhaps misunderstood and judged on face value. Powell may have had his faults in his strides for perfectionism in the celluloid art, but his own words on the film sums up his interpretation, ‘I tried… to show why one human being should behave in this extraordinary way. It’s a story of a human being, first and foremost.’
This exercise in gazing into the soul of humanity and through the eyes of a tortured man, came at the cost of his career, but not thankfully at the sake of cinema, as Peeping Tom is a movie that captures the essence of depravity It has styled and inspired many other filmmakers since
and must not be suppressed again. For lovers of the genre must embrace this important part of horror film history.
The second feature that I chose to dissect in my 1960s horror retrospective was brought to realisation by French surrealist director, Georges Franju. Eyes Without A Face projects the tale of a surgeon transfixed with guilt following an accident that leaves his daughter horrifically scarred. Now Doctor Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is consumed with restoring the face of Christine (Edith Scob) going to drastic measures to achieve his goal.
What marks this film as a significant entry into the horror genre is partly down to this obsessive and compulsive desire to recapture beauty and innocence. The extent that Doctor Génessier goes to in both his experimentation on animals, and then through kidnapping, torturing and eventually killing female victims in order to fulfil this requirement is an empty and void enterprise which will only lead to ruin. The self-reproach that propels him is so wrapped up in fantasy, that he slowly spirals into madness and drifts further and further away from reality. His fate is sealed and ironically innocence remains intact with his daughter left to immerse in nature, away from society’s constrictions. She even carries a dove with her to over-amplify this metaphor.
As with The Flesh and the Fiend, Eyes Without A Face also initially suffered at the box office, struggling to contain a story built around containing the gore (blood), animal cruelty, and mad scientists in order to avoid censorship across Europe. This a tough trick to pull off as the source material, a novel by Jean Redon, (bearing the same name as the film) is filled with these themes throughout.
The response was initially a sour one with the exception of the homegrown audience in France, who were compelled by its unique storyline. It wasn’t until the mid 80s when it was re-released theatrically that it started to receive the recognition that it deserved. It has since gone on to be considered a classic and placed quite high in Time Out’s Top 100 Horror Movies as voted by people working in the horror industry.
What also elevates the haunting images and the subject of isolation in the pursuit of idealism, is the musical score composed by the great Maurice Jarre, who also worked on classic features such as Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Here, the music has a juxtaposition of representation through upbeat and jovial affair to one of melancholy. It is a triumph and supports the film’s own tumultuous confliction.
Having journeyed through the rise and fall of Universal Classic Monsters during the early thirties and the passing of the baton to British Film production company Hammer Films in the mid-fifties, it’s time to switch my celluloid gaze upon the 1960s and the twists and turns that the decade would take in the name of horror.
To begin, my focus falls upon a feature that at the time struggled to get deserved recognition, both in production and when it eventually hit the screens, but has since gone on to become a cult film in its own right.
Directed by John Gilling (who would go on to call the shots for a few Hammer Films later in the decade) The Flesh and the Fiends would be a re-working of a previous feature called The Greed of William Hart penned by Gilling, but suffered at the hands of the British Board of Film Censors. The request that all references to the real-life murderers, Burke and Hare be removed would be rectified for TFATF, with the opening title displaying, “”[this] is a story of vice and murder. We make no apologies to the dead. It is all true.”
Based on the macabre events set in the 1820’s when the 19th Century medical doctor, Robert Knox would purchase corpses for medical purposes from the afore-mentioned Burke and Hare. Knox, brought to the screen by another Hammer alumni, fresh from his rise to fame as Doctor Frankenstein, Peter Cushing, who noted the similarities between Knox and the Baron, “The minds of these exceptional men were driven by a single desire: to inquire into the unknown. Ahead of their time, like most great scientists, their work and motives were misunderstood.”
Cushing was magnificent in this role, even going to significant measures to enact the same droopy eye that Knox bore from contracting smallpox when he was young.
Cushing is not the only standout though as both Burke and Hare are magnificently portrayed by George Rose and Donald Pleasance, adding some offbeat humour amongst the gruesome scenes, especially in some of the murders that take place. The finest example of this coming when Burke (Rose) suffocates Aggie (Esme Cameron) while Hare (Pleasance) is dancing a jig, perfectly juxtaposing the brutality on show.
Cinematographer Monty Berman also provides some striking images, a master pf black and white photography, he managed to capture the dank and dismal scenes in 19th Century Edinburgh. This along with Gilling’s knack to take the action scenes by the horns with his own unique bruteish fashion, is one that left a compelling mark on the genre, kick-starting the decade in style. While it was impactful in British cinemas, it went without a trace Stateside and was considered a failure. It does deserve greater recognition, outshone as it was by the likes of Hammer’s style and substance, The Flesh and the Fiends, the mood of the piece was a grim and tormentous affair.
Across Hammer Films extensive canon of work there have been four adaptations of RL Stevenson’s Gothic tale, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Having found success in recreating Universal’s Classic Monster line with adaptations of Frankenstein and Dracula, it would seem logical to turn to another dark tale for inspiration. The mode of choice would fall under scrutiny however by casting English actor Bernard Bresslaw to lead a comic interpretation, called The Ugly Duckling, off the back of their somewhat successful comedy feature, I Only Arsked! Producer Michael Carreras had high hopes for the feature but the box office return would counter his bold prediction with a loss of $20,000.
Their second foray released less than a year later in 1960 would bring Hammer staple Christopher Lee as a supporting role and veteran director Terence Fisher at the helm. The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll would see Paul Massie take on the titular role, experimenting on himself, he turns into his alter ego, Mr. Hyde, a lothario playboy who discovers his friend, Paul (Lee) has been taking advantage of his fortune and stealing the heart of his wife, Kitty (Dawn Addams). Now hellbent on revenge and fury, Jekyll allows Hyde to fuel his energy with a plot to kill Paul.
Despite the combination of Lee and Fisher, the feature failed to ignite the paying public. Lee, who was initially disgruntled at not being offered the lead, actually turns out a decent performance, but surprisingly Fisher’s direction falls flat and fails to connect with screenwriter Cyril Wolf Mankowitz’s vision; Fisher choosing to go with old school formality and adapting the initial intention.
Eagle-eyed viewers however, would spot young up and comer, Oliver Reed as a troublemaker at the Sphynx nightclub.
The choice to alter and cut out certain choices due to time constraints ultimately led to a poor box office return, losing around $30,000. So far, Stevenson’s tale had not proved successful for Hammer and the glow of Hammer Horror was starting to lose its lustre. It would not however deter the British film company from going back to the source material with a third outing released over a decade later in 1971 and starring Hammer’s new flesh and blood leading male, Ralph Bates to take over the mantel from Peter Cushing, mainly due to him taking on the iconic role of Baron Frankenstein. The title of Brian Clemens screenplay, Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde was the stuff of Michael Carreras dreams, leaning heavily into the sex and image that Hammer became synonymous with in the seventies.
With model Martine Beswick as the alter ego to Bates’ Dr Jekyll, the piece was played for laughs but would heighten the terror through the guise of womanhood to hide the bloody male persona lurking beneath the feminine exterior. It’s potentially the boldest of directions taken by Hammer’s revisioning of RL Stevenson’s work, and one that was lost on the audience at the time, failing once again to connect. A shame as it holds up well today and still poses an interesting perspective.
The latest incarnation takes the concept one step further with casting Eddie Izzard as a transgender descendant of Dr Jekyll, and could easily have slipped into worrisome terrain had the creatives decided to take the story in a troublesome direction.
Thankfully though, the Hammer Films team play it straight and keep the terror to a slow burn rising of fear and dread, never fully knowing where or when evil may strike next.
It’s still early to say whether this version will leave a mark on the audience, but this new Hammer vision that has been orchestrated by new CEO, John Gore promises to lead the infamous horror production company before a modern audience whilst still keeping the tone and flavour of the films of yester-year.
1963 would prove to be an instrumental year for the Master of Macabre, Mario Bava. Having kick started with the giallo flick The Girl Who Knew Too Much, before teaming up with Boris Karloff for the horror anthology Black Sabbath, he would round things off with the stylised and sadomasochistic film starring Christopher Lee called The Whip and the Body.
A somewhat convoluted tale, Lee stars as Kurt Menliff, a man who has been kicked off the family will because of his relationship with a servant girl, who committed suicide. When Menliff returns to reclaim his title, he is later found murdered, but mysterious sightings lead locals to believe that he has returned as a ghost to seek vengeance.
The Whip and the Body is probably most known for its sadomasochistic themes that dominate through the middle period of the film, causing Italian censors to slap an 18 rating on it, only for it to be seized for charges of obscenity. The movie would be heavily cut down for American and British audiences along with being heavily dubbed by none of the original actors, which then demolished any clear narrative, reducing it to a complex mess.
There are some genuinely interesting scenes on show, but due to the nature of its release, the film is pale in comparison to the other two movies that Bava released that year, despite being at the peak of his filmmaking.
Despite all this, Bava still manages to capture his visual style, working alongside cinematographer Ubaldo Terzano once more having previously combined for Black Sunday. Lee too provides a magnanimous presence on screen that proves he was born to be a leading man.
When the name Ivan Reitman is mentioned, most cinephiles will bring to mind 80’s comedy films such as Meatballs, Stripes, or Ghostbusters, all of which star the great Bill Murray with the latter two featuring Harold Ramis. In the early seventies though, for his third feature, Reitman would direct another comedy great Eugene Levy as Clifford, a travelling guitar player who runs into trouble along with his girlfriend, Gloria (Andrea Martin – another Canadian comic alumni).
It’s evident that Reitman has a dark comic vein, especially notable in Cannibal Girls, which uses a low-budget to tell a grindhouse story about a couple who unwittingly stay at a house run by a woman with an appetite for human flesh.
This feature is integral to the style and approach to Reitman’s filmography that would pave the way to iconic cinema hits. It would provide the building blocks for the film director to recognise the need for the talent to shine on screen, when their natural comic ability resonates. None more so than with Levy here, who along with his co-stars was provided the opportunity to improvise their dialogue throughout.
As the film ebbs and flows through the outer rims of morbid humour, it struggles to lift itself in places, snagged under the weight of what is essentially a simple premise. It plays some typical traits in a dream sequence and and a few twists that also includes an untrustworthy narrator in the mix. Despite some of these flaws, it is fun to see Levy with some freedom to ad-lib and for Reitman to hone his craft, for movie lovers to delve into.
Where unrest lies around remakes and sequels, there also comes the age-old response of untouched gold concerning “classic’ features that come into effect. Among them is undoubtedly Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s novel. The feature is so embedded in masterly terrain that the very notion of going near such material would be scorned upon, even Gus Van Sant’s controversial shot-for-shot remake was lambasted for daring to go into the material. So, when Bloch himself ventured with a novelised sequel back in 1982, that lambasted slasher films, Hollywood decided to strike back and carve out their own Norman Bates return some 22 years after its predecessor was released.
Psycho II would even struggle at first to entice its star Anthony Perkins to reprise the infamous role, but upon reading the script by Tom Holland, he agreed to do so. Holland himself had only been tied to screenwriting duties and would cameo as Deputy Norris here. It would only be another 3 years before Holland would capture horror enthusiasts further with his directorial role for Fright Night.
Helming the directorial duties for Psycho II would be Hitchcock student and heavily influenced by the auteur, Richard Franklin, who had already made Patrickand Roadgames using similar styles and techniques that the Master of Suspense came synonymous for. It would seem then that Franklin was the perfect choice to steer the ship and blend this continuation for the Norman Bates storyline.
Part of the appeal for this narrative would be the magnificent Vera Miles also returning for her role of Lila Loomis, although the treatment of her character arc is brought to contention which sees her on a malicious vendetta to put Bates behind bars again. Whilst you can understand her views, it is her gruesome demise that gets fans fuming a little. Personally, I like this journey and the subject of nature vs nurture that is brought to the helm. Can a man really change or is he doomed to repeat himself when constantly subjected to forced opinions and spectacle?
Throw in the mix, some great supporting roles in Meg Tilly as Mary Loomis (slightly biased opinion on my count as I adored her when I was younger… and still do), Robert Loggia as Dr. Bill Raymond to cast the psychological scrutiny, and Dennis Franz as the drunk motel caretaker.
The question remains though, is Psycho II a worthy sequel?
Well let’s look at Surgeons of Horror’s own six step criteria to place the feature under the microscope.
1, Identify the ideas, themes & executional elements that make the first film great. Or at least good. Or at least worthy of being sequelised.
The original movie was the epitome of suspense, filled with certain twists and turns in storytelling technique. It also posed an intriguing antagonist in serial killer Norman Bates and his alter ego “Mother”, that would lead some to ponder what happened to him and did he remain in the confines of a psychiatric ward?
2. Pay homage and do not violate/ignore said ideas and themes and elements.
It helps to have a visionary such as Franklin at the helm to carry out the look and feel of the original Bringing back Perkins and Miles to resurrect their character also lends weight to carry the torch, but with the worthy depth to character also forces the direction into a different stance in order to establish the narrative. There is also a lot of set design and props taken from the original that features here to recapture the look and feel.
3. Introduce new/expanded themes, ideas and elements that will NATURALLY ALIGN to your first ideas, themes & elements. (Ie: Don’t use your second movie to discredit & contradict your first).
Set 20 years later lays the grounds for further expansion by placing Bates in the position of rehabilitation. The subject matter of can a person be truly reformed when they were fundamentally unhinged is ripe to explore and Perkins does a magnificent job of placing Bates with the usual “innocent’ wonder combined with a slow descent into madness. Introducing a second generation of Loomis also explores shared trauma but under a new, more sympathetic outlook that contrasts her mother’s. Both Mary and Norman have a similarity in dominant mother’s and try to shirk their control to their own detriment. By placing the psyche under scrutiny, and twisting the perspectives of all throughout, the audience is kept guessing as to which way the knife will turn. In this respect it more than ticks the fourth rule.
4. To underline point 3 – DO NOT rehash the first film and just give people “more of the same”.
5. DO NOT-NOT rehash the first film by giving more of the same…. BUT “BIGGER”.
To support this choice of direction, the slow unravel of psychosis on our central characters and in doing so, grounding the narrative, the larger than life component that some sequels suffer under, is thankfully absent here.
And finally…
6. Be a good enough stand-alone film by itself.
Can this film truly stand alone without the impact of the first? In short, no, not without the same kind of delivery. The film does carry a narrative that is strong enough, and with the flashback placed in the prologue, enough is provided for an audience member to come in cold and still value the film by its own worth,
While it’s clear that one can’t merely replicate the quality and vision of a classic, the team behind Psycho II give a damn good crack at pushing into new terrain without scarring the original vision too greatly. For me, the film is a decent attempt at exploring Bates’ character and I am grateful that Perkins was given a fairly tight storyline and subject matter to expand and explore this character in more detail. Some forty years have passed now since its release, and looking back it’s well worth a revisit.
Before Steven Spielberg instilled our fear of the ocean and created the first Summer Blockbuster in Jaws, Alfred Hitchcok attempted to do something similar but instead of sharks, the attack on humanity came from the skies for his feature adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s The Birds.
Not for the first time would Hitch go to Du Maurier’s bibliography for inspiration having done so some twenty years earlier in arguably his first success in Hollywood, Rebecca. That film would go on to receive Best Picture Academy Award, but notably had Producer David O. Selznick’s fingerprints all over the production’s end result. By 1963 however, Hitch had firmly established himself as a prominent actor in the Golden Hills with a style remarkably his own and riding on the crest of the success of Psycho.
The Birds, a short story, would be given a face lift from the small Cornish town from which it was initially set, being transported to north of San Francisco and the idyllic Bodega Bay (a place and region that Hitch fell in love with).
Looking back at this film at the time of writing to celebrate its 60th Anniversary, there are obvious flaws that come to light when contrasted with Jaws. Namely, depth of character, which has often been criticised towards the screenwriter, Evan Hunter, but to do so would be to neglect the Hitchcock style and direct precision choices made by the auteur. The Birds is the epitome of style over substance.
We initially follow Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), the depiction of Hitchcock Blonde captured on screen, the perfect mould for him to carve out his vision of the “statuesque blonde with a cool, sophisticated manner”. The scene is set in San Francisco as we witness her enter a pet store and encounter the brash, machismo Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) and a cool-yet-flirtatious dialogue sparks between them. Enough to encourage Daniels to buy lovebirds and drive off to his hometown of Bodega Bay to give his younger sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright – yes, that Veronica Cartright) as a birthday present. As you do. All this foolish foreplay is a facade and symbolic of the complacency that is created in humanity. It serves as the true horror lurking in the clouds and the menace that hangs in the air – The Birds. After all, as Hitch put it, The Birds are the stars. Hitch was the king of suspense, and this is what he plays with, delicately enticing the fear to come to the audience in strong steady beats, starting with the one swooping gull attack Melanie Daniels head, then the attack on the farm, which leads Mitch’s mother, Lydia (the magnificent Jessica Tandy to play the overbearing matriarch) to discover the bloodied remains of a local farmer. This scene is also the only real gory sequence shot, the rest, by design, leads the audience to fill in the gaps.
The film would be iconised by two particular sequences, the school attack as birds descend on the children trying to escape. And the moment that Melanie gets trapped inside the attic with the feathered frenzy in an isolated environment. That’s not to forget the carnage that escalates outside the town eatery, when a further attack ensues, following a weighty dialogue sequence where local townsfolk try to unpack the cause of the bird attacks. The real moment of despair would be in the picture’s final sequence as a traumatised Daniels has been reduced to her core, escorted away in her car with Mitch and his family surrounded by a sea of birds, never knowing when the next strike will come, if it all. This ambiguous ending, one that is echoed from the source novel, left a lot of moviegoers bewildered, but for me, it’s the killer stroke deliberately left hanging in the air that hits strong and true.
By flipping the perspective of caged birds to caged humans, hiding in fear of predators, seeking protecting behind fimble walls, and also leading to an unknown conclusion and embracing the exterior, the audience are also thrust into the wilderness with a faint sign of hope to lead the way.
Saul Muerte
1 Counts, K. B. (1980). The Making of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Cinemafantastique, 10, 15-35.
Surgeons of Horror 