Tag Archives: Hitchcockian

Still of the Night (1982) | Robert Benton

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Roy Scheider plays a newly divorced New York psychiatrist named Sam Rice, who discovers that George Bynum (Josef Sommer), one of his prominent patients, has been murdered. Bynum was the curator of antiquities for Crispin’s, a high-scale auction house, who engaged in a sexual affair with Brooke Reynolds (Meryl Streep), a younger woman who worked with him. During his counseling sessions, Bynum told Sam all about Brooke in such vivid detail that Sam thinks he might have fallen for Bynum’s mistress himself. Those feelings get reinforced when Brooke visits Sam’s office to hand him Bynum’s wristwatch he left in her apartment the night of his death. Sam becomes infatuated with Brooke, but as he pursues her romantically, he’s also frightened of her because she might be Bynum’s murderer. As the police press him for evidence, Sam begins following Brooke to learn more, only to feel she might already be stalking him as her potential next kill. Robert Benton writes and directs.

Dressed to Kill (1980) | Brian De Palma

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Angie Dickinson stars as Kate Miller, a housewife so unsatisfied sexually that she often finds herself having vivid and wild sexual fantasies, with violent overtones.  She has been seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Elliott (Michael Caine), about her marital problems, and even makes a pass at him, although nothing comes to pass.  Unable to resist the temptation, Kate has an afternoon fling with a complete stranger, only to end up the victim of a brutal and senseless slaying at the hands of a mysterious figure with a straight-edge razor.  Only one person witnessed the murder, a spunky prostitute named Liz (Nancy Allen), who describes the perpetrator as a blonde woman in sunglasses.  Meanwhile, Dr. Elliott begins receiving phone calls from one of his patients, Bobbi, a pre-op transsexual with homicidal tendencies, and Dr. Elliott’s stolen razor.

Psycho (1960) | Alfred Hitchcock

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Janet Leigh starts off the film as Marion Crane, a clerk in a real estate office engaged in a romantic fling with Sam Loomis (John Gavin), the manager of a hardware store in Phoenix, Arizona.  When she’s given the task of depositing $40,000 in cash into the bank, Marion impulsively decides to keep it, and drives off to California, perhaps to Sam’s hometown, Fairvale, with the freedom to pursue Sam without concern for finances. En route, her paranoid fears get the best of her, as she begins to have second thoughts, but a powerful storm forces her off the beaten track in search of a place to stay, and she comes to the Bates Motel, a completely vacant establishment with “12 cabins, 12 vacancies”.  The motel is run by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a shy but friendly man who is excited to not only have his first visitor in weeks, but also one as attractive as Marion, who signs in under a pseudonym.  But Norman’s mother, who resides on a small hill overlooking the establishment, isn’t going to lose Norman to just any visiting trollop who comes along without a fight. Alfred Hitchcock directs.

The Hitcher (1986) | Robert Harmon

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C. Thomas Howell stars as Jim Halsey, a young Chicago native driving a car cross-country to California. The Texas road he’s currently on is lonely and Jim is tired, but he spies a way he might stay awake in the form of hitchhiker John Ryder (Rutger Hauer). It doesn’t take long before Jim becomes unnerved by his new passenger, as Ryder claims he’s decapitated viciously the last person to give him a ride and that he will do the same to Jim. Jim finds a way to kick Ryder out of the vehicle, but he keeps showing up again, killing more victims along the way. Things go from horrific to maddening once the grisly body count rises and Jim becomes implicated in the murders, as all signs seem to point to him.  Jennifer Jason Leigh gets a supporting role in this stylish and twisted cult thriller.

Road Games (1981) | Richard Franklin

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Road Games (aka Roadgames) is a Hitchcockian suspense-thriller set primarily out on the open roads running through the Australian outback. Jamie Lee Curtis is Pamela, who, along with independent truck driver Pat Quid (Stacy Keach) and his pet dingo Boswell, tries to get to the bottom of a story which might connect a series of killings which have surfaced around Australia to a mysterious driver of a creepy looking van that’s on the road with them, as Quid attempts to deliver a rig full of pork to Perth, which is undergoing a meat shortage at the time due to butchers going on strike. As the trucker drives on toward his destination, he gets into greater danger, including stirring up the locals into thinking the serial killer they’ve been hearing about on the radio might be Quid himself. A self-described student of Hitchcock, Richard Franklin, directs, from a script by Everett De Roche. Quentin Tarantino claims it is one of his all-time favorite Australian films.

Cloak & Dagger (1984) | Richard Franklin

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Henry Thomas plays Davey, a young San Antonio boy with a vivid imagination and a love o fantasy games.  The lines between fantasy and reality blur when he ends up in possession of a video game cartridge that is the conduit for top secret information wanted by some pretty bad hombres who will kill to get it.  With the help of his imaginary friend, the daring man of adventure named Jack Flack, Davey must find a way to survive before more people end up dead — including him!  Richard Franklin directs from a Tom Holland script.