How to Watch the Shocking Hitchcock Thriller Quentin Tarantino Calls”A piece of ****”
The other day, I tweeted about how we need more Certified Haters in film criticism. I wasn’t suggesting people start arbitrarily hating things, and I certainly wasn’t suggesting cruelty (there’s a way to be a constructive hater), but film criticism is livelier and infinitely more exciting when audiences have the flexibility to say, “Hey, I didn’t like this movie at all.”
While there’s been a bit of a cultural shift and, much like the ongoing debate about sex and cinema, an almost puritanical desire to talk only about what one loves, never about what one hates, Quentin Tarantino has never had a problem being a hater. He hated Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, and he additionally hated one particular Hitchcock classic.
Quentin Tarantino has had a lot to say about a lot of Hitchcock thrillers. He called North by Northwest a “very mediocre movie” and, curiously, remarked that Vertigo has “the stink of the ‘50s.” Painful, but he might be onto something there. Still, most of Tarantino’s ire seems to be reserved for a lesser-known, late output from the Master of Suspense. That movie is Frenzy.
Per Prime Video: A serial murderer is terrorizing London. The police have a suspect, but he is the wrong man.
Frenzy was Hitchock’s penultimate directorial effort. He followed with Family Plot, a less than elegant final note in an esteemed (professional) career. Frenzy maintains Hitchcock’s signature style, but it’s clear from watching it he’s not into it. Hitchcock is still Hitchcock, but even the best lose their mojo every now and then. It’s no wonder Quentin Tarantino, in his novel Cinema Speculation, wrote, “Hitchcockian thrillers were for him a means to an end. That’s why when he was forced to return to the genre in the mid-eighties, they were so lackluster. Ultimately he resented having to make them and was bored with the form. Hitchcock’s Frenzy might be a piece of crap, but I doubt Alfred was bored making it.”
The controversial erotic thriller can be rented just about anywhere online for next to nothing.
Despite calling it a “piece of crap,” Tarantino still found something nice to say along the way. That’s how a hater should be. What do you think, though? Any favorites among Alfred Hitchcock’s late filmography? Do you agree with Quentin Tarantino? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
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