10 Directors Who Tried To Be Alfred Hitchcock (And Failed Miserably)

1. Brian De Palma

If anyone deserves the number one spot on this list, it is without a doubt Brian De Palma. Many of his films, at least nine obvious choices, have taken from, or in the words of many, stolen from Hitchcock. De Palma has defended himself, arguing the differences between being a copycat and a plagiarist. Depending on the film he's either included elements inspired by Hitchcock, taken an element directly from Hitch but changed it slightly or completely ripped off The Master of Suspense. In Blow Out, for instance, he's included some Hitchcockian elements, namely the dark irony, but that film is really just an update of Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blow-Up. The same can be said of De Palma's films Sisters, Body Double and Carrie. They all have Hitchcock-like elements, but are clearly their own film. Then consider the film Obsession, about a man who loses his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, then becomes convinced his wife is alive and living in Italy. This is basically De Palma's version of Vertigo. Another similar re-imagining of a Hitchcock classic is Hi, Mom!, De Palma's version of Rear Window. That brings us to Dressed to Kill, De Palma's most blatant ripoff of a Hitchcock masterpiece - Psycho. It has everything: a man who commits murder while dressed as a woman, an important shower scene, subtly disguised sexual aggression and dark ironic imagery. De Palma can make a case for every film but this one. It's a darker, more violent carbon copy. Now, none of these films are considered particularly bad, so with De Palma it's pretty debatable if he's failed miserably or not. This is one we'd need to discuss on a film-by-film basis, and that would require a completely different list. If we're talking Blow Out, he's not failed in any sense of the word, but if we're talking Hi, Mom!, well, that's a whole different story. Know of any other directors who tried to emulate Hitchcock but came up short? Drop a line in the comments.