8. Gimmicks and Special Effects
Ah, the special effects of modern horror - people turning into werewolves before our eyes, monsters ripping a human to shreds and leaving viscera dangling on the movie screen. It's all very exciting and very gruesome, and Hitchcock would hate it. Hitchcock obviously used special effects here and there, almost every film does, but as with gore and nudity, Hitchcock looked elsewhere to advance his plot and invoke terror in his audiences. Hitchcock movies are filled with symbolism and implied horror. A good example is his penchant for trains. Trains are almost continually evident in a Hitchcock film. Trains represent freedom of movement and romanticism, yet they also represent a feeling of being trapped.
This is especially true in
The Lady Vanishes, wherein our heroine Iris (wonderfully portrayed by Margaret Lockwood), who received a knock on the head prior to boarding the train, is positive a Ms. Froy helped her aboard, yet nobody on the train remembers the woman. Even though Iris very much wants to leave the fictional country of Madrika (
freedom), she repeatedly yells for the train to be stopped and searched. While the train is moving, she is
trapped with those who potentially harmed Mrs. Froy. Hitchcock's symbolism has a powerful, but sneakily unnoticed, effect on the moviegoer.
9. Body Counts
How many people die in your average 21st century horror movie? Maybe 10? Possibly 20? Body counts are so pervasive in modern horror films that the 1981 slasher film parody
Student Bodies added a running body count gag. How many died in
Psycho? Two? How about
The Lady Vanishes? None (At least none died from the thriller aspect. A few guys were shot in a gunfight toward the end.). Hitchcock didn't need body counts to make his movies scary; he just needed the implied threat of death to get his point across.