Referring to Alfred Hitchcock as a horror director is like calling The Beatles a garage band, but theres no denying that Psycho, more than any other genre until film before Night Of The Living Dead, changed horror. Mindful of the success American Independent Pictures was having with fast-and-cheap exploitation movies, Hitchcock turned his back on Hollywood convention and made a low-budget, black and white movie that had one purpose to jolt the audience out of their seats. Ignoring Hammers gothic tales, he brought horror into the modern day and gave audiences a villain who lurked behind a veneer or respectability, in the process setting the standard for psychological thrillers for years to come. He followed Psycho with The Birds, the archetypal nature-fights-back movie, and in 1972 turned out Frenzy, by the far the nastiest and most disarming film in the Hitchcock canon. With its brutal kills and grim tone, you could argue that in terms of exploitation, its a more successful movie than Psycho.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
