“What would frighten me to death? Set the mood for me, Mark.”
Horror/Thrillers hit puberty in 1960, and the biggest change came from Psycho and Peeping Tom. While Psycho was an instant smash and a cultural landmark, Peeping Tom was savaged by critics and director Michael Powell’s career was destroyed. A sympathetic portrait of a mild-mannered serial killer was finally re-examined in 1980 thanks to Martin Scorsese, and is now seen as a possible equal to Psycho in terms of the evolution of Horror in particular and cinema in general.
A nastier, more blunt presentation of ideas in Rear Window, the film connects photography and moviemaking with the morbid urge to watch something forbidden. It makes for a more direct connection to Brian De Palma films than all of Hitchcock’s output. Even the score is reminiscent of early DePalma thrillers. It shows an obsessive desire to capture fear, with the ultimate thrill coming not from the murders, but from watching them later in the comfort of home.
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