Once Upon a Time Dating

This weekend I watched my third Alfred Hitchcock movie, Dial M for Murder (I had already seen Psycho and The Birds). I started watching the film with my family and planned on just listening to it in the background and perusing Facebook, but something drew me in and before I knew it, my laptop was shut and my eyes were glued to the screen.

My eyes were probably glued in the first place because of how stunning Grace Kelly is. After researching the film a little afterwards, I saw that Alfred Hitchcock dropped forty pounds before the film in the hopes of getting in Grace Kelly’s pants, but she wound up hooking up with all of the other actors instead… what a betch. But that’s not the only thing that drew me in- the film was actually scaring me. And not only do I never get spooked by horror movies, but I usually wind up watching them and holding in laughter because I find them so ridiculous. So I started to wonder what makes Hitchock films different…

First of all, for those of you who haven’t seen Dial M for Murder, watch it now. Seriously, go buy it on iTunes. Come back to this blog after watching it… ok, you done? Good.

Well for those of you who didn’t listen to my advice, the movie is about a husband (Ray Milland) who plans the “perfect” murder of his wife (Grace Kelly). He finds a stranger to stalk and henceforth blackmail, convinces him to do it, and then walks him through every step of the murder. But as a family friend (Robert Cummings) who also happens to write horror stories says to the couple in the beginning of the movie, no murder is perfect because the murderer often makes one classic mistake he doesn’t realize until it’s too late. I don’t want to give anything away, but you can guess that things don’t go as planned.

The description of this movie probably doesn’t seem that scary to you. I mean sure, it’s not a romantic comedy, but it’s nothing compared to the descriptions of The Strangers or Saw. However if you have seen Dial M for Murder, it probably did scare you. It’s not “I can’t shut my eyes and go to sleep” type of scary, but that type of scary is sort of cheap, isn’t it? It’s easy to put a frightening mask on someone, or to poor fake blood everywhere, as most recently made horror films do. But these types of horror movies only scare a very childish and immature part of your psyche. Hitchock films, on the other hand, spark a different type of fear in the audience: fear of human nature itself. Dial M for Murder has hardly any blood, only around four actors, and takes place in virtually the same, mundane room for the entire film. You aren’t scared of what you see in Alfred Hitchock films, you are scared of what you don’t see: what the characters are thinking. You are scared of just how evil and cunning people can be. You don’t walk away from a Hitchcock film checking for monsters in your closet, you walk away pondering just how deranged human beings can be.

And what’s scarier than that?