Good link.

When Raymond Chandler worked with Hitchcock on the script for Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock drove him nuts because he didn't care for logic or motivation. He just cared about the effect on the audience. If you remember the end of that movie, if you are in a rational frame of mind you think, "there's no way a carousel can go that fast." But if the movie's working, you think "Everyone's going to die!"

He didn't care about realistic or naturalistic behavior whereas Chandler was all about character motivation and creating unique characters. Hitchcock liked bland dialogue because then the audience was able to see themselves as the character and identify with their peril.

I wish today's director's had 1% of Hitchcock's creativity. Oh well, he was from an era we'll probably never seen again. In one of his more memorable movies, Psycho, Hitchcock broke a lot of taboos; extended semi-nudity, graphic and extended murder scenes with lots of blood. Too his genius, he didn't use crude in your face hacking away as is all too comon in today's horror flicks when the number of people killed always seems to get into the double digits or in some action flim where the Arnold or Sly mows down what seems like hundreds. Such phony "Hollywood" violence has little impact because its so phony. No, Hitchcock told a story. In the famous shower scene in Psycho you see mostly the blood, not much of the murderer. Because of it, he scared the crap out of lots of people. Horror is best preceived as anticipation of the horror to come and yet to happen. HItchcock used that principle in many of his movies.

Hitchcock scared his studio bosses too.

He did Psycho on the Universal lot without approval, without a budget and without telling any suits what he was doing.

How did he do it? He used his TV crew and facilities that he had for making the weekly "Hitchcock Presents" show. Remember, in those days TV was always shot on film.

Must have been quite a surprise for the bosses.

And Bates Motel is still standing on the lot, wonder if it was ever used for anything else afterwards?

To me a great horror flick is not one where you have a high body count or gory blood. The best ones take their viewers inner most fears and turn it against them. This is exactly one of my films that I will be shooting soon.

In the original Alien, we got both the blood and gore and the inner fears. For the first time is years and years I actually jumped in my seat when I saw that baby alien chew its way out of that guy's chest. Not expected. <wink>

And Bates Motel is still standing on the lot, wonder if it was ever used for anything else afterwards?

Aside from being on the studio tour it was used for all three of the "Psycho" sequels, the 1998 remake, and the 1987 "Bates Motel" TV series pilot wherein the motel was inherited by a friend Norman made while in the mental institution who turns it into a "Fantasy Island" type place where distraught characters who come to stay at the hotel undergo some kind of life altering revelation and leave happy. Probably the worst idea for a TV show since "Cop Rock."

I don't think they were too scared because Psycho was thought of as a low-budget excercise which is why he used his TV crew. Hitchcock was attempting to shoot a quick and dirty movie as an experiment of sorts. There was no inkling when they started that they were about to create Hitchcock's best known movie.

rique, tell me you're kidding about that "Bates Motel" TV show pilot! That is a truly awful idea for a show. Man, they should pay me NOT to come up scripts like that.....

I agree with comments above that essentially say the most effective horror happens betweens your ears, ie, your imagination. I think taboos and restrictions are often good for art of all kinds because it forces people to be clever, to imply, to suggest, rather than just plunk the red meat on the table. I believe there are sound moral reasons for certain kinds of restrictions, but some of these can also be supported on strictly artistic/craftsmanship grounds.

The root of "obscene" = "ob scena," literally, "off-stage."

I am encouraged by the success of movies like "Blair Witch" and "The Ring," neither of which had hardly any explicit gore. I found them terrifying, much scarier than ax-murder stuff like "Halloween" etc. They reminded me of old-fashioned ghost stories, told around the campfire, where the scariest things lurk just out of sight, not splashed on the screen.

I haven't seen "The Ring 2," any good?

Greg