The Hitchcock Murders

About this book

Alfred Hitchcock relished his power to frighten us and believed the shocks he administered improved our psychological health. But he could never satisfactorily explain our curiosity to see forbidden things or the perverse desire to experience anxiety and dread that made his work so popular. In The Hitchcock Murders Peter Conrad one of Hitchcocks eager victims undertakes the task on the masters behalf. At the age of thirteen Conrad snuck into his first screening of Psycho and hes been wary of showers and fruit cellars ever since. Thanks to Hitchcock hes also suspicious of staircases seagulls and crop-dusting planes. Now he sets out to analyze the nature of Hitchcocks appeal to both himself and the millions of moviegoers for whom Hitchcock is cinemas foremost auteur. Examining Hitchcocks use of religion morality conscience culpability and literary symbols Conrad unveils a chilling Nietzschean universe-one in which there is no God and no moral standard where humans are petty and disposable and the neutral hand of fate can take a life in the blink of an eye. A timid respectable man with the imagination of a psychopath a chubby jester whose practical jokes took merciless advantage of human insecurities Hitchcock is revealed here as the man who knew too much-about all of us.