Alfred Hitchcock’s last great thriller was this 1972 movie. Frenzy was his 52nd film and his second-last. It was also a return to form for Hitchcock after a couple of unsuccessful thrillers (Torn Curtain and Topaz).
Frenzy deals with a serial killer known as the Necktie Murderer. Several young women have been found dead in and around London, England. The bodies are naked and the victims have been strangled with a necktie . Barry Foster plays the killer and, typical to a Hitchcock movie, is revealed as such early in the film. Jon Finch is the innocent man blamed for the crimes. Finch is almost unlikable and it’s easy to see how he could get mistaken for a murderer-rapist.
This is a much nastier Hitchcock than usual, and that’s saying something. There’s a couple of grisly murder scenes and a fair bit of nudity — a first for Hitchcock (the nudity, not the grisly murders). The film also marked a return to shooting in Hitchcock’s native London — his first set there since 1956’s The Man Who Knew Too Much.
There is a really cool continuous shot in the middle of the film as the camera backs away from a crime scene. And then there’s my favorite scene involved a truck, a bag of potatoes and a body. Brilliant stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuoBprPGpzA
