helterskelter.ca

The Master: Alfred Hitchcock.
1954 - Rear Window.
1960 - Psycho.
1963 - The Birds.
way more Helter Skelter.

September 1, 1954 - 2024: 70 years of: Rear Window.

Turn off the lights.

We want to see, we want to know ...and Alfred Hitchcock is about to show it all. How much are you willing to watch ?

Poor Jeff gets a forced vacation in a leg cast. Bound to his wheelchair, he kills time by looking out the windows, to the center courtyard of the adjacent apartments. His neighbors are everyday people with their everyday life ...until a man's wife suddenly disappears from the landscape. Illusion or imagination, Jeff is about to uncover a well crafted tensed twisted truth.

Close the shades.

Exploring the human psyche and the what-ifs of the common man, Rear Window hypnotize by it's simple staging, addictive plot and the beyond divine to-be royalty Grace Kelly. The main-characters spies outward, while we spy inward ...Hitchcock once again cleverly turns the table. Academy Award nominated and fan-favorite for decades, Rear Window stands as an aperture in society's gregarious mindset.

RIP Wendell Corey AKA Det. Doyle (1914-1968)
RIP Thelma Ritter AKA Stella (1902-1969)
RIP Alfred Hitchcock KBE (1899-1980)
RIP Grace Kelly AKA Lisa (1929-1982)
RIP Raymond Burr AKA Lars Thorwald (1917-1993)
RIP James Stewart AKA Jeff (1908-1997)

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Rear Window = movie-trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HejJ-yLmf3Y
Rear Window explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpPjdsHG_EI
Rear Window way more explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oufiKhjphM

September 8, 1960 - 2025: 65 years of: Psycho.

Before the puzzle box, the pumpkin and the chainsaw ...there was Mother.

After 1959's fascinating North By Northwest mystery, Alfred Hitchcock rewrites history, again. From matricide to marvelous, Psycho's deadly deviancy shall be the template and set the tone for future generations in horror and thriller movie-making.

"She just goes ...a little mad sometimes." Running away from the city after a cash-burglary, young Marion sets-in for the night at a local motel. Sharing casual interests with the manager, she rapidly meets ...death. From mom-worship, to cross-dressing, to shower-stabbing, this vertigo quest for the now missing blonde shall unearth the world's first one-screen serial killer.

Before Freddy, Jason and Michael ...there was Norman / Norma.

It is required that you see Psycho from the very beginning. The stakes were high and Hitchcock's reputation was already bullet-proof. The producer commanded that theaters do not let anyone in late for presentations, to make sure viewers had to witness the entire movie. Sold-out success America-wide, the film slashed the competion.

Another wild story, directly influenced by Ed Gein's real wild mania, Psycho's esthetics and slow-pace is the final initiation before total dementia. From grave-robbing to greatness, this murder legacy shall bloom during the 80s, with the development of the Psycho franchise. Horror forever lives here ...at Bates Motel.

Continuing in the terror lead, Hitchcock's game shall head into the ultimate frenzy: 1963's The Birds.

RIP Frank Albertson AKA Tom Cassidy (1909-1964)
RIP Alfred Hitchcock KBE (1899-1980)
RIP Vaughn Taylor AKA George Lewis (1911-1983)
RIP Simon Oakland AKA Dr. Richman (1915-1983)
RIP Lurene Tuttle AKA Mrs. Chambers (1907-1986)
RIP John McIntire AKA Sheriff Chambers (1907-1991)
RIP John Anderson AKA Charlie (1922-1992)
RIP Anthony Perkins AKA Norman Bates (1932-1992)
RIP Mort Mills AKA CHP Officer (1919-1993)
RIP Martin Balsam AKA P.I. Arbogast (1919-1996)
RIP Janet Leigh AKA Marion Crane (1927-2004)
RIP John Gavin AKA Sam Loomis (1931-2018)
RIP Patricia Hitchcock AKA Caroline (1928-2021)

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Psycho = movie-trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz719b9QUqY
Alfred Hitchcock interview in 1960
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDmpJq912fI
Psycho promotion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjRzj_Ufiew

March 28, 1963 - 2023: 60 years of: The Birds.

Don't look up !

The master of suspense is flying high again. Based on the 1952 Daphnee Du Maurier novelette The Birds, the Alfred Hitchcock treatment sends this vague possibility into terror in the American blue skies. The quiet remote Bodega Bay community would never, ever be the same again.

Full moon, one beautiful summer weekend, all seems normal, until one and then two suspicious incidents. And then the unthinkable: the school is assaulted ...and then the village is on fire. From dozens to hundreds to thousands, sparrows, gulls and crows gather for unknown reasons and strike anyone and anything in their sights.

Sophisticated and perfectly paced, the tension is palpable and the fright is real. Kids and adults cover for shelter from the bloody carnage from above. Red hot following the iconic trendsetting 1960 Psycho, Hitchcock once again sparred no details in turning these seemingly innocent ornithurae ...into serial Kamikaze killers.

The Birds is a very important movie in the horror-timeline of growing fantasy cinema. Far away from the kitsch 1950s science-fiction, 60s living dead and before the hell on Earth incarnation of 1973's Exorcist, The Birds would bring everyday common lovelys into the possible chaos of the end of the civilized world. A tour-de-force only Hitchcock could exhibit.

"Cover your faces ! cover your eyes !"

RIP Alfred Hitchcock KBE (1899-1980)
RIP Jessica Tandy AKA Lydia (1909-1994)
RIP Suzanne Pleshette AKA Annie (1937-2008)
RIP Rod Taylor AKA Mitch (1930-2015)

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The Birds = movie-trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-L6pOcybkY
The Birds = documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-7d029UR0k