Review #239: Frenzy (1972)

This review was originally written in October 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #93: Frenzy (1972)

Frenzy is a film that takes place in London during a rash of serial murders, where the killer has been sexually assaulting women and then strangling them with a necktie. The story follows Richard Blaney, a down-on-his-luck barfly with a checkered past, who gets pinned early on as the prime suspect in the Necktie Murders, and does his best to evade capture. But every time it seems like he's found a way out of the spotlight, he gets pulled right back in.

Movies like Frenzy are the prime example of why I feel justified in giving entries like Repulsion a low score. Frenzy is long (115 minutes) and most of it is pretty slow-paced, but the characters are all fully-realized people and each of them clearly has more going on than what you see in any given scene. Could you imagine how much less interesting this film would be if Blaney spent most of his scenes just staring blankly and not talking? Or if we weren't given adequate reason for the other characters in the story to treat him the way they do? The strength of almost any story is in how much you care about the characters involved, and this film does so much legwork to establish its characters in a way that makes you understand who they are and why they're doing what they do. (For example, there's a scene near the end of the film where Blaney has- offscreen- convinced a bunch of hospital patients to help him evade capture. This doesn't raise any eyebrows from the viewer, because he's already been shown to have an assortment of fiercely loyal and trustworthy associates, so it's no surprise that he could sway people to help him at his most determined point.)

Of course, the question does need to be asked regarding whether or not this is horror. Yes there's horrific content in here, but it's much more a thriller or suspense film than a horror film. It's clear at every point that Blaney isn't guilty (and the identity of the real killer is made clear fairly early on as well) so a lot of the hallmarks of typical horror aren't really there. I'm not sure this is really a necessary hair to split but I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe one of the reasons this film ended up better than some of the other entries I've panned lately is because it's not really trying to be the same thing as those others. Maybe the takeaway here is that horror is harder to make than you might think?

Plus, there's a goofy running subplot involving the head inspector's wife being a terrible (but ambitious) cook, and a scene when the killer has to scramble to cover up a mistake he made and it plays like a slapstick comedy or farce for a few minutes. So clearly Hitchcock understood that a tense and stressful experience is best seasoned with moments of levity.

Frenzy is a fantastic and engaging film, but it IS a bit long and fairly slow. In spite of that, however, I would recommend it to anyone.

Overall Rating: 8/10 Unnecessary Leather Patches

Disappointing Change: At the start of the film, the body of a nude woman (a victim of the Necktie Murderer) washes up on the Thames. Apparently, the original plan was for the body to be that of director Alfred Hitchcock in one of his famous cameos (in which case I assume it would have been unrelated to the plot) and most of the shots would have used a dummy made to look like Hitchcock while it was floating in the river. The dummy can still be seen, though, in the official trailer (which is hilarious for several reasons, and you should go watch it).