Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28914 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-01-01
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 116 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
By the time Alfred Hitchcock's second-to-last picture came out in 1972, the censorship restrictions under which he had laboured during his long career had eased up. Now he could give full sway to his lurid fantasies, and that may explain why Frenzy is the director's most violent movie by far--outstripping even Psycho for sheer brutality. Adapted by playwright Anthony Shaffer, the story concerns a series of rape-murders committed by suave fruit-merchant Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), who gets his kicks from throttling women with a necktie. This being a Hitchcock thriller, suspicion naturally falls on the wrong man--ill-tempered publican Richard Blaney (Jon Finch). Enter Inspector Oxford from New Scotland Yard (Alex McCowan), who thrashes out the finer points of the case with his wife (Vivian Merchant), whose tireless enthusiasm for indigestible delicacies like quail with grapes supplies a classic running gag.

Frenzy was the first film Hitchcock had shot entirely in his native Britain since Jamaica Inn (1939), and many contemporary critics used that fact to account for what seemed to them a glorious return to form after a string of Hollywood duds (Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz). Hitchcock specialists are often less wild about it, judging the detective plot mechanical and the oh-so-English tone insufferable. But at least three sequences rank among the most skin-crawling the maestro ever put on celluloid. There is an astonishing moment when the camera backs away from a room in which a murder is occurring, down the stairs, through the front door and then across the street to join the crowd milling indifferently on the pavement. There is also the killer's nerve-wracking attempt to retrieve his tiepin from a corpse stuffed into a sack of potatoes. Finally, there is one act of strangulation so prolonged and gruesome it verges on the pornographic. Was the veteran film-maker a rampant misogynist as feminist observers have frequently charged? Sit through this appalling scene if you dare and decide for yourself. --Peter Matthews

Special Features
English
Region 2

Customer Reviews

prime Hitchcock, his last great achievement
Albeit not as glorious as Hitch's classical psychological thrillers like "North by Northwest", "Vertigo", "Psycho", "The Birds", "Dial M For Murder" and "Rear Window"; "Frenzy" has its own charm and beauty and should be regarded as Hitch's last great achievement in the twilight of a brilliant career.

The premise of the film is nothing new: a case of mistaken identity. A man wrongfully accused of serial murders, and he must uncover the truth about the killings and clear his name. In "The 39 Steps", "North by Northwest", "Young and Innocent", "The Wrong Man" and "Saboteur" we saw a similar theme. But, at least one factor makes "Frenzy" so worthwhile: this is Hitchcock's first and only film to be given an 'R' rating by the MPAA during his 51-year career.

In earlier works, Hitch generally preferred to imply violence rather than openly showing it on the screen, leaving enough room for viewer's imagination. But, in "Frenzy" there are flagrant displays of lurid violence, especially the first murder scene, which plays on themes of explicit and prolonged rape, and slow strangulation. Also, the moment in the rear of a potato truck during which the "Necktie Killer" attempts to wrench the evidence off the corpses' hand by breaking her fingers stiffened by rigor mortis. It has good thrilling elements as well as Hitch's patented ghoulish humor. Just like famous shower scene of "Psycho", this is one of the most memorable scenes in Hitch's career.

Yeah, "Frenzy" has unsympathetic characters played by unknown and non-Hollywood-type cast, no beautiful locations, no icy blondes, no romances, no high dramas, no MacGuffins... It is neither atmospheric nor mysterious, yet it has a realistic feeling that works on numerous different levels. Recommended... (3.7/5.0)

The best of late HITCHCOCK & a key 70s film set in London
FRENZY is excellent and shocking in equal measure. Elegantly scripted by playwright Anthony Shaffer and with the usual quota of standout sequences - the camera's slow track out on to a Covent Garden street from the flat of the killer, a blackly comic, desperate attempt to retrieve a vital clue by breaking the fingers of a corpse dumped in a lorry-load of potatoes, and the droll understatement of the detective's mealtime conversations with his wife. Supremely enjoyable late Hitchcock.

Addictively repulsive
I had absolutely no idea what Frenzy was about, or any of the controversy surrounding it, when I blithely shoved the DVD in the player on a Sunday night.

This may have heightened my sense of shock at the rape scene somewhat - we sat watching the scene in dumbfounded silence. It's easily the most disturbing thing I've seen on screen, as it gives the purest sense of helplessness and gradually dawning inevitability that this woman will die the most horrible and pointless death imaginable.

I don't really care to examine Hitchcock's motivations in filming such a scene, much less actually including it in the final cut, but I must admit it makes the film more effective - the brutality of the crime serves to worsen the plight of the man falsely accused of it, as it is not just prison that seems an unjust punishment, but the very idea of being in any way associated with such a vile act. It also provides a cleverly done counterpoint to the jovial black humour that pervades the rest of the film. The crime itself is pure evil, while its consequences are by comparison laughable.

It is not a film I would recommend to anyone of a sensitive nature, or in a sensitive frame of mind, but it's worth seeing - if nothing else then for the scenes of a London long gone.