"Everybody's afraid of a crazy man."--Cassius Clay.
It's true. It psychs you out. Nothing is more frightening when we encounter it. We don't understand. Can't predict behavior. Eleven. It's difficult enough to understand another person, even (or especially?) oneself. Try another species. When we encounter another just like us though, who we know possesses the same innate intelligence, has the same sensory abilities, who looks just like us, except they're not, they don't act like us, "normal", then it's frightening. It's fascinating, from a distance, but frightening.
I'm watching Hitchock's Vertigo. Is there any movie director ever who used the psychological thriller to more captivating advantage? Psycho. Right? Fucking scared people shitless. People, especially women, couldn't take showers after seeing that film. The Overlook Hotel...what was the movie? with Nicholson who goes mad (short trip)...DAMN, I can't rem...The Shining! I saw that once not knowing. Was scared shitless. Have not been able to watch it again. Kubrick. The way Kubrick built tension with the little signs, and with the music. I'm ashamed to say even knowing how it climaxes I get a knot in my stomach everytime I get close to the scene, you know, Danny, the hallway. I get anxious just thinking about it. Anyway.
Hitchcock gives away the underlying psychological theme in Vertigo. There's no mystery from very early on. It that sense he does not use psychology as well as Kubrick did, even as Chantal Akerman did. The psychology of fear is in the mystery. If we know what it is, the shock of the unpredictable is removed. There really are real people who live to all appearances normal psychological lives who are FUCKING NUTS! Or who suddenly SNAP and GO fucking nuts. Anyway. I'm going to go back to watching Vertigo.