Frenzy Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Frenzy Blu-ray Movie Review

"I don't know if you know it, Babs, but you're my type of woman."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown November 13, 2012

A man confronts his accuser atop the Statue of Liberty, where one false move will spell death. A wolf in sheep's clothing allows the beast lurking within to bear its teeth. A housemaster slowly, oh so slowly, pieces together the heinous crime perpetrated by two former students. A woman searches for clues in a suspected murderer's apartment just as the man returns home. Four people work to keep the demise of a fellow smalltown resident a secret from a local deputy. An assassin's gun slides out from behind a curtain as an ordinary man races to thwart his plot. An airplane buzzes then roars past as a man dives for cover. The hiss of a shower masks the approach of a madman with a knife in his hand. Countless birds gather on a jungle gym as a woman smokes a cigarette nearby. A husband barges into his new wife's bedroom and has his way with her as she retreats into a near-catatonic state. A physicist discovers killing a man isn't as easy as it might seem, wrestling with his victim right up until the violent end. A purple dress billows out beneath a dying woman like spilled blood. A serial killer retrieves his pin from a woman's grasp, one dead finger at a time. A fake psychic tries to squirm out of a thief's vice-like grip as he pushes a syringe closer and closer. Be it drama, horror or comedy, psychological stunner, monster movie or international spy thriller, is it any mystery that filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was known as the Master of Suspense? Is it any wonder his movies still hold hypnotic sway over filmfans all these years later?

A serial killer has the London police on high alert as an innocent man sets out to clear his name...

After the double dose of international intrigue that is Torn Curtain and Topaz, Frenzy -- Hitchcock's vicious little murder romp -- is a weirdly refreshing reunion of the Master of Suspense and his favorite horror subgenre. Hitchcock avoids the obvious whodunit angle, though, and reveals the identities of his wrongfully accused everyman and his twisted sociopath almost from the get go. The only surprise to be had is how far the director will go with an R-rating and a psychosexual serial killer plot, and the answer is farther than ever before. In many ways, Frenzy is almost anti-Hitchcockian in nature, showing far more than it leaves to the imagination. In other ways, it's the last bit of razor-toothed Hitchcock he committed to film. Much of the credit goes to Jon Finch and Barry Foster; the former handling his character's innocence with sincerity and his search for the real killer with matter-of-fact desperation, the latter delivering one of the creepiest, most uncomfortable serial killer performances of the decade. Everything else, of course, is set dressing -- murderer Robert Rusk's victims especially -- but it hardly matters. Frenzy is a game of wits, determination and compulsion between two polar opposites, and the film succeeds handily as the tension mounts and the bodies begin to amass. It's leaner and meaner than most of its Masterpiece Collection brethren, and will grab hold of any filmfan more familiar with Rear Window and Psycho than Hitchcock's more obscure thrillers.

Frenzy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Minted from a dated master, Frenzy's 1080p/VC-1 encoded video transfer hasn't been given the ground-up restoration it requires. The image is quite pristine, without much in the way of print blemishes, source noise or compression anomalies, but it also exhibits the telltale signs of overzealous noise reduction and artificial sharpening. Mild to moderate edge halos are apparent throughout, faces are often waxy and unnatural, midrange shots struggle to resolve fine textures, and crush blots out even more detail. Compared to previous home video releases, the Blu-ray offers an easily discerned upgrade, mainly in terms of color vibrancy, contrast consistency, black depth and overall clarity. But those improvements are uneven at best and fail to silence one prevailing truth: Frenzy could look much, much better. If nothing else, it could certainly be the recipient of a more filmic presentation, if not a top-tier catalog stunner. As one of Hitchcock's lesser known films, though, the chances of Frenzy receiving that five-star transfer anytime soon are slim to none. Flawed as it is, this is about as good as it's going to get.

Note: Universal's U.S. Blu-ray release features the film's original opening title card and credit sequence.

Frenzy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Frenzy arrives with one of the most problematic two-channel DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mixes in the Masterpiece Collection set. Dialogue is often poorly prioritized, effects are typically too brazen or too weak, Ron Goodwin's overpowering score leaves very little breathing room for other power players in the soundscape, and haphazard ADR is an occasional distraction. None of it strangles the AV presentation, at least not completely, but it all takes a significant toll. Whether the culprit is the film's original audio elements or an average remaster isn't entirely clear. What is clear is that Frenzy could use an overhaul all around.

Frenzy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Story of Frenzy (SD, 45 minutes): Laurent Bouzereau explores Hitchcock's 1972 return to form, as well as its darker, more explicit and more violent themes and imagery. Along the way, interviews with Pat Hitchcock O'Donnell, screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, and actors Jon Finch (Richard Blaney), Barry Foster (Robert Rusk) and Anna Massey (Babs Milligan) tell the tale of the film's production and reception.
• Production Photographs (SD, 17 minutes): Movie posters, vintage ads, production photos and more.
• Theatrical Trailer (SD, 3 minutes)

Frenzy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hitchcock's penultimate film is a welcome return to form and a lunge forward of sorts that hints at the kind of projects Hitchcock might have tackled had his health held out for another ten years. Foster and Finch are fantastic, and Frenzy is as gripping as it is grisly. Unfortunately, the Blu-ray edition is a bit of a mess. Its video transfer could use a redo, its DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix could use some more work, and its supplemental package could use some more meat on its bones. Even so, Frenzy shouldn't be avoided. Quite the contrary. It should be embraced in spite of its AV flaws, if only to help lift it out of relative obscurity.