Frenzy Movie Review

One of Hitchcock's final movies is also one of his goriest -- his first R-rated feature -- and most dryly funny. The story's a relatively straight-up crime drama; we know who the bad guy is from the start -- Jon Finch, playing the Necktie Murderer. But he's framed another guy for his crime spree. Meanwhile, inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen) is on the case, and when he isn't tracking down clues, he's eating the increasingly questionable cooking of his trying-hard-but-failing wife. It's Hitch's last great film (he made one more movie and died eight years later), and proof that he still had his form -- last seen put to good use in 1963's The Birds.