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For G4 Films Epictober Film Festival, Gregg Bishop turned the popular game Angry Birds into a horror flick worthy of Alfred Hitchcock.
See the video clip (along with a couple other videogame-inspired clips) over at Wired's Underwire blog: Link
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Director Alfred Hitchcock appeared in at least 45 of his 52 films, usually in tiny parts that you’d never notice if you weren’t looking. However, identifying those moments has become a game among Hitchcock fans. In today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you are challenged to match nine screenshots of the director with the movie they come from. Good luck! Link
Photo: Philippe Halsman
Is it in a fridge somewhere? Actually, that’s Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s wife, who posed lovingly with a refrigerated prop head of the famed director. Via Dangerous Minds and Cakehead Loves Evil
See previously on Neatorama: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Alfred Hitchcock
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On June 16th, 1960 -fifty years ago today- moviegoers were treated to a new Alfred Hitchcock film that would change the idea of horror films forever. It was the release date for Psycho, the psychological thriller that introduced us to Norman Bates and The Bates Motel. The simple act of taking a shower become a frightening experience for those who saw the movie. Open Road Media selected this anniversary date to release an ebook version of the nonfiction masterpiece Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello, which takes a deeper look at Hitchcock’s masterpiece.
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is a behind-the-scenes look inside the classic suspense shocker—and the creative genius who revolutionized filmmaking.
Author Stephen Rebello explores the creation of one of Hollywood’s most iconic films, from the story of Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein, the real-life inspiration for the character of Norman Bates, to Hitchcock’s groundbreaking achievements in cinematography, sound, editing, and promotion. Filled with insights from the film’s stars, writers, and crewmembers, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is a riveting and definitive history of a signature Hitchcock cinematic masterpiece.
The ebook (available now) covers every step of the story of Psycho, from the crime that inspired the novel and then the movie, financing, casting, filming, special effects, trivia, to the reception the public gave the film. Read about the many versions of the story Hitchcock rejected and the writers tweaked, the careful planning that allowed shooting to be completed in just a month, and the trademark suspense Hitchcock used to hype the unveiling of the finished product.
Reprinted here with permission is the very first chapter, the story of murderer Ed Gein, which inspired novelist Robert Bloch to write the story that became the movie Psycho.
THE AWFUL TRUTH
There was a young man named Ed
Who would not take a woman to bed
When he wanted to diddle,
He cut out the middle
And hung the rest in a shed.
ANONYMOUS, 1957
In late November 1957, no one would have marked Plainfield as unlike any other hardscrabble, rawboned Wisconsin farm hamlet. That winter was especially raw. Ask any of the friendly townies of third- and fourth-generation German and French stock. In flat, laconic tones, they recite litanies of burst water mains and permafrost; of nights spent hunkering down against slashing winds and rains that blew east along Canada’s border. But that November also saw Plainfield mentioned in newspapers across the country. Remind these dairyland types about that little bit of business and their open faces wall up. They begin to study their shoes or make excuses before they beg off. That month, in 1957, Plainfield police smoked out an oafish fifty-one-year-old, odd-job-and-errands-man named Ed Gein (rhymes with mean) as one of the grisliest mass murderers America ever spawned.
Long before the headlines were to brand Gein as a bogeyman, his rural, God-fearing community of seven hundred had chalked him off as a crank. A perpetually grinning, unmarried recluse, Gein rambled over 160 ruined acres once farmed by his parents and brother. Even locals who never gave a second thought to hiring Gein for errands or baby-sitting had wearied of his harebrained theories. He liked to rag on the whys and wherefores of criminals who fouled up, or yammer endlessly, and pitifully, about women. Plainfield-ers recall his clinical obsession with anatomy and with the sex-change operation of Christine Jorgensen. But there was more to Gein than loony talk. That came home with a vengeance with the discovery of bloodstains on the floor of Bernice Worden’s general store on November 16.
Laz Marquez
There’s a certain familiarity to modernizing and re-envisioning posters for Alfred Hitchcock’s wonderful films, and Laz Marquez has these sizzling contributions. After he did The Birds, he took suggestions from his followers on what else to do.
I sincerely hope you all enjoyed seeing this project come to life as much as I loved creating them. It’s great to see the set together and working as a whole. Thanks again for all the support & keep your eyes peeled for the next set (Starting very, very soon)!
I hear the next set will be Stephen King themed. Link
Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in all of his movies. YouTube user royvanderzwaan, a collector of Hitchcock films, assembled (almost) all of these cameos into one video.
via Nerdcore
Since Alfred Hitchcock was not an American college student or a baseball player, we can assume that when he posed for this studio photograph he was making the “sign of the horns” to ward off evil or bad luck.
The gesture has a long and complex history, undoubtedly originating as a manual representation of the Devil’s horns; Bram Stoker referred to it in his novel Dracula:
When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye.
It has subsequently been co-opted by musicians, athletes, politicians, and celebrities for a variety of purposes and meanings. Students at several universities use the sign in support of their team. In baseball and football it can mean “two outs” or “second down.” It is even reportedly an unofficial sign for “B.S.” (as the horns of a bull) in American sign language!
Photo via Old Hollywood.
Before the age of photography, there was a strange custom of making a plaster cast of the face of the recently departed.
These "death masks" were mementos of the dead, though they also had other purposes like for creating portraits or for recording facial records of unknown corpses.
Here’s a collection of death masks of the famous at Socyberty. To the left is Alfred Hitchcock:
Alfred Hitchcock dealt with death any number of times in his films – murder most horrid quite often – and in his death he retains a certain air of petulance.
He had a career that spanned six decades and most people are surprised to hear that he died as late as 1980. He directed over fifty feature films and is regarded by many as the most influential British film maker of all time.
He died of renal failure in California at the age of eighty. It is somewhat ironic that the film-maker who made generations of moviegoers wet themselves with fright should die of a kidney related illness.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
