The Art of Russell Pierce
SOLD
Alfred Hitchcock
Film Director & Producer
My earliest memory of a movie that scared the living daylights out of me was Psycho. It was on television and my parents made a big deal about watching it one night. I was curious, what is this movie they think is so cool?
After dinner, the three of us settled in, me on the floor in front of the black and white Motorola, lights out. It seemed like a regular movie at first but the tension started to build consistently, keep in mind this really was my first horror/thriller movie experience. I didn’t know what to expect but I realized I was getting more tense. By the time that shower scene rolls around, I’m starting to freak out.
At the key moment when the shower curtain is pulled back, there’s a blurry figure of a woman with a huge knife, stabbing over and over. My entire body is wired and my eyes are bugging out of my head. Just then my dad decides this would be a good time to loft the current TV guide and have it land right on my back. Hitch couldn’t have done it better himself. I jumped 10 feet in the air and screamed.
I hated him at first and then laughed my ass off and respected him for the perfect timing he executed that night. He took that terrifying moment and amped it up. And it’s the same reason I love a good thriller to this day. I went on to see Hitchcock’s other amazing films, North by Northwest, Vertigo and one of my all time favorites, Rear Window. He was an amazing director.