Voyeurism and You

It's no secret that Dario Argento has been called the Italain Alfred Hitchcock of horror.  Much of this is especially evident in his giallo films.  So, imagine the natural follow up when Argento made one in a series of movies that paid tribute to Hitchcock that was made exclusively for television.

Do You Like Hitchcock? is in many ways, Argento's take on the Hitchcock classic Rear Window, and begins with a young boy named Giulio, who follows a mysterious figure into the woods.  The figure runs into a house, where she meets her accomplice for some chicken slaughtering fun in the name of witchcraft.  They spot him and chase him away.  Fast forward to present day Torino, and Giulio is now a movie nerd who is still the same peeping tom that he was as a wee lad.  His spying eye goes across the street and the hot young woman (okay, show of hands, who wouldn't want to espy their hot young woman neighbor across the street?), who had been arguing with her mother.  Giulio just so happens to be a movie nerd of, wait for it, Alfred Hitchcock movies.  In fact, he makes references to some of his movies as certain scenes unfold.  When the neighbor's mother is murdered, the peeping tom in Giulio takes over, as does the obsession with Hitchcock, both of which infuriate his girlfriend.

The movie plays out as more of a tribute to Hitchcock, and it shows.  The visual splatter fest that usually dominates the Argento movies is absent, as there are really only two major deaths to speak of: the neighbor's mother and the creepy video store clerk.  Incidentally, one would have hoped for Giulio to bite the dust, as he fails as a protagonist in every way.  From his treatment of his girlfriend to the peeping tom syndrome, the Giulio character screams "stalker." and I don't mean the Barry Windham character that was on WWF television in the mid-90's.*  Overall, Do You Like Hitchcock? is decent for what it is, but it is far from a great movie.

* I always wanted to somehow incorporate a Wrestlecrap gimmick into a review, and I did it.  I can quit this blog now, but I won't.