One thing can be said for certain about the Horror and Macabre Photography gallery: we know what scares and disturbs us. Most horror fans can look back and think about the first film or novel that left its mark on them.

Often there is such a loud cry for "unique! original!" artwork that we forget: every artist and artform has had some sort of influence. While we should all strive to create something "deviant", it never hurts to look into our artistic history and pay homage to those that paved the way for us.

On that note, I would like to introduce the first in a series of features that focus on the films, literature, and popular culture icons that have helped shape the face of Horror and Macabre Art.

This week's featured dark muse is none other than the king of suspense himself:


Alfred Hitchcock



Generation after Generation of film watchers are familiar with the name Alfred Hitchcock. Even the most amateur filmmakers are familiar with the term Hitchcockian. All too many, however, know little or nothing about his films or the genius whose name is perpetuated in the zeitgeist of horror/suspense. Having died in 1980, before many of the rising generation were even born, this is hardly a surprise.

Alfred Hitchcock is as much an iconic name as Andy Warhol, Charlie Chaplin, and Ernest Hemingway. Most immersed in American culture have a vague understanding of the art form attached to these names, but far less have actually embraced it and comprehend the brilliance that elevated them each to such a pantheon of Genius.

Hitchcock laid the foundation for the horror and suspense genres of filmmaking that every current and future filmmaker stands upon. The Filmmaker, had an incredible understanding of the most basic primal fears that are shared by most people. Throughout his films are characters that suffer domination, wrongful persecution, violations of trust, situations with unknown rules, sexual deviations with predatory tones, the most basic fears of falling, darkness, and death. Even his most complicated plots revolved around the most elementary of fears.

He believed that no one could dictate to someone else what was frightening. Nothing he could film would ever be as scary to them as what their own fears imagined, so his most revered technique was restraint. Visually he made inferences of the horror at hand, but left the revelation of it in his viewers’ minds.

His was a mastery of control, knowing that most all fears come down to that most basic human need. The Master showed us carefully constructed stories paced like a heart beat that started slow and built to a rapid crescendo. By guiding our eyes with light, our ears with sound and leaving our minds to our own devices, Hitchcock exerted over us the ultimate control-and what is more terrifying than that?
_{---The short on Hitchcock was written by *kahl and if you've enjoyed this, you can read more HERE---}

Here is some more brilliant work which shows that no matter how much time passes by Hitchcock is still an important influence:



If you've enjoyed this, then perhaps you can find more features from the Horror and Macabre Photography Gallery in the Horror/Macabre Resource Guide

Which Dark Muse will we focus on next time? Will it be Stephen King? Will it be George Romero?

....stay tuned....