|
|
|
|
|
Alfred Hitchcock’s classic, Vertigo, is sure to keep you wide-eyed and on the edge of your seat. It’s not a fast-paced gory thriller like so many horror films today. Instead, it’s Hitchcock’s signature style -- suspenseful and just plain eerie. Almost like The X-Files -- only without the aliens.
After watching a fellow officer fall from a building to his death, detective John Ferguson (James Stewart) -- known as Scottie by his friends -- retires from the force with a debilitating fear of heights, which gives him a bizarre, mind-numbing vertigo any time he’s too high off the ground.
But shortly after he returns to normal life, Scottie gets a call from an old college friend, who’s concerned about his wife. It seems, Scottie’s friend explains, that she’s possessed by someone long dead -- and he fears it might kill her. Scottie reluctantly agrees to follow his friend’s beautiful wife, Madeline (Kim Novak), and he watches as, day after day, she follows the same path. And it seems that Scottie’s friend may be right. One day, after Madeline throws herself into the San Francisco Bay, Scottie rescues her, and the two meet face-to-face for the first time. Scottie falls more and more in love with Madeline -- and becomes obsessed with trying to keep her from hurting herself.
When Madeline slips out of his reach one day and kills herself, Scottie is heartbroken to the point of needing to be hospitalized. After he finally recovers, though, he meets another woman who reminds him of the women he fell in love with -- and his obsession becomes stronger than ever.
Vertigo is a fantastically creepy film. Stewart does an excellent job of gradually transforming his character from a mild-mannered detective to a crazed man, possessed by the memory of his lost love. There are, of course, a few parts that are somewhat late-50s cheesy -- and I still haven’t quite figured out the point of Scottie’s friend and former fiancée, Midge -- but it’s not enough to ruin the movie at all.
In fact, this movie is so well-done that it may give you a little vertigo of your own. You’ll be so into the story that you’ll lose all sense of reality. You’ll forget where you are. You’ll lose all track of time. And when it’s over, you just may find yourself in a bit of a haze...
|
|
|
|
