Dick Blaney (Jon Finch) is a former member of the Royal Air Force who fought for his country during the war. His life afterwards has hardly been fitting for a war hero, as he has struggled to earn a living through low-paying jobs that he reluctantly accepts, solely for the sake of surviving in a rapidly changing London. He has recently been fired from his job as a bartender at a small English pub and is in search of a new way to earn a wage so that he doesn’t have to recede into unemployment once again. Concurrently, London has been shaken by the presence of a serial killer that rapes and strangles a variety of unfortunate women who come into his path, and the city is both revolted and intrigued (as an early discussion in the film mentions, there’s nothing quite as riveting for a city than a good, old-fashioned mass murderer). However, Blaney finds himself unfortunately involved in these investigations, as his life begins to overlap with that of the mysterious killer, who turns out to be none other than his own friend and confidante, Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), a mild-mannered businessman who secretly has a set of sexual perversions that prevent him from ever finding a suitable partner, and has thus taken up to realizing his fantasies through force. Blaney finds himself the prime suspect, as his actions inadvertently portray him as the killer, and he does his best to prove his innocence, which becomes difficult when there’s nothing much he can to do convince the authorities that the evidence that implicates him is merely coincidental and that this unemployed, vindictive man with a history of alcohol abuse and domestic issues isn’t a cold-blooded murderer.

The one positive aspect that came out of Frenzy was that Alfred Hitchcock decided to make another film after it. It would have truly been an enormous shame if this film were to be seen as the swan song of arguably the greatest English-language director to ever live. It isn’t that Frenzy is a bad film – it definitely has its merits, even if they aren’t that evident – but rather than everything about it seems to be against the very fabric of what Hitchcock was known to be capable of doing – had we been told this film was directed by some newcomer who was paying tribute to the director, it would’ve made much more sense, as it is clearly a film that follows in the same patterns and features a very similar kind of execution that Hitchcock was known for. Yet, it feels so pale in comparison to the work he was producing at his peak, and it appears so dull and lifeless, and considering this was a film that was made towards the end of his career, when he had produced constant masterpieces on a regular basis, his decision to make a film that doesn’t make proper use of a good storyline, nor any of his talents at the Master of Suspense, Frenzy is most certainly something of a failure. It may not be a particularly bad film – it does serve its purpose and is entertaining enough – but through our tendency to always hold deific filmmakers like Hitchcock to a higher standard, there’s no point in trying to maneuver around this film’s very clear shortcomings and call it anything other than a dismally unexciting attempt at capturing the same suspense that he had mastered in prior decades, without any of the heart or real effort. Perhaps not Hitchcock’s worst film, but certainly in the lower tier of his work, not even the occassional merit can compensate for the flaws underlying the film, detracting from something that could’ve been a masterpiece had it paid attention to what it was doing.

The problem with Frenzy is that there is nothing overtly awful about it at all – it is a well-made thriller that has a good story and is executed with a deft precision that only someone who was as in control of his craft as Hitchcock could’ve done. It is, for all intents and purposes, a fine film. However, it is also a dreadful bore, and not only does it run too long for its premise, it also ends in a way that is cheap and uninspiring, and certainly very far from the standard Hitchcock was known for, even in his less-impressive work. Frenzy feels like it had a lot of promise in the first place, and had the potential to be a genuinely great film, and a welcome return to the smaller, more intimate thrillers Hitchcock had made in previous decades, being his most simple film in quite a while (perhaps the first since the similarly-themed The Wrong Man). Maybe we can attribute this to the fact that the director had grown so accustomed to audacious projects, he forgot how to take a more straightforward approach, and struggled to find the nuance in a much smaller story, but that doesn’t excuse the film and its narrative problems. It may be strange to speak about an artist as sacrosanct as Hitchcock in such a way, but as soon as we can shed the mythology surrounding him, and consider him a filmmaker who was just as capable of failure as he was success, Frenzy does make sense as just a notable flaw in his otherwise exceptional career. This was a film that needed to be a lot better than it actually was, and while there aren’t any specific problems that to one particular area in which the film fails, there are several small issues that would have been otherwise inconsequential in some of the director’s other films, but converge into significant shortcomings that detract from the film as a whole, and just turn it from something that could’ve easily been a late-period masterpiece into a hopelessly dull cinematic experience.

There are times when I wonder why Jon Finch was never able to become more well-known, considering his career was peppered with excursions with notable filmmakers like Hitchcock, Roman Polanski and John Schlesinger. The answer is found in Frenzy – he just was not that good of an actor. Perhaps not necessarily a bad actor, but rather one whose machinations are extremely clear whenever he is on screen, he proved to be a very poor choice to lead this film. The role of Blaney needed someone who not only had a natural charisma, but also the ability to convey the fear and panic felt by the character, none of which Finch really demonstrates. While obviously not the first time a performance in a Hitchcock film has been weaker than it should’ve been, Finch’s performance doesn’t benefit from a generous script that allows him to hide behind the concept – Frenzy is essentially a film about one man running from the law and doing his best to evade it, and therefore is in serious need of someone who can convey the conviction and dedication to proving his innocence, not an actor who seems to be permanently dwelling on something completely different. It also doesn’t help that the performances around Finch aren’t very good – Barry Foster is effective as Bob Rusk, but only when he has adopted his persona of being a friendly, outgoing businessman. The moment the film shifts to his murderous behaviour, where he transforms into a cold-blooded killer, it begins to fall apart, as Foster seems to be playing the character less as a maniacal villain, and more as a pathetic, incompetent man who lashes out against women because they don’t see any potential in him. However, at least he was given something to do, unlike the wonderful Barbara Leigh-Hunt (unintentionally responsible for the only visual moment in the film that feels aligned with the darkly comical premise) or Anna Massey, whose performance was begging to be given more attention, and was ultimately proven to be nothing more than a plot device to forward the storyline.

To their credit, none of the actors in Frenzy are entirely to blame – the script is so hackneyed and full of misleading clues (less in the manner of the effective red-herring, and more in terms of it being poorly written) and subplots that lead nowhere, even when its clear that they’d have more. It isn’t surprising that Frenzy was written by Anthony Shaffer, because much like his two masterpieces, Sleuth and The Wicker Man, the general storyline is one that covers a very serious subject, but with an underlying sense of dark comedy, which is present when you look at Frenzy and the storyline it was trying to convey. Somewhere along the line, Hitchcock seemed to have missed out on the fact that this film would’ve worked much better as a dark comedy – there are so many absurd moments, and the very fabric of the story plays as a twisted comedy of errors, whereby mistaken identity and coincidences result in a series of problems and put our protagonist in quite a precarious position that he needed to fight his way out of. This is the film Frenzy should’ve been, and the fact that it was played almost entirely straight seems to be the biggest problem, because not only is it too ludicrous to be taken seriously, it is ridden with cliches, to the point where the film is so predictable, it becomes a chore. There are occasional surprises (Hitchcock was at least putting in some effort), but something about the film prevented it from having the same genuine thrills that we’ve come to expect from the director. The film believes itself to be a lot more intelligent than it actually is, and the result is a smug, cold film that feels isolated from a promising story, and almost too unlikable to be embraced.

Frenzy is not Hitchcock’s finest hour – it is one of his most divisive films, and for good reason. It is a polarizing and often extraordinarily unlikable film, featuring a story that tried to hearken back to the director’s previous work, but without the heart or humour that went along with it. It is well-made (which is a given, considering the director was never one to rush a film), and it does have a premise that could’ve made for a much better film. By no means awful, and when taking for what it is, it is at the very least entertaining – but when you consider how it takes the form of someone trying to pay homage to Hitchcock, rather than hailing from the master himself, it becomes troubling. If anything, Frenzy just makes Family Plot look even better than it is, because it makes us appreciate the fact that Hitchcock at least ended his career on a relatively positive note with that film, rather than this misguided, tedious and unimaginative crime thriller that features none of the suspense, charm or wry humour that the director employed consistently throughout his career. There’s no point in trying to justify or revile this film – Frenzy is what it is, and what it is is an enormously disappointing film that may have not been dreadful, but certainly should’ve been far better than it actually was.