Birds of a Feather

Every October, I go on a scary movie binge. I'm not really a big fan of horror movies in general, because I have a low tolerance for blood and gore, but I love to watch classic monster movies (as I've shown before with posts about Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man). I also love movies with good suspense. It should be no surprise, then, that many of my favorite films to watch in October are those directed by the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock!

Hitch's thrillers typically have a psychological edge (which to me is always fascinating), and he has a way of building on many of our common fears. Frequently, what happens on screen isn't even as scary as what's happening in the viewer's mind! In fact, his movies were so scary for their times that Hitchcock once said he was afraid to watch his own movies!

Ornithophobia - the fear of birds - is apparently a fairly common fear, and it's said that even Hitchcock shared this phobia. This, plus the true story of thousands of birds that descended on a small California town one night in 1961, and a little bit of imagination all combined to make the perfect storm for a brilliant Hitchcock horror flick in 1963.