From shower stabbings to philosophical massacres, how two serial killer portraits redefine horror across decades.

 

In the shadowed corridors of horror cinema, few subgenres grip audiences as viscerally as serial killer tales. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) shattered taboos with its maternal obsessions and motel madness, while Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built (2018) drags viewers through a killer’s confessional monologue, blending art-house provocation with unrelenting brutality. This comparison unearths their shared obsessions with pathology, morality, and cinematic violence, revealing how each film carves its legacy in the killer canon.

 

  • Hitchcock’s subtle psychological terror in Psycho contrasts von Trier’s explicit philosophical gore in The House That Jack Built, highlighting evolving depictions of the serial killer.
  • Both protagonists, Norman Bates and Jack, embody fractured psyches, but their narratives diverge in structure, motivation, and audience complicity.
  • These films influence modern horror by challenging viewers’ empathy, censorship boundaries, and the ethics of glorifying monstrosity.

 

Motels of Madness: The Setup of Slaughter

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho opens with Marion Crane’s fateful theft, propelling her into the rain-slicked isolation of the Bates Motel. Norman Bates, played with twitchy vulnerability by Anthony Perkins, greets her with milk-curdled politeness, his world a Victorian mausoleum ruled by unseen forces. The film’s narrative pivots savagely midway, thrusting viewers into Norman’s dual existence, where taxidermy birds loom like omens and the infamous shower scene erupts in 77 camera setups over three weeks of editing wizardry by George Tomasini. This sequence, with its screeching violin score by Bernard Herrmann, compresses primal fear into 45 seconds, forever imprinting the sound of slashing on collective memory.

Contrast this with The House That Jack Built, where Lars von Trier structures the film as five ‘incidents’ recounted by Jack (Matt Dillon) to a shadowy Verge during a Dantean descent. Jack’s first kill, a stranded motorist played by Uma Thurman, unfolds with meticulous banality: a jumper cable snap, a frozen corpse ballet. Von Trier’s digital cinematography, shot in Super 16mm then upscaled, lends a raw, unflinching gaze, forcing spectators to witness every twitch and splatter. Where Hitchcock veils violence in suggestion, von Trier revels in autopsy-like detail, turning murder into a grotesque symphony.

Both films weaponize isolated Americana—the lonely highway motel and rural backroads—as crucibles for psychopathy. Norman’s swamp conceals cadavers like Norman Rockwell nightmares inverted, while Jack’s freezer hoards limbs amid Pollock-esque splashes of blood. These settings amplify the killers’ detachment, transforming everyday spaces into abattoirs where societal norms dissolve.

Monsters in the Mirror: Protagonist Portraits

Norman Bates emerges as horror’s most sympathetic monster, his split personality a product of repressive upbringing. Perkins infuses him with boyish charm masking volcanic rage, evident in his confessional bird dinner scene, where stuffed crows frame his fractured worldview. Psychoanalysis permeates: Bates embodies Freudian Oedipal complexes, his mother’s voice a superego gone feral. Hitchcock draws from Ed Gein’s real-life atrocities, blending tabloid horror with clinical detachment to humanise the inhuman.

Jack, conversely, is von Trier’s self-inserted superman, a failed engineer turned artist who views killing as aesthetic elevation. Dillon’s performance channels intellectual arrogance, quoting Whitman and Dante amid eviscerations, his rictus grins betraying narcissistic void. Von Trier structures Jack’s arc as a hellish pilgrimage, culminating in a frozen lake of corpses evoking Boschian damnation. Unlike Norman’s tragic victimhood, Jack revels in agency, his monologues railing against political correctness and moral hypocrisy.

This duality underscores era-specific anxieties. Psycho taps post-war suburbia’s underbelly, where the American Dream festers into dysfunction. The House That Jack Built confronts #MeToo-era numbness, provoking with misogynistic kills while interrogating voyeurism. Both killers mirror viewers: Norman’s voyeuristic peephole parallels cinema’s gaze, Jack’s camera obsession indicts the audience directly.

Soundscapes of Slaughter: Auditory Assaults

Bernard Herrmann’s score in Psycho is sonic architecture, all stabs and sustains that amplify silence’s terror. The shower violins pierce like blades, while Mother’s voice—Paul Bryan’s pitch-shifted mimicry—drips maternal venom. Hitchcock’s sound design, eschewing colour for black-and-white austerity, heightens paranoia through what is unheard: the thud of bodies, the drip of paranoia.

Von Trier employs a minimalist palette, Runar Runarsson’s soundscape layering ambient drones with visceral crunches. Jack’s pistol reports echo like judgments, and a haunting piano rendition of Glenn Gould’s Bach underscores a child’s skull-crushing. This auditory brutality immerses viewers in Jack’s sadistic euphoria, contrasting Hitchcock’s restraint with overload.

These approaches reflect directorial philosophies: Hitchcock manipulates perception for suspense, von Trier assaults senses for confrontation. Both innovate within horror, proving sound as potent as visuals in evoking dread.

Effects and Excess: Visualising the Viscera

Hitchcock pioneered practical effects in Psycho, the shower scene’s chocolate syrup blood swirling in drains, Mother’s desiccated corpse a latex marvel by Hollywood makeup artist Ben Nye. Low budget ingenuity—no gore fountains, just rapid cuts—rendered violence intimate, shocking 1960 audiences conditioned to heroic narratives.

The House That Jack Built pushes CGI boundaries, with digital blood sprays and prosthetic dissections crafted by Danish effects teams. A standout: Jack’s corpse pyramid, layering frozen bodies in symmetrical horror, blends practical models with VFX for nightmarish realism. Von Trier’s willingness to premiere uncut at Cannes sparked walkouts, echoing Psycho‘s censorship battles.

Effects evolution mirrors genre maturation: from implication to immersion, both films benchmark visceral impact, influencing Se7en to Midsommar.

Themes of Transgression: Morality in the Crosshairs

Psycho probes identity and repression, Norman’s dissolution in the finale—dust swirling from his eyes—symbolising ego collapse. Gender fluidity prefigures queer readings, Marion’s theft critiquing capitalist greed. Hitchcock indicts voyeurism, the parlour mirror framing Norman’s gaze as film’s own.

Von Trier escalates to nihilism, Jack’s Hitler analogies and child murders decrying civilisation’s facade. Art justifies atrocity: a Vermeer parody elevates mutilation. The film implicates Europe’s dark history, von Trier’s Dogme roots twisted into personal manifesto.

Comparatively, both challenge empathy thresholds, Psycho humanising via tragedy, The House That Jack Built repulsing through philosophy. They interrogate: can killers be artists, or viewers complicit?

Legacy of the Kill: Ripples Through Horror

Psycho birthed the slasher blueprint—final girl, twist endings—inspiring Halloween and endless Bates parodies. Its shower trope permeates culture, from Scream to ads.

The House That Jack Built polarises, echoing Antichrist‘s controversy, influencing arthouse gore like Possessor. Von Trier’s unrepentant vision cements his provocateur status.

Together, they bracket serial killer cinema, from Hitchcock’s subtlety to von Trier’s extremity.

Production tales enrich: Hitchcock’s $800,000 budget, shot in seven weeks; von Trier’s Cannes exile after heart issues, self-financed turmoil.

Director in the Spotlight

Sir Alfred Hitchcock, born 13 August 1899 in London to greengrocer William and Catholic housewife Emma, endured a strict Jesuit upbringing that instilled his fascination with guilt and authority. A formative incident—locked in a police cell overnight at age five—seeded lifelong paranoia themes. Starting as a title-card artist at Famous Players-Lasky, he directed his first film, The Pleasure Garden (1925), a melodrama of romantic betrayal. By the 1930s, his British thrillers like The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), a kidnapping saga with political intrigue, and The 39 Steps (1935), featuring wrongful accusation and handcuffed pursuits, showcased ‘pure cinema’ techniques: MacGuffins, suspense builds.

Hollywood beckoned in 1940 with Rebecca (1940), an atmospheric gothic earning his sole Best Picture Oscar. War films like Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943), dissecting familial evil, honed mastery. The 1950s golden age birthed Strangers on a Train (1951), a tennis-crossed murder swap; Dial M for Murder (1954), 3D-perfected peril; Rear Window (1954), voyeuristic confinement; and Vertigo (1958), obsessive romance’s spiral. Psycho (1960) revolutionised horror, followed by The Birds (1963), avian apocalypse via matte paintings and chocolate sauce blood.

His television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1965) popularised his portly silhouette cameo. Influences spanned Expressionism—Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau—to literary masters like Daphne du Maurier. Later works: Torn Curtain (1966), Cold War defection; Topaz (1969), spy intrigue; Frenzy (1972), return to strangulation explicitness; Family Plot (1976), jewel-heist caper. Knighted 1980, he died 29 April 1980, leaving 50+ features, TV episodes, the Master of Suspense mantle.

Actor in the Spotlight

Matt Dillon, born 18 February 1964 in Westchester, New York, to a stockbroker father and homemaker mother of Irish descent, dropped out of high school to model, launching acting via Francis Ford Coppola’s Over the Edge (1979), a teen rebellion drama. Early Brat Pack roles: There’s Something About Mary (1998) goofball; but dramatic turns defined him, like Drugstore Cowboy (1989), Gus Van Sant’s addict odyssey earning Independent Spirit nods.

The 1990s: Singles (1992), grunge romance; The Saint of Fort Washington (1993), homeless poignant; GoldenGate (1994), Chinatown thriller. Breakthrough: Crash (2004), Paul Haggis’ racist cop, netting Oscar, Golden Globe noms. Versatility shone in Factotum (2005), Bukowski boozer; You, Me and Dupree (2006), comedy; Nothing but the Truth (2008), journalist peril.

Recent: Sunlight Jr. (2013), trailer-park grit; The Art of the Steal (2013), heist; TV’s Wayward Pines (2015-2016), sci-fi sheriff. The House That Jack Built (2018) marked bold horror pivot, Dillon’s chilling Jack drawing Venice praise. Other credits: Proxima (2019), astronaut drama; Tár (2022) cameo. No major awards won, but enduring character actor with 40+ films, blending heartthrob origins with gravitas.

 

Bibliography

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French, P. (2018) Lars von Trier: Director of Cruel Provocations. Manchester University Press.

Rebello, S. (1990) Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. Dembner Books.

Scheib, R. (2019) ‘Incidents of Atrocity: Von Trier’s Serial Ethics’, Senses of Cinema, 90. Available at: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2019/feature-articles/the-house-that-jack-built/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Truffaut, F. (1967) Hitchcock/Truffaut. Simon & Schuster.

Von Trier, L. (2018) Interview: ‘The House That Jack Built Cannes Press Conference’. Festival de Cannes Archives. Available at: https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/press/interview-lars-von-trier/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Wood, R. (1989) Hitchcock’s Films Revisited. Columbia University Press.