A Tingle down your Spine

Alfred Hitchcock’s tales Of Horror

A very thin line  divides the immoral from the amoral- people who are indifferent to morality and people who are aware of the difference but make a conscious choice to walk the path of crime. in Alfred Hitchcock’s Tales Of Horror, criminals belong to both these categories ; who simultaneously strike fear as well as inspire awe and who repel and fascinate the reader at the same time. All the characters in Alfred Hitchcock’s Tales Of Horror reflect this bestiality in varying degrees.  Right from Mark Wallace, the scheming husband who cold- bloodedly plants a bomb in an entire hospital wing accommodating patients on life- support systems to merely murder his wife  down to Angela Barrett, the charming housewife and loving mother, who arranges “ accidents” in the smoothest, slickest maner to get rid of inconvinient people, we come face to face with a galaxy of almost professional criminals! These criminals have their own  warped values and justifications; a code system which frightens us by its sheer  absence of  morals as understood in the common sense of the word. The criminal mind is indeed a contorted mind.   This interesting collection opens with the story of a “happily married couple “ who plan to get rid of each other  out of “ sheer kindness” because each of them has fallen in love with a different person, half way into their marital life. Whether they succeed is an interesting twist which  keeps us rivetted to the end, Hitchcock’s ptotagonists are not merely black and white characters but assume different shades in proportion to the degree of their evilness. Mark Wallace is out and out a black character whereas Angela Barrett, who has slightly better human qualities-we know her to be a good and loving wife and mother has shades of grey painted into her psyche. Hitchcock does not sit on judgment-the jury is out to decide who is the most villainous of these thieving knaves, and ordinary, commonplace folk who commit murders and go about as if it is all in a day’s work!! But nobody feels the slightest twinge of guilt  or compunction while carrying out the most heinous crime. Their cold-bloodedness gives the creeps. Hitchcock manages to keep us on tetherhooks as we turn page after  page to find out if the criminal who has executed the “ perfect “ crime does get away with it.

This interesting anthology puts forth a very important point, which I am sure readers will  not miss- what would be the state of the world, if murderers got away with their crime!  Are morality and a normal value system superfluous in today’s society? An intriguing question. Find out the answer while shivers run down your spine!