Strange as it may seem, Brian De Palma is not the most slavish imitator of Alfred Hitchcock in the movie business today. That title now belongs to M. Night Shyamalan, who has long since proved that anything Hitchcock could do, he could do bigger -- and worse. His twist endings are more predictable and disappointing; his plots are more pulpish and implausible; his thrills are sparser and fewer between; and even his cameos are more pompous and alienating than Hitch could ever have dreamed. Of course, where Hitchcock could never hope to equal Shyamalan's groundbreaking work in his own movies of annoying and distracting the viewer, what he lacked in chutzpah, he compensated for in sheer volume. Hitch appeared in some two dozen of his own films, including these 14 from the Hitchcock Collection DVD set.
Too bad this one doesn't contain Hitchcock's cleverly carried off cameo in Lifeboat. M. Night Shyamalan may be an egomaniac, but even he's not ballsy enough to give himself a cameo in a movie entirely set in a damaged life raft floating aimlessly around the Atlantic Ocean.