Watch Director Alfred Hitchcock Explain The Difference Between Shock and Suspense in 1973 Interview

I’ve got an old 1973 interview here for you to watch in which legendary director Alfred Hitchcock explains the different between shock and suspense in filmmaking and why he preferred playing with suspense.

The director explained that the “audience is spectator” in horror films that are made to shock, those films just give the audiences everything up front. Hitchcock on the other hand preferred to tease the audience by giving them a certain amount of information and then let the audience fill in the blanks with their imagination and come to their own conclusions.

“I prefer to suggest something and let the audience figure it out. The big difference between suspense and shock or surprise is that in order to get suspense, you provide the audience with a certain amount of information and leave the rest of it to their own imagination.”

Those are the kinds of horror films I like!