Family Plot

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Year Released: 1976
Rating: 2.0

Hitch's last hurrah isn't the stellar explosion you'd want from someone who was undoubtedly one of the medium's great masters - it's a cheap sparkler instead of an M-80. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman softens up the source novel, giving the picture a light air - no one is particularly interesting the way most Hitch heroes and villains were (think of who he had to work with) and only Bruce Dern saves himself as a whining taxi driver/actor (Barbara Harris is stuck with the ridiculous faux-mystic role). Frenzy stands as his last great film.