Suspense is cinema, cinema is suspense. Few directors have understood this more intuitively than Brian De Palma, who draws us deep into meticulously crafted scenarios, only to later yank us out of open-mouthed immersion. This tendency, his sense of humor, and his technical virtuosity mark out the director as the heir to Alfred Hitchcock, Master of Suspense.
Making a spectacle of technique, these films thrill with split diopters and giddying 360-degree tracking shots. But they are also brutally moving, each revolving around a meaningful connection—a gesture of friendship, a budding romance—that long outlasts the technical fireworks.
A house collapses under the intolerable weight of growing pains in Carrie (1976), where the orgasmic tremors of telekinetic massacre double as a demolition job on the film’s interior sets. Blow Out (1981), meanwhile, sees John Travolta’s sound technician add to his tape collection: footfall, downpour, wingbeat, the purr of an engine. But it is incomplete without a giallo scream, the strangulated caterwaul of a victim seconds from death. Dressed to Kill (1980), a hall-of-mirrors thriller about desire and dissociation, lashes out at libidinous fantasy. In its famous pick-up scene, two strangers trace ever smaller circles around an art museum, nearing and retreating in a rhythmic mating ritual.
A masterclass in delayed gratification, this sequence would be De Palma’s crown jewel if it weren’t for the finale of Carlito’s Way (1993). This climactic set piece plays out as a race against the clock, as Al Pacino’s reformed gangster makes one last bid to outrun the tragic inevitability of his preordained fate. Now teasing, now peacocking, his films in this collection are right out of the pages of the foreplay playbook.

Suspense is cinema, cinema is suspense. Few directors have understood this more intuitively than Brian De Palma, who draws us deep into meticulously crafted scenarios, only to later yank us out of open-mouthed immersion. This tendency, his sense of humor, and his technical virtuosity mark out the director as the heir to Alfred Hitchcock, Master of Suspense.
Making a spectacle of technique, these films thrill with split diopters and giddying 360-degree tracking shots. But they are also brutally moving, each revolving around a meaningful connection&#8212;a gesture of friendship, a budding romance&#8212;that long outlasts the technical fireworks.
A house collapses under the intolerable weight of growing pains in Carrie (1976), where the orgasmic tremors of telekinetic massacre double as a demolition job on the film&#8217;s interior sets. Blow Out (1981), meanwhile, sees John Travolta&#8217;s sound technician add to his tape collection: footfall, downpour, wingbeat, the purr of an engine. But it is incomplete without a giallo scream, the strangulated caterwaul of a victim seconds from death. Dressed to Kill (1980), a hall-of-mirrors thriller about desire and dissociation, lashes out at libidinous fantasy. In its famous pick-up scene, two strangers trace ever smaller circles around an art museum, nearing and retreating in a rhythmic mating ritual.
A masterclass in delayed gratification, this sequence would be De Palma&#8217;s crown jewel if it weren&#8217;t for the finale of Carlito’s Way (1993). This climactic set piece plays out as a race against the clock, as Al Pacino&#8217;s reformed gangster makes one last bid to outrun the tragic inevitability of his preordained fate. Now teasing, now peacocking, his films in this collection are right out of the pages of the foreplay playbook.

Master of Suspense: Four by Brian De Palma

MASTER OF SUSPENSE: FOUR BY BRIAN DE PALMA

Suspense is cinema, cinema is suspense. Few directors have understood this more intuitively than Brian De Palma. Across this tender and technically spectacular quartet of glossily iconic films, Alfred Hitchcock’s heir apparent tests the tensile stretch of cinematic storytelling.

Suspense is cinema, cinema is suspense. Few directors have understood this more intuitively than Brian De Palma. Across this tender and technically spectacular quartet of glossily iconic films, Alfred Hitchcock&#8217;s heir apparent tests the tensile stretch of cinematic storytelling.