June 05 2007

Text By Greg Fallis

Alfred Hitchcock is generally considered the master of suspense. He was also the master of incongruity. He used the latter to create the former. By inserting an unexpected event into an ordinary setting, he enhanced its impact. The more ordinary the setting, the more the event is unexpected.

Dave Walker has taken a few steps in Hitchcock's shoes. An old farm truck...what could be more ordinary? An empty, plowed field...what could be more innocuous? But let the sun begin to set and add a little light in an unanticipated place, and the ordinary suddenly becomes weird and mysterious. Something's happening here, or is about to happen. Something we don't quite understand. Something terribly, terribly strange.

There is no suspense in a bang, Hitchcock said, only in the anticipation of it. There's even more suspense when you don't know what it is you anticipate.