Hitchcock goes Gothic: Stoker (2013)

Good film for the winter break! Park Chan-wook’s Stoker (2013) is drenched in the eerie, simmering suspense that defined Alfred Hitchcock’s best psychological thrillers. While its surface may feel like a gothic coming-of-age story, the film is deeply rooted in Hitchcockian techniques; slow-burning tension, voyeuristic framing, twisted family dynamics, and a creeping sense of menace that lurks beneath polished exteriors. It’s a film that feels like a dark cousin to Shadow of a Doubt (1943), infused with the psychological complexity of Psycho (1960) and the hypnotic dread of Vertigo (1958). But rather than being a simple homage, Stoker takes Hitchcock’s blueprint and warps it into something even more unsettling, merging it with the deep shadows and doomed beauty of Gothic fiction.

From the start, Stoker builds tension not through explosive confrontations but through carefully controlled suspense. The protagonist, India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska), is a quiet, withdrawn teenager struggling with the sudden death of her father. Enter Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), a long-lost relative whose charm is as impeccable as his intentions are dubious. Hitchcock was a master of letting danger simmer beneath the surface, and Park follows suit; Charlie’s presence is both alluring and ominous, and every interaction is filled with an unnerving stillness. Like Joseph Cotten’s charming yet sinister Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt, Goode’s version exudes a calm, predatory patience, luring India into his web with an almost hypnotic control.

Nowhere is Hitchcock’s influence more evident than in the film’s exploration of family as a source of unease. Hitchcock had an enduring fascination with twisted family relationships; whether it was the suffocating bond between Norman Bates and his mother in Psycho, or the psychological control exerted in Rebecca (1940). In Stoker, India’s relationship with her mother, Evelyn (Nicole Kidman), becomes increasingly fraught as both women navigate the unsettling presence of Uncle Charlie. But it’s the relationship between India and Charlie that drips with the most Hitchcockian tension; a mix of seduction, manipulation, and an almost telepathic connection that borders on the supernatural. Like many of Hitchcock’s most memorable characters, India is not a passive victim but someone undergoing a transformation, embracing the darkness within her rather than simply fleeing from it.

This is also what makes Stoker deeply Gothic; not just aesthetically, but thematically. It channels the hallmarks of Gothic fiction: eerie mansions, twisted family secrets, psychological torment, and an overwhelming sense of fatalism. The Stoker estate is a grand, isolated house with shadowy corridors, labyrinthine spaces, and an atmosphere thick with repressed emotions. It’s a classic Gothic trope; the house as both a physical and psychological trap, much like Manderley in Rebecca or Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre. It’s where dark secrets fester and where characters are slowly consumed by their own desires and fears.

Then there’s the film’s obsession with bloodlines and inheritance; not just of wealth, but of violence. India Stoker’s journey mirrors that of many Gothic heroines, caught in the web of her family’s disturbing past while awakening to her own unsettling nature. Like in Wuthering Heights or The Fall of the House of Usher, the past isn’t just a memory; it’s an inescapable force, shaping the present and dooming the future. Uncle Charlie himself is a classic Gothic figure: the seductive yet menacing stranger who arrives at a vulnerable moment, much like Max de Winter in Rebecca or Count Dracula in Dracula. He exudes charm and danger in equal measure, his presence both irresistible and deeply unsettling. His influence over India is not just psychological but almost supernatural in its inevitability; another key Gothic trait, where fate looms over characters like an inescapable curse.

Visually, Stoker mirrors Hitchcock’s signature use of space and framing to create psychological unease. Park employs voyeuristic compositions, isolating characters in the frame, positioning them just slightly out of sync with their surroundings, making them feel watched even when they are seemingly alone. The film lingers on silent, loaded glances, revelling in what is left unsaid. This is Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) voyeurism taken to a new extreme; India is both observer and observed, her transformation unfolding under our gaze like a slow-motion car crash. The film also shares Hitchcock’s love of suggestive symbolism, from the use of shoes as a visual metaphor for India’s evolution to the blood-like spattering of red that punctuates the film’s otherwise restrained colour palette.

At the heart of Stoker is Hitchcock’s signature theme: the duality of human nature. India is not a simple victim, and Uncle Charlie is not just a villain; there’s a shifting power dynamic between them that keeps the film teetering on the edge of eroticism and horror. Hitchcock loved characters whose surfaces betrayed little of the chaos within; James Stewart’s obsessive detective in Vertigo, Cary Grant’s morally ambiguous hero in Notorious; and Park plays with that ambiguity here. Matthew Goode’s Charlie is all charm and poise, but there’s something reptilian underneath, an echo of Anthony Perkins’ performance in Psycho; polite, smiling, and utterly untrustworthy.

While Stoker wears its Hitchcockian influences on its immaculately tailored sleeve, it never feels derivative. Instead, Park Chan-wook takes Hitchcock’s themes and dials them up, stripping away the veneer of restraint that characterized much of Hitchcock’s work. Where Hitchcock would imply, Park lingers. Where Hitchcock would cut away, Park watches. The result is a film that feels both familiar and alien, a love letter to classic suspense cinema that mutates into something even darker.

If The Wonder (2022) is a slow-burning meditation on belief and control, Stoker is its eerie cousin, exploring those same themes through the lens of psychological horror. Both films thrive on tension, lingering in the space between knowing and unknowing, between observer and observed. But where The Wonder ultimately seeks revelation, Stoker embraces the abyss, revelling in the Hitchcockian thrill of descent; only this time, with lace gloves and a funeral veil.