HITCH'S ESSAY BROUGHT TO LIFE In a memoir from 1960, Hitch recalled the moment when, as a young child alone in the dark, he first felt terror. Later, he learned how to turn dread into delight while devouring the dark stories of Edgar Allan Poe. It's such a moving piece—and the gravitational center for our series on Hitch and Surrealism—that I tapped my dear friend and Patron, actor Leo Daedalus to read it for this short movie. Voice: Leo Daedalus Music: Conte Fantastique after Edgar Allan Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" (1919); performed by Quatour Via Nova; Lily Laskine, harp Video: Produced, written and directed by Joel Gunz

Based on an essay by Alfred Hitchcock

Short film

The list of Hitchcock’s fears—heights, the police, beautiful women, conflict, rejection—seems endless. Filming those fears was a way to face them and, at least temporarily, purge them. In Why I am Afraid of the Dark—a memoir from 1960—Hitch recalled the moment when, as a young child, he first felt terror. Later, while devouring the dark stories of Edgar Allan Poe, he learned how to turn dread into delight. It's such a moving piece—and the gravitational center for our series on Hitch and Surrealism—that I tapped actor Leo Daedalus to read it for this short film.