85 Years Ago, Alfred Hitchcock Made One of The Most Iconic Gothic Thrillers Ever

Alfred Hitchcock is known for his thrilling movies full of terror, from the shrieking strings of Psycho to the plane chase in North by Northwest. But not everything he made had to be so high-octane. In fact, in 1940, he created a movie that is so terrifying not because of what happens, but by what remains unsaid.

The result is a psychological thriller that feels just as timeless as it does creepy, utilizing now-dated attitudes around women to create a story of identity and legacy — and explore how sometimes the deadliest villains are the ones who don’t appear at all.

The main character of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca is not, in fact, Rebecca. In fact, Rebecca never appears at all. Based on Daphne de Maurier’s novel of the same name, the film follows a nameless “paid travel companion” (Joan Fontaine) who meets and falls in love with the mysterious but utterly charming Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). They get married and he sweeps her away to Manderley, his grand estate.

But Mrs. de Winter doesn’t find her happy ever after there. Instead, she finds the halls haunted by the absence of Rebecca, the first Mrs. de Winter. Manderley’s housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), was a huge Rebecca fan, and spends the entire movie girlbossing and gatekeeping the new wife into situations ranging from embarrassing to disturbing.

It all comes to a head when the true nature of Rebecca’s passing comes to light, and the second Mrs. de Winter’s situation becomes truly life-threatening. As secrets come to light, the fate of Manderley itself hangs in the balance.

Rebecca is not really Hitchcock’s usual fare — he’s done his fair share of movies that lend more thriller than horror, but this movie is focused on the gothic and melodramatic elements, forcing the creepiness to stand on its own terms. In focusing on a story like this, he also provides a stark portrait of attitudes towards women: we learn so much about Rebecca, but never see her, and we see so much about the second Mrs. de Winter, but we hardly know anything about her. Despite this disparity, it’s the female characters who drive almost every beat in the plot: Maxim is there, but all his actions — even the murderous ones — are done in reaction to the women in his life.

Rebecca may be one of the most timeless Hitchcock movies, as it is the only one of his to win Best Picture, and it even got a new remake for Netflix only five years ago. But there’s no replacing the dreamy-yet-unsettling portrait Hitchcock paints of Manderley, a ghostly estate you’ll want to revisit again and again.