The serial killer in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy uses a necktie as his murder weapon.
The killer is Bob Rusk, a Covent Garden fruit-and-vegetable seller whose crimes earn him the newspaper nickname the “Necktie Murderer.” He sexually assaults and strangles his victims with a tie, turning an ordinary item of men’s clothing into the film’s defining symbol of violence.
The weapon also drives a key piece of evidence. During one struggle, victim Babs Milligan tears away Rusk’s distinctive jewelled tie pin. Rusk later risks discovery by climbing into a potato truck to recover it from her hand, creating one of the film’s most tense and macabre sequences.
Frenzy was released in 1972 and stars Barry Foster as Rusk. Its apparent protagonist, Richard Blaney, is wrongly suspected of the murders, allowing Hitchcock to build suspense through dramatic irony: viewers know the killer’s identity while the police and Blaney do not. A gun, knife or rope is never the signature weapon in this story.