Alfred Hitchcock’s world is still our world, more than four decades after his death

A new documentary, “My Name Is Afred Hitchcock,” will be released on Oct. 25.

The scariest monsters live next door.

And Alfred Hitchcock knew that.

If you doubt it, just look at the gangs of ghouls, killer clowns and supernatural slayers currently bloodying our Halloween screens. Killers all, but how often do they truly frighten us? Shock us, certainly. Disgust us, too often. But how many of them actually drive us to sleep with the lights on?

That’s probably because, deep down, we know we’re unlikely to die from the kiss of a vampire. But that quiet neighbor who lives alone, and peeps at us through his curtains? He may be worth keeping an eye on.

Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh in “Psycho.”

Hollywood’s “Master of Suspense” made literally dozens of thrillers over his half-century career, but he only occasionally embraced classic horror — the old dark house of “Psycho,” the avian attacks in “The Birds.” Instead, he looked for terror in the everyday. His monsters didn’t have fangs, or devil’s horns, or occult powers. They looked like us. They were even charming.

But then charm, Hitchcock liked to point out, is one of the serial killer’s most essential weapons.

Hitchcock, who died in 1980 at the age of 80, is having a bit of a moment. This month brought festivals of his work on the East and West Coast and the release of a new documentary, “My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock” (watch trailer below), on Oct. 25. And next month, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment is putting out a new, 4K Blu-ray collection of six of his films, including remastered versions of “To Catch a Thief” and “North by Northwest.”

But if Hitchcock seems more popular than ever, there is a reason for that. He is more contemporary than ever.

At the core of Hitchcock’s work is a simple, stark warning: Things aren’t what they seem. Your beloved uncle is actually the Merry Widow Murderer, your back-slapping pal is really the Necktie Killer. And that nice, nerdy young man who just came out in the pouring rain to rent you a room? He’s got bats in the belfry — and something even nastier in the fruit cellar.

That was Hitchcock’s world. And today, perhaps, it’s ours. After all, in an era of deception and fraud and coverups and conspiracies, maybe it’s not paranoid to doubt what you see, to be suspicious of who you meet. Maybe it’s just common sense.

Hitchcock was the perfect poet of unease, and — like all of us — he was formed by his own fears. He detested eggs, in any form (he was the son of a greengrocer and poulterer). He was terrified of the police (his disciplinarian father, when Hitchcock was still small, had the police lock him up in a cell for a while, to show him what happened “to naughty boys”).

Add to that Hitchcock’s own strict Catholic upbringing in Victorian London, and all that entailed — shame and guilt, sin and repression — and you have a lifetime’s worth of movies.

Hitchcock grew up with a love of order, memorizing train timetables and steamship schedules for fun. He also had difficulty forming friendships. These days, school psychiatrists would wonder if he was on the spectrum. Certainly he had a fondness for routine that would become obsessive in adulthood — the identical dark suits, the unchanging luncheon orders, the unvarying quitting time on the set.

James Stewart in “Vertigo.”

Yet one of the reasons Hitchcock’s movies worked so brilliantly is because, while seeming to follow a familiar formula, they turned it inside-out. His heroes — Bob Cummings in “Saboteur,” James Stewart in “Vertigo,” Cary Grant in “North by Northwest” — often made things worse for themselves and the people they loved. His villains — Robert Walker in “Strangers on a Train,” Joseph Cotten in “Shadow of a Doubt,” Barry Foster in “Frenzy” — were always far more interesting than the people who pursued them.

Hitchcock bragged about constructing his films like a roller coaster, of playing the audience like an organ. But what he loved more than anything was presenting fans with moral puzzles (perhaps a remnant of his long-ago Jesuit education). Who was really the villain of the piece? Who were we supposed to root for? Almost everyone in his movies was guilty of something. No one was innocent.

It’s a question thrown into stark relief in “Notorious,” one of his finest films. Who is really, truly in love with Ingrid Bergman? Cary Grant, the American spy who is willing to see her sleep with an enemy agent so he can complete his mission? Or Claude Rains, the Nazi who absolutely adores her — even as, after discovering her betrayal, he begins to slip poison into her tea?

Or consider “Shadow of a Doubt,” one of Hitchcock’s own favorites. On first viewing, it seems clear enough — Uncle Charlie is a monster, a malicious presence landing on a pretty little town like a spider on a wedding cake. But look again. Is Santa Rosa really all that innocent, with twitchy next-door neighbors and slatternly young barmaids? Is Charlie really all that wrong when he talks about the ugliness of big cities and their idle rich?

Of course, long before the film is over, it is clear that Grant is the hero of his film, and Cotten is the villain of his. But for a moment — just a moment — Hitchcock has us wonder, a little. And that moral shadowland is where his art comes alive.

Grace Kelly in “Dial M for Murder.”

After all, there are no perfect people in Hitchcock’s films. Or in his audiences. Movies are a kind of voyeurism, he often said — we sit in the dark, watching other people’s lives — and it’s a sin Hitchcock makes us do penance for. We look on, impotently, as Grace Kelly gets attacked in “Dial M for Murder,” as Barbara Leigh-Hunt is raped and strangled in “Frenzy.” And we can do nothing to help.

And sometimes we’re not just bystanders — we’re active participants. In “Psycho,” we stand right behind the murderer who slashes Janet Leigh. We wanted some excitement, did we? Well, now we’re the ones with blood on our hands. And just to drive home the point, after the shower scene, Hitchcock has a closeup — from the killer’s point of view — of us trying to wash ourselves clean.

In Hitchcock’s world, a price has to be paid for every pleasure — even just the passive one of watching a movie.

Significantly, Hitchcock’s villains get off a lot easier than his audiences. Although some of his murderers die onscreen, many more simply wind up in the hands of the authorities. The rich thrill-killers of “Rope” are found out, but is there really any chance they’ll go to the chair? The wife murderer in “Vertigo” flees the country, scot-free. Even the literally existential battle in “The Birds” is fought to a tentative draw.

No, true evil is not so easily vanquished. One sympathetic parole board hearing, one easily fooled psychiatric board, and most of Hitchcock’s killers will once again be on the streets. Possibly following us down our street. Possibly moving in, next door. That’s a fear we can all recognize — and that’s why his movies strike a lot deeper, and last a lot longer, than scary films about demonic possession or rabid zombies.

Psychos on the loose, criminals in the next apartment, lies and deception and frauds and conspiracies everywhere — it’s Hitchcock’s world, all right. We just live in it.

If we’re careful.