This post is part of a series called "31 Days of Horror", thirty-one important horror films over the course of a month. Click Psycho (1960): Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins and Martin Balsam. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Screenplay by Joseph Stefano, based on the novel by Robert Bloch.
After the success of big-budget studio pictures like “Rear Window”, “North by Northwest” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, Alfred Hitchcock took the crew of his “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” TV show, some black and white stock and the backlot of Universal Studios and made a little low-budget picture called “Psycho”, which has gone on to become — arguably — the most famous horror film ever made (after all, what sound effect does someone generally make when they jump out to startle you? “Screech screech screech screech!”).
It’s a very rare thrill indeed, to experience “Psycho” with someone who doesn’t already know the “twist ending”, it’s getting even more rare too, as Norman Bates has, often enough, been listed as one of moviedom’s greatest “monsters” alongside Michael Myers, Leatherface and Freddy Krueger. In fact, if you can label what I’ve just said a “spoiler”, you’ve probably just forgotten what you already knew and would have remembered it partway through the film anyway.
Despite a camera shadow early in the film (when we dolly up to the bed with the newspaper and the money in Marion’s apartment) and the fact that Janet Leigh blinks when she shouldn’t at the very tail end of one of the key shots in the film, I consider “Psycho” to be one of the very few perfect movies ever made. I can say, without hesitation that there is not a frame out of place and the dialogue and music mesh together in a lyrical flow that is usually reserved for famous symphonies. All this in a simple little low budget horror film!
Hitchcock layered so much into every scene of this film: reflections used repeatedly, showing dual personalities in the main characters, a continuing bird motif (the main character’s name is Marion Crane, Normal stuffs birds, the film opens in Phoenix, etc.), new experimental camera techniques (the scene where Martin Balsam’s character falls down the stairs) and revolutionary editing style (the classic shower sequence). Sure you are getting an entertaining story, but you are also seeing a master experimenting with new ways of storytelling and manipulating the audience.
Bernard Herrmann’s both frantic and haunting score perfectly compliments the movie and its outstanding performances. Anthony Perkins, as Norman Bates, elevates him to screen icon in 100-odd minutes. The very fact that he (along with Hitchcock’s direction, of course) can bring you to siding with a character only moments after a brutal murder is absolutely astonishing.
Although very little blood and gore is shown, but strongly implied, the success of “Psycho” proved to other producers that “blood sells” and started the rampage toward more and more violent thrillers, culminating in the slasher films of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Few of these could even hold a candle to “Psycho” though, and even today, there are every few films in any genre that even begin to reach the caliber shown by Hitchcock in this little low-budget film.
You can find some more info on Hitchcock and “Psycho” in these very pages, here: Hitchcock’s Big Trick.
Get it at Amazon.com:
Psycho (Collector’s Edition)
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