Psycho 1960

Cast:
Anthony Perkins - Norman Bates
Janet Leigh - Marion Crane
Vera Miles - Lila Crane
John Gavin - Sam Loomis
Martin Balsam - Detective Milton Arbogast
John McIntire - Sheriff Al Chambers

Alfred Hitchcock’s powerful, complex psychological thriller, Psycho (1960) is the “mother” of all modern horror suspense films - it single-handedly ushered in an era of inferior screen ’slashers’ with blood-letting and graphic, shocking killings (e.g., Homicidal (1961), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974),  Halloween (1978), Motel Hell (1980), and DePalma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) -  with another transvestite killer and shower scene). While this was Hitchcock’s first real horror film, he was mistakenly labeled as a horror film director ever since.

“Psycho” is easily the best horror-thriller of all time. “Psycho” has one of the best scripts you’ll ever find in a movie. The movie’s only shortcoming is that one of the characters seems to have little motivation in the first act of the movie but as the story progresses, you realize that Hitchcock  in a stroke of genius has done this on purpose, because there is another character whose motivations are even more important. Vitally important. So important that you totally forget about anything else. I was lucky enough to have spent my life wisely avoiding any conversation regarding the plot of this movie until I was able to see it in full. Thank God I did! The movie has arguably the best mid-plot point and climactic twist in thriller history, and certainly the best-directed ending. The last few shots are chilling and leave a lingering horror in the viewer’s mind.

The nightmarish, disturbing film’s themes of corruptibility, confused identities, voyeurism, human vulnerabilities and victimization, the deadly effects of money, Oedipal murder, and dark past histories are realistically revealed. Its themes were revealed through repeated uses of motifs, such as birds, eyes, hands, and mirrors.

The master of suspense skillfully manipulates and guides the audience into identifying with the main character, luckless victim Marion (a Phoenix real-estate secretary), and then with that character’s murderer - a crazy and timid taxidermist named Norman (a brilliant typecasting performance by Anthony Perkins). Hitchcock’s techniques voyeuristically implicate the audience with the universal, dark evil forces and secrets present in the film.

Psycho also broke all film conventions by displaying its leading female protagonist having a lunchtime affair in her sexy white undergarments in the first scene; also by photographing a toilet bowl - and flush - in a bathroom, and killing off its major ’star’ Janet Leigh a third of the way into the film (in a shocking, brilliantly-edited shower murder scene accompanied by screeching violins). The 90-odd shot shower scene was meticulously storyboarded by Saul Bass, but directed by Hitchcock himself.

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