Psycho (1960) Review

    This week we begin to look at the 1960s in horror. Two movies changed the genre, none so more than Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. It could be considered one of the first slasher films since many believed that Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were the first examples of the sub-genre. What many people don’t know is that the film is based on a novel by Robert Bloch. Psycho is considered one of Hitchcock’s best since, to be frank, most of his films are considered great.

    One more thing to keep in mind is that Hitchcock made the film due to him being frustrated with the drama of making his other higher budgeted films. While they weren’t bad, hell they’re considered masterpieces. He decided to make it low budgeted, which explains the black and white. SPOILERS will appear in the review.

1.      Story

Since I haven’t had the chance to read the novel, I’ll be just taking the assumption that the movie takes some liberties in its plot. Regardless, it starts with the main character Marion Crane played by Janet Leigh. She is seeing her lover Sam and wants to marry him. What stops them is the debts that Sam inherited from his Dad and previous marriage. Marion works at the real estate office and is being flirted by a client. Who for some reason carries 40,000 dollars to purchase a house. She is instructed by her boss to put it in the bank to keep it safe.

Marion lies about having a headache and takes the money with her. As she is driving, she sees her boss who looks back at her. Marion begins to worry that her boss suspects she stole the money. She thinks the words that her boss will says and continues to drive. She pulls over the road to sleep. She is woken up by a highway patrolman who suspects something is off about her. Marion leaves and enters a dealership to trade in her car. The cop follows her. As she leaves, she once again thinks what the salesman and cop are saying about her.

She pulls over to a motel by the highway called Bates Motel. She honks at the house overlooking the hotel for help and a man named Norman helps her. He picks her room to stay and invites her to have some dinner. She finds out who Norman is and he reveals that he lives with his mother. After the conversation ended, Marion goes to her room. Norman looks at her through a peep hole. As the woman is showering, someone murders her.

This is the first time that a main character is killed off in any movie. One would think that the movie would be over since, the character that we were following is now dead. The second half is focused on investigating who killed Marion.

2.      Norman Bates

Norman is one of the most interesting and scariest characters in 20^th Century film. One would have a preconceived notion that someone being scary would look repulsive or demented. Here, he looks normal. Played by Anthony Perkins, he manages to be unassuming and soft spoken. There’s one shot when he is talking to Marion, just above him is a taxidermized owl leering. I feel that it’s a very subtle way to show that he is a predator, but just his personality is enough to convince us that he’s innocent.

He isn’t. During the second half of the film, he is being investigated and he lies about the whereabouts of Marion. I’ll elaborate more on what happens to him since I really don’t want to pack in the twist he is connected to. What I will say is that he was involved in the sequels but, I feel that the nuance that Anthony Perkins had in the first one is sort of gone since everybody knows who he really is. I haven’t seen the sequels but just the fact that the first one is universally beloved, makes all the sequels inferior.

3.      The Toilet

This seems as a stretch to talk about this. You could think and ask, “Why am I talking about a toilet?” Well, for some trivia about film history you never thought you would know, this film is the first film to have a shot of a toilet. As well as it flushing. Yes, you read that right. Back then before 1968, there was a censorship board mostly known as the Hays Code. It was a very overt censorship board that did not want anything sexual or deviant to be portrayed on screen. Not even have a toilet being flushed or shown flushing since it was considered a big no-no.

I thought it should be warranted a topic of discussion since, Marion used the toilet to get rid of the total amount of money she spent. Attempting to erase her crime she just committed.

4.      The Last Act

Now, this is probably one of the best third acts in film. As you probably seen from the poster above the blog, Hitchcock made it explicitly clear that no theater will allow anyone to go in to watch the movie if they arrive late. Some may call it petty, but some audience members would be completely lost at what exactly is happening. What happens is that Sam and Marion’s sister Lila meet a private investigator who has been assigned to find Marion.

The P.I’s name is Arbogast and he is promptly killed by the same killer in the Bates house above the motel. So Sam and Lila go to the motel to figure out who killed Marion. Sam distracts Norman as Lila goes into the Bates’ house. Norman knocks out Sam and tries to find Lila. She is in the basement and sees Norman’s mom. She realizes that the Mom is dead and behind her is Norman dressed in his mother’s clothes.

This is one of the best twists in cinema. We were led to believe that Norman’s mom was responsible for the killings. Although, when Sam and Lila meet with the sheriff, he tells them that his mother has been dead. I can imagine that no one in the audience expected that Norman would be the killer and see him in women’s clothing. In the end, Sam, Lila and the sheriff meet with the psychologist and hear his explanation of what’s happening to Norman.

5.      Overall

Psycho is probably one of the best horror movies and best adaptation. What truly makes it such is that it’s a total gamechanger. The film really gambled on the idea of killing a main character and having such a unique plot twist. And Hitchcock achieved with it with some of his connections with television. I feel that what is lost when aspiring horror directors watch Psycho is the slow approach and the paranoia that is imbued in the film. One last thing, do NOT watch the remake from the late 90s with Vince Vaughn, it’s a shot by shot remake that is probably one of the worst remakes ever.

Psycho gets a five out of five.