Alfred Hitchcock described PSYCHO as a black comedy, even though it is a movie that is seemingly anything but to those who first chance upon it having heard so much about it. Even today, it is still one of the most terrifying experiences and considering that for the best part of six decades there have been countless horror films and rip-offs of films like HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH for example, PSYCHO remains one of the original and classic templates that all aspiring horror film-makers and writers should check out.
Steven Rebello wrote an excellent book ‘ALFRED HITCHCOCK AND THE MAKING OF PSYCHO’ which gives a much broader account of how the film was made and released and this book will be more sound that the brief review I give here.
PSYCHO is the tale of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a Phoenix estate agent secretary who on the spur of the moment steals $40,000 from under the nose of one of her office’s clients and takes off to meet with her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin, once touted in his career as a potential James Bond). However, she swaps her car with some of the money and continues her journey, pursued by a road cop who stopped her a previous night for sleeping at the side of the road.
The rain creeps in and she has to stop again having found herself off the main highway, where she pulls into the Bates Motel, where she meets the proprietor, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) and stays the night…
…and if you haven’t seen it, that’s as much as I will say, as it still contains at least three or four shocks throughout amidst the thrills and drama. It does play at times like a classic Hitchcock thriller like MARNIE or NORTH BY NORTHWEST, but this was done as a reaction by Hitchcock to all the recent horrors that had come out at the time.
The book, by Robert Bloch (adapted for the film by Joseph Stefano) was based on the real-life exploits of Ed Gein, who also inspired Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE.
The all-strings score by Bernard Herrmann will full you with unease throughout and the film was one of the biggest of Hitchcock’s career.