Release:
1960 Written by: Joseph Stefano (screenplay) Robert Bloch
(novel) Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring:
Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates Janet Leigh as Marion Crane Vera Miles as Lila Crane John Gavin as Sam Loomis Martin Balsam as Milton Arbogast
Alfred Hitchcock once
said:
There
is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.
Psycho, his emergence into the horror genre, proved
Hitchcock to be the master of the anticipation. He
was a perfectionist that had every aspect, from camera angle to scream
placement, plotted out before filming. He understood the power
of the camera and used it like a painter uses his brush to
create a masterpiece. I have lost count how many times I have watched Psycho
and it has yet to get stale or dated.
Psycho
starts by introducing us to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). She is a woman
in love with a man in debt. Seeing an opportunity to erase that debt
and hence grabbing a husband in the process, Marion
steals $40,000 from a gentleman at her place of business and makes a
run for it.
After hours of driving through
heavy rain, she decides to stop at a little motel to get a nights rest.
Here she meets a shy young man by the name of Norman Bates (Anthony
Perkins). Norman is very obviously controlled by his mother
and defends her to Marion during conversation.
Marion then
returns to her room and probably the most famous
scene every put on film occurs. A mysterious woman comes into
the room while Marion is taking a shower and proceeds to stab her like
a casaba melon (which by the way is what they used
to get that stabbing sound). Norman comes in later to clean up the room
and dispose of the evidence of his mother’s jealous
anger.
Three people now converge on the Bates
Motel looking for Marion; Sam Loomis (John Gavin) the in-debt
boyfriend, Lila Crane (Vera Miles) Marion’s sister, and
Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) a private detective hired by the owner
of the $40,000. They soon find themselves on a ride
through a
nightmare of someone else’s creation while trying
to make sense out of their surroundings and discover what happened to
Marion Crane.
Psycho
is one of the most influential horror films in history. For the first
time in cinema, the monster was a next door neighbor,
a person you worked with, the guy behind the counter, not a vampire or
werewolf or other unbelievable figment of
someone’s imagination. No one had ever seen this kind of
brutality before in a movie theater.
Credit for Psycho’s
brilliance must also be given to three other people; Bernard
Herrmann’s perfectly crafted score, Joseph
Stefano’s flawless script taken from Robert Bloch’s
novel, and Anthony Perkins’ masterful portrayal
of Norman Bates. All of which gave Psycho
it’s elevation to perfection.
Psycho
belongs on the classic shelf of not just the horror movie fan, but any
fan of great film making.
Note:
The Gus Van Sant remake in 1998 was so inferior that after viewing it
the only question that came to mind was “why?”
Do yourself a favor and skip it.
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Psycho
starts by introducing us to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). She is a woman
in love with a man in debt. Seeing an opportunity to erase that debt
and hence grabbing a husband in the process, Marion
steals $40,000 from a gentleman at her place of business and makes a
run for it.
soon find themselves on a ride
through a
nightmare of someone else’s creation while trying
to make sense out of their surroundings and discover what happened to
Marion Crane.
Psycho
belongs on the classic shelf of not just the horror movie fan, but any
fan of great film making.
Blink
Del.icio.us
Digg
Furl
Google
Simpy
Spurl
Technorati
Y!
MyWeb