Movie Review: Psycho (1960)
While I’m just over four decades late for the premiere, I recently had the absolute pleasure of watching Alfred Hitchock’s Psycho (1960) for the first time. Liking the movie didn’t come as a total surprise, as I’m a sucker for serial killers and the stories of horror that could potentially happen to any of us. Yet, I couldn’t help but to be a little skeptical about if the aging classic had held up after all this time.
In short, it definitely did. What’s even more interesting is reading about who inspired this terrorific tale and its journey to the big screen. As reports will tell you, Psycho was loosely based off of the famed Butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gein. In the late 1950s, Gein admitted to the killing of two women in Wisconsin, but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and was put in a psychiatric facility. The reason for his plea? A personality that could only be the result of a trauma cocktail: a mixture of childhood abuse, the mysterious death of his older brother, and a strange, idolized and obsessive relationship with his mother (Gein’s victims allegedly looked like her). In addition to Psycho, Gein’s story would live on to also inspire movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Drawn by some acute elements in Gein’s story, in 1959 Robert Bloch wrote the novel Psycho, which featured a troubled man, Norman Bates, who was running his family’s motel business in rural Fairvale, California. Like Gein, Bates was described as also having an obsession with his mother, occasionally dressed in women’s clothes, and was, well, a murderer. The cover of Bloch’s book warns: “This book is not to be read at night. Especially if you are alone. . . . Especially not at night.” In observing this deeply rooted plea, it only made sense that Hitchcock gave his own warnings and instructions too, for viewing the movie as well. Rumors go as far as to suggest that after Hitchcock bought rights to the story for just $9,000, he went along to purchase as many novels as possible in order to keep the future movie’s ending a secret.
For Hitchcock, Psycho was created to be an experience and he didn’t want anything to ruin his strategically planned twists and turns. Like Bloch’s cover advisory, and in addition to clearing bookshelves of the novel, Hitchcock also produced ads and instructions for intended audiences and movie theatre staff to not spoil any of the film’s surprises, and under absolutely no circumstances, let anyone enter the theater after the show had begun. In addition to these efforts, Hitchcock, alongside Paramount, prolonged the movie’s rollout, taking months for the film to be officially released to the public.
Although keeping a movie’s plot a secret could never be achieved in this day and age––enter Twitter, Facebook, and all social media platforms for that matter––because spoils would have likely leaked within moments of release, I found the movie to still hold up without the strict advisments. Could it be that I didn’t know much about the story’s background as a whole? Certainly. But, some time ago I watched Netflix’s Bates Motel, and to be honest, it only made me appreciate Psycho even more.
Admiring how the movie was shot in black and white, I could understand just minutes into Hitchcock’s Psycho why so many had thought the film was ahead of its time. Prior to it, the serial killer/slasher genre was practically in its infant state, while other movies throughout the ‘50s heavily focused on monsters, beasts, and the world of science-fiction; a common genre that to some, quickly became familiar and predictable.
Instead of being able to sense our antagonist coming from the sight of their shadow or physically hearing them, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) introduces the audience to invisible evils, the bad side we know lurks somewhere deep inside us all as she steals money from work and skips town. What Crane doesn’t know however, is that an even darker evil awaits her, lurking within Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), which he camouflages in kindness. The cinematography paired with character development leaves the viewer wondering what will happen next. To describe a synopsis of the film feels almost disrespectful given the lengths that Hitchcock had gone through to keep the movie’s story so preserved and under wraps.
The film’s notorious shower scene unfortunately can’t go without mentioning. The violence portrayed in this scene, as well as throughout the film forces the viewer to imagine the horror (as special effects were nowhere near what we see today), but successfully carries out the fear through its extensive use of the orchestra. In the little that we do see between flashes of light, pulled together by striking sounds that pierce your ears, an intensity is created that is still predominantly used in horror films today.
Overall, I encourage you to watch the film if you haven’t yet. While maybe some of the film’s biggest scenes have been given away thanks to horror studies and pop culture, they are the very prime reasons that one should experience the movie. According to Bates, “We all go a little mad sometimes,” so let this be the reminder when you find yourself alone or in the dark that true horror is not always what’s on the screen, but what lives within others––even if you suspect they’d never hurt a fly.
Article Written by Destiny Johnson
Destiny writes about true crime and thrillers. She likes movies and stories that make you question the world around you, more so than what makes you jump.
