The Mother of All Modern Horror Movies

I wasn't allowed to see Psycho when it first came out in 1960. My parents only allowed us to see Walt Disney and John Wayne movies automatically and only a handful of other approved films. Psycho didn't make the list. Perhaps a good thing.

I saw Psycho a few years later my freshman year of college, and I was unable to take a shower in a motel room for seven years. Even now I make sure that every door is locked securely before I can "risk" taking a motel shower. Hitchcock's film has that much power.

I'm assuming that you are already aware of the classic shower scene since it has reappeared in Psycho II, the unfortunate Van Sant Psycho remake/desecration, been spoofed in High Anxiety, and influenced countless subsequent horror movies. In fact, you can make a huge case that this landmark movie gave birth to the modern horror film. By chance if you are the last carbon life form to know about this, read no further because the "big surprise" will be revealed in the next sentence.

Never before had I seen a protagonist get killed off before half the movie was over, and there was no hope of return. There would be no flashbacks, no alternative points of view, and this was not a dream sequence. I was in the midst of a nightmare, a horrific rollercoaster ride that had me holding my breath the rest of the way. Hitchcock had manipulated me perfectly, and film has never been the same since.

Psycho is the first film I can remember that shook me and involved me so much that I was completely hooked on the magic of movies. It convinced me that Hitchcock was the greatest director of all time, it was the first film that I bought a background book about (The Making of Psycho), and it was the very first video that I ever purchased. These were the days when a VHS tape went for $50 at the low end of the scale. I have now seen this film over 40 times, as it is one film that I used teaching my high school students about film. It continues to hold my interest with each viewing.

Note: If you have a short attention span or don't care to know much about Psycho, quit reading now because this will get rather long. Some may take note that I just "killed" off a number of the reading audience before half of the review is over.


A Little Background

The last of his Paramount pictures, which was shot on the back lots of Universal Studios, Psycho was deliberately kept on a low budget. Since other films had been making a great deal of money with cheap movies, Alfred Hitchcock took it as a challenge to make this film for under 1 million dollars. He even forsook his regular feature film crew that had just completed North by Northwest, and used the television crew that filmed his Alfred Hitchcock Presents series.

Shooting the film in black and white helped keep the film within the targeted budget, but the main reason that Hitchcock wanted to shoot Psycho in black and white was that he felt it would be too gory in Technicolor. If you've seen Van Sant's color footage in his poorly crafted 1998 re-make, you should realize that Hitchcock's use of chocolate syrup in the tub is far more effective.

Based loosely on Robert Bloch's novel of the same name that was about a Wisconsin man who killed a number of his neighbors, Hitchcock got the rights to the novel after reading the book on a plane flight to England. When young screenwriter Joseph Stephano came up with the idea of focusing on Marion the first part of the film and killing her off in the shower, Hitchcock's visual genius was sparked -- he decided to cast a major actress for that part.

The chosen actress is Janet Leigh, who had appeared in numerous films including the Welles classic Touch of Evil. Leigh will now be indelibly linked with Marion Crane. While Hitchcock treated her with great respect, presenting her with Block's original novel before the screenplay was finished, Leigh says that she would have taken the part just for the opportunity to work with Hitchcock. This is the only Hitchcock film that she ever appears in.

With the one well-known actress getting murdered early, the audience is sent reeling unexpectedly into horror's abyss, as they must then seek a relatively unknown character to follow. One of the candidates for the audience to sympathize with is the Norman Bates character played to perfection by Anthony Perkins, whose best known leading role previously had been as baseball player Jimmy Piersall in Fear Strikes Out. Perkins personifies Norman Bates so unforgettably that he will forever be associated with the role. Don't even ask Vince Vaughn about the idea of re-inventing Norman!

The other candidates for the audience to follow after Marion's early demise include: Detective Arbogast, played by New York character actor Martin Balsom; Sam Loomis, played by Universal contract actor John Gavin; and Lila Crane, played by Vera Miles. Hitchcock had been a little miffed at Miles for getting pregnant while he was filming Vertigo, requiring him to cast Kim Novak in the title role, and Hitch didn't have much respect for Novak's abilities.

While Leigh claims in The Making of Psycho that Hitchcock was very considerate of her, not all actor stories are so pleasant. The Master of Suspense is quoted as saying that the actual filming process was rather boring to him because he had already visualized how his movie would be before starting. Thus, actors often seemed little more than pawns in his hands, especially if it was an actor that he didn't especially respect. Such was the case in Psycho with John Gavin. Hitchcock privately referred to him as "the stiff" and once conferred privately with Janet Leigh, asking her to do "something" to evoke passion from Gavin in the initial hotel bedroom scene.


What makes Psycho work so well?

Psycho represents Hitchcock hitting on all cylinders in the first movie of his that can fit into the horror category. It still has his classic elements of suspense. Like North by Northwest, Vertigo, Rear Window, and every other Hitchcock suspense/thriller, we have a main character going through her daily activities when all of a sudden she is swept into a vortex of suspense. Similarly, the "villain" is virtually indistinguishable from the "good guys" in this thriller. In fact, Hitchcock playfully throws us a lot of "red herrings" about the identity of the villain in Psycho.

Acting

The acting, most notably with Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh is outstanding. Perkins personifies Norman as a shy but charming young man who dutifully protects his sick old mother. He shows subtle inward signs of righteous anger when she is threatened by the Arbogast and Loomis characters, so he treads the fine line of engendering our sympathy and dreading the monster that he hides. For some of Leigh's best acting, just take a close look at her facial gestures as she is driving towards Fairview - we've all felt her uneasiness when police are following behind, and we can sense her alternating feelings of guilt and smug triumph as we see her driving. The fact that this is done silently or done with a voice over is remarkable.

Plot structure, screenwriting, and music

The whole plot concept is sheer genius. We begin with Marion Crane in a hotel room during a stolen lunch break with some stolen time with Sam Loomis. They want to get married but have no money. When back at work, she is presented with an opportunity to take off with an easily obtained $40,000 to embezzle and solve her financial problems. Marion takes off for California to join Sam, but stops at the Bates Motel. While talking with the shy motel proprietor, she discovers that he lives in a private trap and that she has just created a similar trap for herself. Marion resolves to return to Phoenix and extract herself from her crime, and takes a baptismal shower. At this point film history is made and we are sent on a dizzying Hitchcockian ride of terror.

Part of the genius of the script lies with foreshadowing references, most notably to the classic shower scene in the Bates Motel. Of course we begin with a hotel room shot after the camera pans over downtown Phoenix. During this initial conversation with Sam, Marion remarks "We pay, too, who meet in cheap hotel rooms." Later on the road when the police officer wakes Marion up from her nap, he suggests to her that there are plenty of motels in the area and that she should pull into one, "just to be safe." These all prepare us for a premature climax; at least for the first one.

The screenwriter also works subtle motifs into the plot that bring out certain themes. Of course Psycho refers to a person who lives in multiple worlds and has a split personality. Even the screen credits foreshadow this concept. Re-enforcing the concept are multiple mirrors found throughout the story. Nearly every scene uses mirrors - the rear view mirror in Marion's car, the overhead shot in the car dealer restroom, the desk at the Bates Motel, and a whole series of mirrors that scares Lila in Mrs. Bates' room.

Another element that Stephano and Hitchcock weave throughout Psycho is a "bird" motif. Marion herself is a "bird," as her last name is Crane. Of course, British slang at the time refers to women as "birds," which will fit into the overall story as well. Note the picture on the motel wall that falls to the floor when Norman discovers the shower room murder - a bird, naturally. Norman practices taxidermy and has a whole collection of birds. Thus, when he states that his mother "is as harmless as one of these stuffed birds," this has deeper layers of meaning. Re-enforcing this bird motif is Bernard Herman's brilliant all strings musical score, as his shower room music resembles shrieking birds. Note where these sounds re-occur for additional pleasure.

Director control, Editing and Cinematography

There is no question that this is a Hitchcock film. It has his marks all over it with familiar visual references. We have the required blonde lady protagonists, and we have the necessary voyeuristic references, most obviously with the opening shot peeking into the hotel room and later behind Norman's painting of The Rape of Lucretia.

Additionally, Psycho illustrates Hitchcock's visual style. Hitchcock remains a favorite among foreign audiences with his emphasis on the visual, so notice how little dialogue that he requires here. There is a typical Hitchcockian rhythm to the film, as dialogue scenes alternate with long stretches of purely visual scenes.

With Hitchcock the camera is all-important. In fact, he instructs his actors to follow where his camera is going because he already knows what his film is going to do to make it work. He doesn't need actors who are going to interfere with his artistic vision.

Many times in Psycho we are let in on Marion's inner turmoil. Notice how the camera silently communicates this as she first debates taking the money back at her Phoenix home. Of course, it is no accident that Hichcock has had Marion change into her black slip and bra as she contemplates the crime.

Hitch meticulously selects his camera angles, types of shots, and framing throughout the film. There are numerous examples to cite, but one notable one is the overhead shot of Arbogast climbing the steps towards Mrs. Bates' room and the subsequent tracking shot. There are multiple reasons for these shots, which will be apparent when you see the movie and contemplate this scene more thoroughly.

Of course there is the much studied shower scene to illustrate the illusionary effects of effective editing. Hitchcock spent a solid week filming this crucial 45-second sequence. It begins rather slowly with cuts between Marion's profile and shots of the showerhead, and then the fun begins with rapid cuts that will make you swear that our heroine has been slashed to shreds. Watch closely and you will be able to tell that the butcher knife never does actually touch Marion's body.

Never before has a murder like this been filmed so artistically. The rapid shower slashing accompanied with harsh violin strokes is terrifying even 40 years later. I also admire the way Hitch's camera transitions from the blood circling the drain and to Marion's lifeless eye. Suddenly we are without anyone to latch onto for our protagonist, so the camera slowly pans through the motel room, first reminding us of the now inconsequential $40,000, and then up to the Bates' house where we hear Norman yelling "O God, mother, blood! Blood!" There have been far bloodier scenes filmed in recent history; however, I can think of no murder scene that has left a greater impression.


The Denouement

I have also discovered that knowing about the shower scene beforehand doesn't cheapen the experience. Most of my high school students had only seen the Psycho sequels and knew only of that shower scene without the surrounding context. I discovered that this venerable classic still works with a younger audience, as my students were mesmerized by the Hitchcock magic. There is a later scene that always got screams from some of the young ladies and open-mouthed shocked expressions from many of the young men. Universally the students remarked about how this film was much better than the teen slashers that they had been watching.

I am surprised that even the weakest scene in the movie - the often-cited psychologist's overly detailed explanation - works with younger audiences who are confused about exactly how the later scenes came to be. Thus, I am convinced that the original Psycho is unsurpassed and still works with modern audiences.

Hitchcock has tapped some primal forces and fears here, some things that remain with us today. Which of us has ever contemplated whether we could get by with a crime, done something that we felt guilty about, and felt uneasy about being followed by a policeman. We also only have to read a daily newspaper to hear about some random murder that can make us wonder if we could ever be a victim in such a horror scene.

Fortunately, most of us will never have to face that reality. We can take the ultimate two-hour rollercoaster ride by watching Hitchcock's shocking masterpiece. The thing about Psycho that is different from most movies, is that the scenes continue to live on inside our memory long after the images have disappeared from the screen. That's what great movies do. They live on within us.

After all, we all go a little mad sometimes. Psycho allows us to experience the madness without fully jumping on board, and Hitchcock has introduced more people to abnormal psychology than anyone since Sigmund Freud.