"It's not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?"
Alfred Hitchcock is widely considered to be one of the greatest directors of old Hollywood, and watching and writing about some of his classics is something I've been looking forward to ever since I decided to start reviewing older movies here on my blog. I actually bought his 1960 cult classic Psycho on BluRay about six months ago, but it wasn't until very recently that I actually sat down and watched it. The movie takes place in the late 1950's, and it focuses on Marion Crane (played by Janet Leigh), a beautiful young secretary from Phoenix, who steals 40.000 dollars from one of her employer's clients. She flees the city in fear of getting caught by the police, and after driving for two days straight with little to no sleep, she decides to spend a night at Bates' Motel, a desolate but nice looking place she just happens to stumble upon. This is where the story really begins to get going and where things become dangerous, especially when Norman Bates (played by Anthony Perkins), the Motel's proprietor, starts acting a little weird.
People have been calling Psycho the scariest movie of all time in many years now, but to be honest, I was very sceptical about this statement before watching it. Knowing that it's over 50 years old, I didn't have very high hopes for the horror element of the movie, seeing as the perception of what's scary and what isn't changes very rapidly as time goes by. Things that were scary 50 years ago aren't necessarily nearly as scary today; a great example of this is Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. It's a fantastic movie, absolutely, but to me, it just isn't as extremely horrifying and nerve wracking as people make it out to be. I wasn't expecting Psycho to be that scary either, seeing as it's 20 years older than The Shining, and now that I've seen It, I can confirm that it isn't. This doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the movie as whole though, it just didn't make me feel the need to cover my face with pillows and blankets.
Seeing as it is directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho is an extremely well directed movie. The shots and the angles are well chosen and well edited, the phasing is great and the tone of movie is suspenseful and believeable, which all in all makes the movie very visually appealing and easy to go along with. It's one of those movies where you're able to feel how much the director cared about what he was doing, and some of the things that Hitchcock did in this movie are truly fascinating to me. Little things such as the imaginative conversations that Marion Crane has with herself about how people around her react when they find out about her crime, the overlaying closeups of Norman Bates' face and a skull near the end, and some of the scenes that are filmed as if seen from a bird's perspective are all extremely cool in my opinion. Alfred Hitchcock has definitely deserved his reputation of being one of the greatest directors of all time, and as a fan of movie creation and attention to detail, I appreciate everything this man did for the industry.
No matter how well Psycho is directed, I do have one major issue with the script that I need to address. Even though the story is simple, thoughtful, surprising and easy to catch on to, almost none of the characters in the movie have more than an hour to "live" in. Some get killed 30 or 45 minutes into the movie, others take as long as an hour to get fully introduced, and the main character of the whole movie only has about 40 minutes of screen time. I honestly felt as though the movie was way too short to handle as many characters as it wanted to, and as a result, I almost didn't care about any of them on a personal level. Scenes that were supposed to make me cringe and shutter only made me raise my eyebrows, because I hadn't had enough time to connect with the characters that were involved.
The performances that went into these short lived characters were all great though, and Norman Bates was especially well portrayed in my opinion. He's the main character of the movie, and even though he isn't introduced until 20 minutes into the sory, he definitely is the one with the most depth and the most screen time. I loved the way he was able to seem creepy and out of whack even when he was talking about regular every day stuff, and he definitely is my favourite part of the whole movie, simply because he's the only interesting character in it. Perkins' ability to deliver Alfred Hitchcock's extremely well written dialogue is incredible, and had it not been for the way the movie ended, Norman Bates could have been one of the most iconic and mysterious characters in movie history. By having Dr. Fred Richman explain every single detail about Bates and the mystery that has been the center of the entire movie, the conclusion of the story leaves nothing open to interpretation at all, which in turn means that the movie ends when the credits have finished rolling. I personally love it when a movie leaves me with a bunch of stuff to think about after it has finished, and by having Psycho end as it does, no sort thing is possible.
When everything is said and done, Psycho is a fairly exciting and mysterious movie about a human being who has lost his grasp with reality. By today's standards it isn't a very successful horror movie however, even though it does have some tense scenes and a some exciting elements to it. The problems I had with the character development and the way the movie ends drags Psycho down a lot for me, so I'd be lying if I said that the the movie left as amazed as other classics have. Hitchcock's incredible ability to create iconic and memorable movies does shine though the surface quite often however, and combined with Anthony Perkins' incredible portrayal of Norman Bates, the legendary director does manage to create a memorable movie that kept me entertained from start to finish. In spite of its problems, I'd say that Psycho is worth the watch because of it's legacy, its iconic elements such as the shower scene, Hitchcock ingenious ability to direct, and Perkins' incredible portrayal of Norman Bates. (3/6)
Psycho IMDb page here
Psycho trailer here
PS: This is what happens when Blockbuster goes on sale:
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