But, she needs me. It's not as if she were a maniac, a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes... We all go a little mad sometimes
If you were to ask me what's my favorite horror movie, I wouldn't have to think one second about it, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is at the top of my list. But, what is it about this movie that makes me love it so? Let's take a dive into the 1960 film, Psycho.
Psycho was released on September 8, 1960. The film had a very unique marketing strategy, no one would be admitted after the film began. This was because Alfred Hitchcock thought that Psycho had to be experienced from beginning to end. Something that I absolutely agree with, if you've never seen the movie before. Before we continue on, please note: SPOILERS AHEAD!! Yes, this is a spoiler alert for a 61-year-old film. But, there's gotta be some people out there who haven't seen film (what are you doing?! Stop reading and go watch it!... then come back and finish reading). The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin and Vera Miles. A wonderful cast that brought their A-game to the film. Personally, I think Anthony Perkins was spot-on casting! This man WAS Norman Bates!
The movie was filmed in black-and-white because Hitchcock thought that the film was too graphic to be shot in color. The film crew was also, from Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which was a TV anthology series in the 1960s that Hitchcock himself.... presented (sorry!). The film tells a story of a young woman by the name of Marion Crane (Leigh), who works for a real estate office and is given $40,000 to deposit into the bank. Marion wants to marry her boyfriend, Sam Loomis (Gavin), but he says he won't until he can pay off his father's debt and afford a better place to live. When she leaves the office to deposit the money, she has many thoughts go through her head, and this right here is one of the best parts of Psycho, the inner monologue in Marion's head. When she is in the car taking the money to the bank, she has the thoughts that eventually convince her to steal the money. On her way to see Sam, she continues to have these thoughts, even thinking about what everyone is going to say back at her job. She eventually pulls off to the side of the road to sleep. She has an encounter with a cop, who thinks she is acting suspiciously, so he follows her. The inner monologue now amps up. Marion becomes incredibly paranoid by the cop following her, she decides to trade in her car and get a new one. The cop sees all this, but doesn't go after her.
Now, we are at the infamous Bates Motel. Marion stops to sleep at the hotel (thanks to a suggestion by the cop earlier in the film). There she meets Norman Bates (Perkins), Anthony Perkins did this role was well, it's crazy. I cannot take my eyes off the screen when he is on, his acting in this film blew my mind and when a massive blunder (Psycho remake) decided to go with Vince Vaughn of all people, to play Norman Bates, his awful performance just made Perkins' interpretation look even better. Norman and Marion eat sandwiches that Norman made in the back of the office at the motel.
This. Is. My. Favorite. Scene. EVER.
Not a joke, the scene is just the 2 talking, but it's Perkins' performance that makes this scene so incredibly awesome! Not to take away from Janet Leigh's wonderful performance too. I do believe that Marion saw the evil in Norman's eyes during this scene and it's such a powerful and intense scene, which is just 2 people talking about their lives. Oh, yeah, and then the shower scene comes right after that.
There is another wonderful scene right after, that, of Norman discovering Marion's body and him disposing of her. What's great about this scene is it's about 10 minutes in length, and not a word is uttered. And why? Because there didn't need to be any. Perkins' performance, again, makes this a very powerful scene. The entire time, the audience feels paranoid, because Norman is paranoid he will get caught cleaning up this murder that, supposedly his mother did (ooh, what does he mean?). The car driving by while Norman is taking the cleaning supplies out of the room and he freaks out and puts everything down and smiles at the car. What could possibly be more suspicious than that? And then when he takes her car to sink into a swamp, the part where the car stops and doesn't go fully under the water is great. Again, Perkins plays this part so well, during the whole time he's nervously eating candy and clamping his hands together as the car slowly sinks, but then it stops! What now? Perkins' nervousness here is chilling and then the relief of when the car finally sinks under the water. Brilliant scene, and not a word spoken during it.
Now we meet Marion's sister, Lyla (Miles), she arrives at Sam's place of work hoping that Marion is there. Sam has no idea what's happening. Then we meet Arbogast (Martin Balsam), a private investigator hired by Marion's family. He speaks with both Sam and Lyla about Marion. He believes that Marion was indeed on her way to Sam and he decides to go looking at every hotel for a sign of Marion. Eventually, finding the Bates Motel. This is probably my 2nd favorite scene in the movie. We get to see how Norman is becoming more unhinged. Arbogast questions him about Marion and I believe this scene has the best of Perkins' performance in the film. His nervousness as Arbogast looks through the registry. My favorite part is that Norman starts stuttering, and I think Perkins nailed the stutter. I totally believed that character was badly stuttering. Then Arbogast sees the silhouette of Norman's mother up at the house. This is when we see Norman really become unglued. Arbogast pushes Norman to let him talk to her, but Norman gets a bit aggressive when Arbogast keeps pushing after Norman said she was unable talk to him. Then we get one of my very favorite lines in the film, when Arbogast suggests that Marion made a fool of him he responds back that he isn't capable of being made a fool and then, "let me just say this, she may have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother", it is a chilling line coming from Norman Bates.
Arbogast calls Lyla to tell him the information he found at the Bates Motel and that he'd be back in an hour after going back to the Bates Motel to try and talk to the mother. When he arrives, Norman is nowhere to be found and Arbogast sneaks into Norman's house, only to be brutally murdered by Norman's mother. The entire scene is so intense, but then it's ruined by that cheap falling down the stairs shot. I can't believe that people were like, "yes, that's okay", when they shot that. Now, Lyla is worried when Arbogast doesn't show back up, so her and Sam head up there themselves. Posing as a married couple who are trying to avoid bad weather, get a room at the Bates Motel. At this point, we as the audience know the movie is going to be over soon and we know something big is going to happen. The brilliance of Alfred Hitchcock knowing perfectly how to make a suspense film. Sam and Lyla split up, Sam is going to distract Norman while Lyla breaks into Norman's house. The confrontation between Norman and Sam gets heated until Norman realizes what Sam is doing. Norman attacks Sam and runs up to the house. Lyla hides in the stairway to the basement as Norman runs upstairs. Lyla almost leaves the house, but something tells her to go into the basement. This is an amazing moment, and one of the biggest surprises in film history. Lyla enters a room and sees an old lady sitting, facing the wall. Lyla realizes that she has found Mrs. Bates and slowly walks closer, she taps Mrs. Bates' shoulder and her body swings around to reveal Mrs. Bates' dead corpse. Lyla swings her hand up in fear, knocking the light, creating this haunting atmosphere as she turns around to see Norman, dressed as Mrs. Bates, come running at her with a butcher knife. Sam comes in at the last minute and saves the day...
So, what about Norman? After that breathtaking, heart pounding scene we get to relax a bit. Sam and Lyla are at the police station being told what exactly happened there. And to me, this is what makes Norman unlike any other slasher, is that Norman is actually diagnosed with something, in this case split personality disorder (and I'm sure a few others things too). Norman is mentally unstable, he has developed a split personality with him and his mother. As Mrs. Bates, Norman killed the people in the film and Norman had no recollection of this. He would talk to himself in his mother's voice and dress in her clothes. In a later prequel we get to see Mrs. Bates alive and what exactly she did to Norman that fucked him up so much. Then we get the scene at the end of Norman who has completely become his mother, monologues in his head in mother's voice and we get the great line to end one of the best films of all-time,
Let them see what kind of person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know and they'll say 'Why she wouldn't even harm a fly...
The film, was not a huge success at first. But, it grew on people and is now considered a film classic and as of 1992, is in the National Film Registry which selects films to be preserved that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films". The film is one of, if not the most, popular film that came from Alfred Hitchcock. Later in the 1980s, there would be a string of Psycho sequels, all starring Anthony Perkins and Pyscho III he even directed. There was a failed 1987 pilot TV movie entitled Bates Motel and then the awful remake in 1998 (which will be discussed ad nauseam in a future article) and finally the very, very good TV series Bates Motel in 2013.
So, why is this my favorite horror film? For the longest time I said that Friday the 13th was my favorite horror film, but that is not accurate. Friday the 13th is definitely my favorite series of horror films, but the crown goes to Psycho. I know I mentioned it many times throughout this article that I love Anthony Perkins' performance. I honestly think, that if another actor played Norman Bates the film wouldn't be as good. It's a Hitchcock film, so there is that familiar atmosphere he presents in his other films. All the actors were amazing, Vera Miles even went on to return to the role in Psycho II. Hitchcock's brilliance can be felt 100% here. He chose to shoot the film with his TV crew, 1, because it was cheaper but 2, he wanted to prove that he could make a big Hollywood movie with a TV crew and he succeeded incredibly. I love everything about this film from the acting to the black-and-white cinematography (what? Steven mentioned cinematography?!), the writing is brilliant, mainly the dialogue, and is what really brought this film to life. You can have the greatest actors in the world, but if you have a bad script, then you have a bad movie. It's the suspense! That's what makes this movie important, incredible and some other word that starts with 'I' I can't think of right now.
