Psycho (1960)

Have you ever had that spooky feeling that something isn't right, or that someone isn't right. Psycho is an exploration of those ideas by brilliant director Alfred Hitchcock. I had already seen Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest, along with various episodes of Alfred Hitchock presents, so I was already comfortable with the visual style and storytelling method of his films. Psycho is in many respects similar to that style, but is also a bit different.

Psycho tells the story of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a secretary who is given $40,000 to put in the bank by her employer. She runs off, and we follow her until, after a few days and some close calls, she is forced to pull over due to weather and stay at the Bates Hotel, ran by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), who lives there with his mother. Marion is killed about halfway into the film, in a scene (pictured above) that is so brilliantly executed that, even though it has been referenced and parodied endlessly, it still is terrifying today.

In fact the whole film is so magnificently crafted that though, as an avid film and TV watcher I already knew the plot, the movie was giving me chills as each scene went by, and each new development happened. The shower scene may be the most memorable, but the reveal about Norman's mother and who killed Marion Crane, is equally potent and scary today as it must have been in 1960.

The Black and white cinematography is very good, with some nice touches such as the voyeuristic look through the peephole and the initial discovery of the Bates hotel. The professional quality of the production team makes this into a film that is very slick for such a low budget. The string score is very unsettling in addition to the B/W shots, and perfectly complements the movie, particularly the shower scene though the musical themes are well-managed throughout.

The acting isn't a strong point in the film, with some good performances by Bates and Leigh, but the rest of the cast often seems just a little bit stilted and a little hammy as well. The acting quality though is certainly one of a budgetary issue more than anything else, and doesn't detract from the overall quality of the film.

In the end though, despite a gripping plot and some very impressive shooting, I can't help but feel that this is just a feature-length version of one of the Hitchcock Presents episodes. Though that is partly the intention of the film, it means that it lacks the scope and characterisation that made Vertigo and Rear Window such great films. Characters in Psycho really aren't given elaborate backstories, as the whole thing is largely an exercise in misdirection, as well as experimenting with a low budget. This means that when characters do things, they do them without explanation, until the framing device that is the ending of Psycho.

The film is certainly good on it's own merits though, and certainly a great film in the Hitchcock canon but I can't quite shake the TV show feel of it though and that in my mind puts it below his other works, as his TV show often had problems with the ending, which carries on into the film. Psycho definitely started a massive sub-genre in horror though, and other Hitchcock films merely tended to work from an existing model.

Overall a 4.5/5, so close but not quite a perfect film, let down by some often poor acting by the supporting cast, and the TV show feel of it.