Alfred Hitchcock. A director that should need no introduction, but is also one that isn’t talked about within the social consciousness quite the way he was even just thirty decades ago. Amongst film buffs, talking about Hitchcock seems redundant, due in part to how recognized he is for his influence on film making today. I wanted to tap into this teenage adoration I once had because of the audience I aim for with these reviews. Having been obsessed with this legendary director since my early college years at the oblivious age of sixteen, I feel have quite the authority to spread the word of what makes his directing so perfect.
This introduction brings me to Hitchcock’s most, undoubtedly, famous works: Psycho. I was on the fence about whether I should even consider talking about a Hitchcock film. My cut-off date only goes as far back as the sixties, and most of the director’s best films are from before. Luckily, Psycho just narrowly makes the cut. It’s a film that many will always herald for its impact, but very few casual movie-goers can say that they even think about it today. My aim here is to bring to light what made this film so special for the time, and to caution those new viewers who are expecting a bloody slasher that could sit on the same table as the likes of Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street. Controversial for the time and legendary in so many ways, this is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Our story places its focus on young bank secretary, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a woman who has made the drastic decision of running away with money she has stolen from her job. On the road and looking to start a new life for herself, the guilt of what she has done begins to set in. Feeling overwhelmed with emotion, she stops off at a nearby motel, Bates Motel. Greeted by the friendly, if socially inept, owner, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), he agrees to give her a room for the night. Norman and Marion spend the night talking about themselves, where Norman reveals his creepy closeness to his sickly mother, who lives in the house overlooking the motel. We don’t know much about Norman’s whole backstory, but something about him feels disturbing.
In a shocking moment that surprised audiences of the early sixties, our protagonist is slaughtered in her shower, seemingly by Norman’s own mother in a fit of jealous rage. Norman discovers this moments later and disposes of the body. Marion’s sister, Lila (Vera Miles) and her lover, Sam (John Gavin) grow increasingly concerned about her whereabouts and retrace her steps in an effort to find her. We, the audience, are left in torturous suspense as we root for them to discover the truth.
It seems so trivial these days to bring up a central character getting axed off in the middle of a slasher these days. It’s one of the biggest tropes that makes up the genre, but in 1960, this was seen as entirely new ground. What does make Mario stand out from other horror heroines is just how much time is spent pouring over her entire backstory and motivation.
I think Marion is one of the strongest protagonists that Hitchcock has ever created. While the director’s more problematic attitude to casting pretty blondes in his films for his own satisfaction is certainly an outwards problem, he always had an eye for empowering female characters as being more than simple sex appeal. Marion is written as someone who is morally troubled. She wants a better life for herself, dropping that guilt in her moment of criminality, but the weight of what she has done begins to destroy her. I think that the writing creates a perfectly relatable scenario: if you had the chance to walk away with millions of dollars despite how illegal it may be, you’d definitely consider the idea. This guilt is explored so precisely that it can rival many psychological thrillers of today.
Everyone is familiar with the infamous shower scene. It’s the only thing that people will talk about today, but many ignore the things that lead up to this iconic scene. From the moment Marion steps out of the car and into that motel, she is given a brief escape. This motel is first seen as a safe haven from the guilt that eats her up inside, and her encounter with Norman seems pleasant at first. Throughout this entire moment, as it transitions from one conversation to the next, you can see Marion rationalizing everything in her head, She goes from being taunted by the words of the people she knows within her head to finding solace within herself. But then, this brief moment of comfort takes a turn for the more disturbing.
The shower scene? No, we aren’t there yet, we need to talk about Norman. Norman Bates is a fascinating character. Your perception of Norman changes quite slowly throughout his interactions with Marion. You’re not initially sure what his intentions are, but you feel yourself feeling more and more uncomfortable the more he talks. The nighttime conversation with Marion brings to light his unusual hobby of taxidermy of birds and just how much he obsesses over it. We learn he has an oedipal relationship with his mother, a figure we never properly see, and that his general demeanor is not to dissimilar of a child’s.
Norman feels so unusual compared to so many of his other characters across his entire library of films. He loosely based the character and his demeanor of a small town oddity named Ed Gein (I would advice looking him up after you have watched the film to avoid some major spoilers), right down to his weird closeness to his mother. Hitchcock brilliantly plays with our social perceptions of what is “normal” and uses dark lighting and low angle camera shots to create this air of threat. You never know what is going on in his disturbed mind, you just feel this sense of wanting to get out of there, much like Marion herself.
The shower scene. It’s very likely this is the one scene you are aware of, let alone having seen. Out of context, the scene is both shocking and frantic, but it’s also important to remember how essential that entire first act is to fleshing out the narrative of the scene. I debated whether to talk about this, as it would be considered a heavy spoiler, but it’s hard to talk about everything else without bringing it up.
Extra research will tell you that this one scene was a struggle to get past the censors. Keep in mind, almost all films of this time were made with extreme censorship, to ensure that anyone and everyone was able to view all films. The slasher genre of horrors didn’t exist, so blood and gore was kept to a minimum. Psycho came along with a scene that features the protagonist being repeatedly stabbed, standing naked in a shower. The frantic editing and carefully placed angles were made to avoid showing any sort of impact made with the skin or for any full frontal nudity. A horror film today would have no such hurdles to overcome, but Hitchcock really had to fight the censors.
What makes this scene so impactful is not the simple massacre, but the intensity of it all. We are only given the silhouette Mrs. Bates as she repeatedly plunges the knife into Marion’s body. The camera cuts between extreme close-ups of Marion’s face and body with little time to process the severity of what’s going on. Add an iconic, searing score to the entire thing and you get an unforgettable massacre that leaves you in a dumbfounded state of mind. The final shot of Marion’s face as it pulls out to show her lifeless eyes, music stopped, gives you a final moment to process everything you’ve seen.
Contextualizing this scene for what this was like for audiences in 1960 is very important to remember. This would be considered some of most extreme gore for the time, but in comparison to today, it is so tame. Hitchcock had a specific rule for theaters that showed the movie: not to allow anyone in after the film had started, as he didn’t want audiences to miss everything up to this point. The very idea of killing off your protagonist halfway through was also shocking. The advertising never let on that this would be the case and left audiences befuddled. Even today, it’s difficult to imagine just switching gears completely. The lingering shot of the money sitting in the bathroom tells us how unimportant is now; the story has now become a murder mystery.
This second half might be where some could fall off. Marion being such a likable character means that the impact of seeing her gone may cause some disarray. But, to me, that aspect is what makes the second half so exciting.
The second half of the movies falls into what we typically expect of Hitchcock, nicely uniform with his previous thrillers. The fact that we know what has happened to Marion and are watching her sister and her sister’s lover look for her, not knowing she is dead, has you thinking of ways they can make that startling discovery. It plays nicely on the audiences’ expectations and still hits us with more surprises. As this is a slasher flick, you would expect more deaths to occur, but only one more death happens. Without spoiling who, the scene is played so tensely, with some of the slowest pacing in the film, all done to create an atmosphere of foreboding. When the death happens, it shocks you so suddenly that it leaves little to to process.
The most terrifying entity comes from this scene, and it’s not Mrs. Bates. The house is most mysterious and most unnerving thing in the entire film. With it’s tall, imposing structure and how it stands above the motel at all times, you rarely ever see the inside of it. This second kill occurs in the house, and it’s presented in a way that has you paranoid at every corner. Dozens of rooms that could contain anything, housing a psychotic, elderly killer. There’s this sense that entire building is a hellish being in itself.
I wouldn’t consider Psycho to be my favorite film in Hitchcock’s history of brilliant suspense thrillers, but I would say that it his best made film. Even aside from the fact that he was constantly at his wit’s end with the censors and the studio, who threatened to end the production entirely, he managed to craft something that would go on to inspire an entire subgenre of horrors. Meticulously written, shot and edited, there is very little wrong with Psycho. Age has certainly set in, and that can put people off it, but I implore you to give this a chance. It is important to remember the context as well. I still think there’s more to it than simple infamy.
Side note: We don’t talk about the nineties remake. Whoever thought Vince Vaughn would be a good choice for Norman Bates must have had some weird hangups.
Written review by Conor Johnson.