How do you write about one of the most-discussed classics of horror cinema? It's a question I've wrestled with ever since I decided to start this October's horror movie marathon with Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's most famous movie. What new thought or observation can I add?
Ultimately, I don't need to add anything: This is a damn good movie - not quite timeless, but it holds up amazingly well for a highly stylized horror thriller from 1960. Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh give iconic performances, the camera work is famously innovative, and the movie is filled with movie moments that won't soon be forgotten.
The most famous of those moments, being the shower scene that sees Janet Leigh's Marion get murdered by the titular psycho. Risqué for the time, it used implied violence with its hectic editing to make the viewer think that more violence was shown than was actual visible. It's masterful, and the early killing of the star actor sent the audience reeling.
But what about the lead up to that famous scene? Also amazingly good. Leigh does the bulk of the early work in the film, and she more than matched the tone and style that Hitchcock was going for. The roadside talk with the police officer in particular is anxiety personified as Marion can't help but act suspicious while trying too hard to not act suspicious.
Her scene with Perkins' Norman Bates is also ably played - Marion is so in her own head she misses every alarm bell that rings during that conversation. I've mentioned that Leigh's portrayal is iconic, but it is also unbelievably good.
As is the performance of Anthony Perkins. So many split personalities in the years since have paid tribute to this performance, and we only really see Perkins as the Mother character in the famous final monologue. I wonder if, had I not been spoiled about the plot twists of this movie years before I watched it, I too would've been just as charmed by Norman Bates and his odd weirdness as Marion was.
The latter part of the film, focusing on Lila Crane and Sam Loomis (Vera Miles and John Gavin) feels less like a narrative switch more like a disconnected reality: The audience knows that Marion is dead and the money she stole had nothing to do with it, but we still watch as Lila and Sam try to find her and figure out if Norman and his mother have anything to do with it.
It's a bold structural move, to leave the audience without any sort of real protagonist for the latter third of the movie. However, given how quickly the story progresses it never completely gets away from the audience, only carries them along with Lila and Sam up until the end.
I will say that the middle section focusing on Arbogast (Martin Balsim) is a bit draggy for me, even if his scene with Norman is easily the best part of Perkins's performance. It's necessary to reach the end of the film, and his death is another highlight of the film, but otherwise I would consider this to be the most skippable part of the film - even moreso than the exposition dump scene with the psychiatrist.
So much about this movie works, and I'd easily agree that it justly deserves to be called a film that changed filmmaking. Well worth seeing.
9.5 out of 10
