It is hard to come to a film like Psycho without at least some awareness of the likely surprises in store - the famous moment in the shower is so indelible in pop culture that it has lost its shock factor. Yet, in the context of the film it is still a surprising moment. What is so clever about Psycho is that the first half of the film suggests an entirely different genre and approach. Hitchcock creates a fascinating set-up and moral dilemma that keeps the audience intrigued so that by the time our heroine makes her decision to resolve this issue, you could be forgiven for forgetting the title of the film. But it is the arrival at the Bates Motel and Perkins’ entrance that immediately signals a change in tone, specifically a fascinating conversation between Perkins and Leigh in the motel parlour. It is Perkins’s nuanced performance throughout the film that suggest both a softly spoken innocence and a creepy underlying darkness to Norman Bates, and this is never more clear than in his introduction, as the focus of the audience shifts from Leigh’s character to Perkins. There is little to be added to the already iconic shower scene other than it is a masterclass in editing, music and performance (the shot that pulls back from the victim’s eye is still both horrifying and utterly mesmerising). The second half of the film could have struggled to live up to this and to a certain extent it does, but in the ensuing investigation, Hitchcock of course has one or two more surprises in store that are best left unspoiled and Perkins’ performance ensured that the loss of one great character would not be detrimental to the overall film. It is a shame the final scene feels the need to over explain the events of the film, but the final shot certainly leaves a great impression.

[8.5/10] So much of modern moviemaking, and often modern horror along with it, rests of the big set piece. It’s in the DNA of the traditional scary movie to reach some crescendo of death or destruction or straight horror that will leave the audience shuddering in their shoes long after they’ve left the theater.

*Psycho* has those big time moments. The shower stabbing scene is rightfully iconic, a marriage of strings and steel and the sense of color in a black and white film that just exudes terror. The unflinching but artistic take on such a brutal act could, and arguably has, remained the lasting image of the film.

At the same time, the image of Arbogast, the private detective, being stabbed down the stairs is a sequence delivered with the same combination of startling horror and artistic flair, as he seems to glide down to the landing until crumpling into a heap. And the film’s last great gasp, in the form of the preserved remains of the real Mrs. Bates spun around nonsensically as the true killer is revealed and neutralized, is just as gripping a climax.

But coming to *Psycho* almost sixty years after it debuted, when its most iconic scenes and biggest twists were already known through cultural osmosis, is how scary, how foreboding, how unsettling this film when nothing particularly dramatic is happening.

Before a single blade is unsheathed, *Psycho* is a spectacularly tense film when it’s just the story of a young woman running away with a wad of cash and not much of a plan and a swirl of thoughts running through her brain. The suspense when Marion Crane catches her boss’s eye driving out of town, or tries to talk her way out of a confrontation with a passing police officer, or aims to switch out cars before the cop tracks her down, more than matches any of the grislier events later in the film.

That’s because the characters in the film are exceptionally well-motivated, which makes it easy for the viewer to feel what they feel, understand things from their perspective. A semi-tedious opening scene with Marion having a mid-afternoon dalliance with her boyfriend, Frank, sets up the sort of star-crossed love, the passion at odds with practical realities, that would drive her to leap unthinkingly at the chance to realize it which practically falls into her lap. We understand both why Marion does what she does, and how impulsive and fraught it is, making each interaction feel like the one that could send this house of cards tumbling down.

But beyond the script, so much of that spectacular, ominous sense that lingers over everything owes to the performances. Janet Leigh in particular is a live wire, ever the presence of someone who is calm enough on the surface, but utterly quaking behind the eyes. That sense of a person in over her head, bluffing through interaction after interaction in the hopes of finding providence and a clean getaway, comes through exquisitely.

She’s met and matched by her most significant scene partner, Anthony Perkins as the now iconic Norman Bates. One of the most impressive and bold things about *Psycho*, even decades later, is how well it manages to essentially hand the movie off between the two of them. Despite the years and years of spoilers that filter into anyone even vaguely tuned into film, there’s a shock at how early in the film Marion goes down after anchoring so much of the early portion of the film, and how seamlessly Hitchcock transitions between her doomed parable and the exploration of the sympathetic monster who causes her demise.

After her death, *Psycho* is driven by Marion’s absence, but also by Norman’s pathologies, his disquieting affect. Even before the big reveal, the sense of arrested development in him, of a strife-filled and repressed relationship between him and his mother, makes him instantly distinctive. Perkins brings such a presence to each scene he occupies, a nervous naturalism in a film where performances veer more toward the affected, that makes him so recognizable as someone outwardly okay, but radiating with something off-putting you can’t quite put your finger on. The reasons for his descent into murder and madness come through in a few scattered details offered, but mainly through Perkins’ delivery and demeanor, communicating all the audience needs to know about who and why Norman Bates is.

That’s why the film’s worst and least necessary scene is its final one, where a never-before-seen psychiatrist explains in tedious and useless detail exactly what led to Norman being this way, and laying bare the dense pop psychology that buttresses the subtext of the film. It is, frankly, a bizarre scene to modern eyes, one that seems to recount the movie’s major details and reveals just in case someone had been half-asleep for the main portion of the film and needed a recap before the credits rolled.

Still, the balance of the picture more than makes up for it. Composer Bernard Herrman’s score sets the mood and helps make internal emotions feel palpable to the audience even when the actors’ backs are to the camera. Even knowing the big twist, the creative camera work to obscure the real identity of the killer impresses. And Hitchock and Cinematographer John L. Russell conjure distinctive images like the sinking of a car into the muck, or the simple framings that preserve a suspenseful mood even when two people are just sitting in a room together.

That’s why *Psycho*’s best scene comes before its most famous murder, as it simply manages the handoff between one protagonist to the next. The most frightening moments in the film come when Marion and Norman are simply eating dinner together, waxing rhapsodic about life’s possibilities, about what fills the time and what allows us to seize it. It’s a scene of mutual realizations, of Marion hoping to erase the dangerous path she’s gone down to reach this point, and of Norman sublimating his combined want and censure and self-disgust at the prospect of this woman who simply wandered into his inn.

The combination of those two things, of two people who realize something about one another and themselves in the midst of a single slow-burning conversation, whose lives intersected by chance but directed one another’s futures, elevates everything that comes before and after. Like the crooked smile that Hitchcock and Perkins leave us with, it is not flashy, but so much scarier than the bits of horror that try to be so much bigger and yet feel so much lesser the quiet spaces of this unnerving original.

My most favourite film from the master of suspense.

This psychological horror is widely considered to be the first ever slasher film. Powered by great performances from Anthony Perkins & Janet Leigh, and the outstanding score by Bernard Herrmann which adds such great tension throughout the film, it is unarguably the greatest thriller ever made. Only Alfred Hitchcock could make a film so entertaining and so horrifying at the same time.

The climax continues to haunt me forever.

Bad luck for a bored bombshell, who opportunistically pockets a large sum of money, skips town and unwittingly pauses at a mass-murderer's motel to lay low. To say more would be a disservice to the uninitiated, even if the major points have already been spoiled by way of cultural osmosis. Sixty years is a long time to keep a secret, especially when all the most important scenes have been so frequently mirrored.

Compelled to operate on an extremely low budget (studio brass had major doubts about the premise), in _Psycho_, Alfred Hitchcock leans heavily on his finely-honed directorial senses - artistry and atmosphere, primarily - in lieu of a dazzling set or gaudy wardrobe. The end result is a very moody, up-close and personal piece, entirely appropriate for such a character-driven tragedy. Subtext is the rule of the day, whether it's foreshadowing the awful events to come or nervously reveling in their aftermath.

Much is said outside of the dialogue, in other words, and in such visually compelling ways! The guiding hand of frequent collaborator (and graphic design legend) Saul Bass is apparent in more than just the dynamic opening credits. Bass may not have actively directed the iconic shower episode, as is often rumored, but his tight storyboards and Bernard Herrmann's indispensable musical cues essentially make the scene. Not to downplay Hitchcock's involvement, either; it takes a special brand of mastermind to assemble and curate such talent, to piece it all together in just the right order to achieve maximum dramatic effect.

There is so much more to this film than just that famous scene in the shower - and so much of it belongs to the marvellous scoring of Bernard Herrmann. His ability to use those screeching strings, and the pace of his music does so much of the heavy lifting that gives this film a sense of accumulating menace that makes it still, after over 60 years, a masterful piece of cinema. Janet Leigh wants to make a go of things with her cash-strapped hunky boyfriend "Sam" (John Gavin) so when an unexpected opportunity arises at work that puts $40,000 in her lap, she skips town and takes refuge during a thunderstorm at the "Bates" motel where she encounters "Norman" (a very handsome looking Anthony Perkins). The rest you will just have to watch for yourself, but the story has just about everything you could want from a thriller: a fella with a bit of a "mummy" syndrome; some good old fashioned larceny; lust and though I didn't quite love the ending, it is a superbly dramatic piece of well considered and constructed cinema that cleverly builds on what is quite a simple story with a strong and convincing cast. Big screen if you can; that house on the hill looks more eery that way. Great stuff!