High suspense!

Rating: 9/10 (5 April 2006)

I am 23 years old and have just gotten around to watching "Pyscho" for the first time tonight. Gave me the chills. Very few movies are able to do that, so this is high praise indeed. All the praise you've heard about this film is true. The acting (especially by Perkins) is excellent, the score unsettling, and the cinematography brilliant.
The story begins with two lovers in Phoenix sharing a quick romp during Marion's (played by Janet Leigh) lunch break. She returns to her job and is given $40,000 to deposit at the bank. She takes the money and returns to her home, then decides to flee Phoenix and run away with her boyfriend. She drives most of the night, and, tired, pulls in to the Bates motel for the night....
Suffice it to say, what follows is one of the best murder-thrillers I've had the pleasure to watch. Everything about this movie is handled well, and Perkins knocks it out of the park playing the friendly, stuttering, and finally chilling Norman Bates. I can only imagine how shocking this movie was when it was released in 1960 -- many of these themes had yet to be explored in cinema, and if the infamous bathroom scene is still a bit unsettling to modern viewers, it must have been truly terrifying at the time.
This film is Hitchcock at his finest. Pure suspense.