"My hobby is stuffing things..."

Rating: 9/10 (13 January 2007)

Chances are that if you go into this movie cold without knowing anything about it (I know, that's almost impossible), you'll be about a half hour into the picture and wondering what the title might be all about. Sure Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) seems highly erratic when questioned by the patrolman, but hardly psychotic. It's not until director Hitchcock suddenly pulls the rug out from under the forty thousand dollar robbery setup, and Marion falls victim to the frenzy of a slashing knife accompanied by the now historic soundtrack that's been indelibly identified with "Psycho", that we get the idea that this is not your standard mystery.
This is a classic and historic movie, the first on many levels to create a new kind of horror film. Hitchcock was a master of thrills and suspense without ever relying on violence. Here he allows a slight departure from that formula, but without overemphasizing the gore. When the naked Marion Crane is attacked in a shower, completely helpless, it was the birth of a new genre, which unfortunately has degraded into the sensationalist slasher schlock of present day. In "Psycho", you never see it coming, except for that shadowed figure behind the shower curtain, but by then it's too late to gasp, you're caught up in the on screen event, and it leaves you breathless.
Some viewers call it a perfect film. I don't know if I would go that far, as I've thought about things I might have changed in telling the story. When Marion leaves the used car lot under scrutiny of the highway patrolman, it makes you wonder why he didn't follow up his instinct that there was something fishy going on. Then at the end of the film, the way the psychologist explained in detail the nature of Norman Bates' psychosis, made it seem like it wasn't enough to let the viewer arrive at a conclusion for oneself. But those nitpicks aside, one has to give credit to the principals for pulling off a great psychological and horror thriller. Anthony Perkins couldn't have been smoother, and it's not until at least a second viewing that you realize how wonderful a set up you have to the film's dire outcome. Sitting there talking to Marion among his menagerie of stuffed birds, Norman Bates gives a subtle hint as to the horror about to unfold - "You know what I think..., I think that..., we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out..."
Watch this one alone..., at night..., in the dark.