Master Moviemaker Makes Murder Masterpiece...

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2014)

When one considers the fact that PSYCHO is based on the depredations of Ed Gein (by way of Robert Bloch), it's almost impossible to imagine that even as great a Movie Maestro as Alfred Hitchcock could turn it all into such a stylish and suspenseful masterpiece. But he does. (Let's not forget to give credit where credit is due: Robert Bloch is the man whose imagination transformed the ghoul Gein into Norman Bates; Stephano fashioned his scenario from the novel.) For those who aren't familiar with Gein, he was a cannibal necrophiliac who wanted to be a woman- his mother in the book and in the movie, but female, period, in real life. He would actually dress up in a "suit" made of a woman's skin and dance around his deserted farmhouse at night. (I've always loved the song DANCIN' IN THE MOONLIGHT by King Harvest, but whenever I think of Ed Gein these days- which ain't often-, I think of that song...) THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE was also based on Gein's atrocities and comes closer, I think, to the real horror of what he did, but Bloch and Hitchcock first separately and then combined turned it into one of the Truly Great Murder Movies- one for the ages.