The first of a kind

Rating: 9/10 (10 February 2008)

I had always avoided watching Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho due to its age and how our media has ridiculed its famous shower scene for the past forty years. I just thought I would not be able to take it seriously. However, as I was watching it, I was fully immersed in its world and I couldn't look away.
Many criticise it for its somewhat slow pace, I supposed that's to be expected from my generation, who are used to watching quickly paced Michael Bay trash. But I didn't find this film to be terrifying like many believe it is, though I suppose that's because I don't carry that nostalgia of having grown up with this film and also because when it was first released, it was the first if it's kind. "Slasher" films had scarcely been done in 1960, but now there are at least two released each week.
The lighting in Psycho is terrific; it really made me uneasy in the scenes in which Norman Bates was talking to Marion Crane because the lighting is so atmospherically creepy, especially in relations to the shadows the stuffed birds emitted. Alfred Hitchcock did an amazing job at building suspense as well. I was on the edge of my seat up until the shower scene, it felt like the climax, halfway through the film, and things sort of trailed afterwards I find. Anthony Perkin's acting abilities really impressed me, how he could easily switch between his multiple personas all the while still showing us that there is a crazy man behind all his facial expressions of friendliness was fantastic.
The score was extremely well written and the composer really connected the visuals to the music in a way that made the viewer uneasy. However, the actual killings weren't well executed in my humble opinion, they felt more unintentionally comedic than frightening, and I'm sure it wasn't Hitchcock's intention for viewers to feel this way. But back in 1960, I'm sure audiences were scared out of their minds, but by today's standards, explicit gore is more common and the killings in Psycho felt a bit weak.
It was an excellent film nevertheless 9/10