Hitchcock's low-cost masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10 (5 May 2007)

*Psycho SPOILERS*
Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals 40,000 dollars from a client of the office she works in and drives to Fairvale, California from Phoenix, Arizona, to give her divorced boyfriend Sam (John Gavin) the money, convinced that it could help him with some of his debts.
On the way she decides to stop at the Bates Motel, where she meets the owner and sole worker, young Norman (Anthony Perkins) and gets to know him a little before going in her room and deciding to take a shower.
Bad choice...
A few days later, Lila (Vera Miles), Marion's sister, arrives in Fairvale and goes into Sam's hardware store, trying to find out if he knows anything about Marion's whereabouts.
Another person arrives; PI Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam), who has been hired by Marion's boss to retrieve the money without reporting Marion to the police.
But when Arbogast, too, vanishes into thin air after visiting the Bates Motel and phoning Lila saying he's going to ask some questions to Bates' ailing mom, she and Sam take action and call the police, only to find out that Mrs. Bates has been dead for 10 years.
"If that woman at the hotel is Mrs. Bates... who is the woman buried in the Fairvale Cemetery?" And here's another great one from the Big Hitch! One movie it's hard to find any fault with; all actors are awesome (yes, Gavin too), the cinematography is intense, the script is tight and full of surprises, the direction is top-notch, and the score! Bernard Herrmann truly outdid himself with this one.
And it IS truly scary, too; I don't think anyone could watch the shower scene without making at least a jump on their seats.
One last word; avoid the 1998 remake (better known as Psycho: Xerox Copy) by Gus Van Sant like the plague, and especially don't watch it before this one!
Psycho (1960): 10/10.