Not to be confused with the 1998 film of the same name (as if).

Rating: 10/10 (4 April 2010)

Psycho is undoubtedly Alfred Hitchcock's most famous film, and not for no reason: it's a masterclass in suspense, tension and terror that, even half a century after it first stunned audiences with its raw, psychological horror, has lost none of its ability to shock.
For those who don't already know, Anthony Perkins plays Norman Bates, creepy proprietor of the Bates Motel, situated off the old highway 15 miles from the town of Fairvale. Janet Leigh is bank employee Marion Crane, who has let temptation get the better of her and absconded with $40,000. Feeling tired after a long trip on the road to visit her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin), Marion decides to check into the Bates establishment, where she meets a sticky end whilst taking a shower (c'mon, don't tell me you didn't know...).
When Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) travels to Fairvale to see if Sam knows anything of her sister's whereabouts, she is tailed by private detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam), whose expertise eventually leads him to the Bates motel where Norman and 'mother' wait with butcher's knife in hand.
Working from a script by Joseph Stefano (based on the novel by Robert Bloch), Hitchcock delivers a flawless exercise in horror that sees the director develop techniques so effective that they are still imitated to this day, but which are rarely as well executed as they are here. Hitchcock's finest achievement with Psycho is undoubtedly fooling his audience into assuming that Leigh is the central character and then suddenly bumping her off, metaphorically pulling the rug from under the viewers feet; but he also manages many other brilliant touches, including Marion Crane's tense flight from Phoenix, where she imagines how events are unfolding at the bank, Norman's disposal of Ms Crane's car in a swamp (with her body in the boot), a moment of wonderful dark humour as the vehicle momentarily refuses to sink, and of course, the macabre ending in which Lila discovers Norman's mother hiding in the fruit cellar.
Add a cool title sequence by Saul Bass and a fantastic score by Bernard Hermann, itself often imitated, and what you have is a bona fide classic of the horror genre (yes, horror) that any self respecting fan should ensure that they see at least several times. It's that good.