For better or worse, slasher movies would not exist today without this movie.

Rating: Null/10 (14 March 2003)

(***** out of *****) This is, more or less, the original slasher film, and, in spite of some unfortunate aging, it's one of the scariest and most manipulative thrillers of all time. Janet Leigh plays a secretary on the run after embezzling money from her boss. After a narrow escape from the law, she winds up at the run-down Bates Motel (and she was afraid of prison!) At this point, the movie takes a detour from its rather-tame opening half hour and takes viewers on a frightening ride of murder, madness, nagging mothers, stuffed birds, skeletons in cellars and ill-fated showers. Hitchcock's direction is top-notch, and the editing during the murder scenes is almost as schizophrenic as the title character. The only part that doesn't work quite so well anymore is the needlessly extended epilogue sequence, where a psychiatrist gives us all a lengthy explanation about split personalities and transvestism. But, otherwise, this should be studied as a textbook on how to make a horror film -- make the audience uncomfortable and uncertain, then gradually reduce their expectations and get them relaxed again, and then -- WHAM! -- knock them over the head with the flat side of an ax. Anthony Perkins (unsettlingly brilliant here, but forever-after typecast), as mama's boy Norman Bates, is the original, cinematic psycho killer and Leigh is the original scream queen. Also stars Vera Miles as Leigh's suspicious sister, John Gavin as the concerned lover, and Martin Balsam as the too-snoopy-for-his-own-good detective on the case. Aside from the infamous and oft-duplicated shower scene, there are a number of shocking and suspenseful sequences, and all of it is punctuated by Bernard Herrmann's classic, frightening score. Based on Robert Bloch's novel, who loosely based his character on real-life serial killer Ed Gein.
HIGHLIGHT: The shower scene's too obvious, so I'll throw another one out here: The scene where Norman tries to get rid of a car with one of his victims inside by pushing it into a lake. This is a darkly clever scene, because, when the car initially refuses to sink, we feel an inexplicable pang of concern and sympathy for poor Norm, in spite of the grisly severity of his actions.