Director's Cuts

Rating: 8/10 (3 February 2008)

When this was shown on UK TV as a classic for the first time in the mid '70's I considered myself a horror film fan and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. Since then of course the Hollywood horror film has "progressed" to the stage where only perversion and gore are considered fit entertainment meaning most people today would sadly now probably equate Psycho to their ideas of Mickey Mouse. However it remains to me the best of its kind, and as violent and sleazy as I'd want anything to get. Will tomorrow's film buffs think the Saw movies of today laughably non-violent too?
Woman steals money from employer and scrams but unfortunately runs into homicidal maniac who polishes her off as she's getting second thoughts  about coming clean! Leigh's shower scene is justly famous – I guess Hitch the voyeur would have been tickled by the microscopic attention it still gets. There was even a stultifying gigantic slow motion frame by frame movie exhibition in London in 2006 by some idle Arthead extending the 40 seconds into 6 or 7 hours. Really worthwhile to have a stab at! When I was a kid Arbogast getting it at the top of the stairs startled me the most, although if you see it again you wonder how he could defy gravity while dying. That moment with Perkins biting his fingernails as the car stops sinking into the mud! It has a fantastic plot (in the best sense), with Hitch pulling out all of the cinematic stops he could think of, that keeps you hooked to the pervy climax and thoughtful ending. As with a few other films, such as Once Upon A Time In America, the music score is integral and vital as Hitch recognised – without Herrmann's zigzag music you might as well have been watching a (better) Corman.
If something is labelled "classic" it doesn't have to be good or feelgood as well, but Psycho certainly was the first two.