"Psycho" spells the ABC of horror

Rating: 10/10 (3 April 2012)

The face of Anthony Perkins aka Norman Bates as the psycho has burned itself deep into the mindset of moviegoers since Hitchcock's horror thriller hit the silver screens in 1960. It's essential for a whole genre, as iconic and unmistakable as Boris Karloff's Frankenstein monster in Jack Pierce's make-up and will be for many more generations to come. As far as horror movies go it can't get any better than this. Anthony Perkins remains stuck in your mind due to his nervously shy performance throughout most of the film, likable and odd at the same time, and the ice cold twist at the end makes perfect sense.
But the film is much more than Perkins. It's Robert Bloch's excellent script, Bernard Herrmann outstanding score, and then there's the director. Hitch shows his handwriting as the master of suspense in every detail. The black and white cinematography of course is crucial and used to perfection in "Psycho", the shadows and tilted angles contribute to an unnerving atmosphere. And who else would get rid of someone introduced as the protagonist after a third of the film? Or take the famous shower scene, where the master demonstrates his cutting edge editing abilities, literally. It's reduced to the necessary minimum, artistically composed for maximum effect. And the mise en scÃ¨ne of the final revelation, the secret that awaits in the basement? Heart-stopping. In short: "Psycho" spells the ABC of horror, and rightfully so.