Definitely ahead of it's time, but pretty tame in modern times

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2008)

I just watched this with my 12 year old son last month on TCM. It's hard to believe but it is rated "R" still now and I had to unblock parental controls to watch it with him. I am very strict in what I let my children watch so I hesitate to even call this a "horror" picture, although it probably was in it's day.
To me it is more a psychological thriller. There is no gore whatsoever - although I understand the audience of 1960 would find this much more disturbing as the movie industry had yet to mainstream the slasher flicks that predicated the 70's.
Here are some observational details that help make this the masterpiece it was and still is:
-I found the opening score to be a great stage setter as it had an anxiety provoking tone to it.

Perkins is perfectly cast for the Norman Bates character. No one else could have pulled off this portrayal like him. Perkins is very creepy - but I always found him to be a human uncomfortable in his own skin, which apparently he was in real life.

To have the perceived "main character" killed off early in the movie was unheard of. It caught the viewers especially off-guard.

The cinematography, especially the camera angles. There is something very uncomfortable in the filming that adds to the anxiety of what is going to happen next. For example, when Perkins is eating something in the hotel office and spins the hotel register around to read it, the camera shoots him under his chin while he is chewing. I'm not sure why, but it makes me uncomfortable. That is Hitchcock's genius in his direction and use of camera angles.

If you haven't caught this masterpiece, you have to give yourself the pleasure of seeing Hitchcock at his best and why he was, and still is, the master of suspense!