Clever, Engrossing...and Terrifying

Rating: 10/10 (26 May 2003)

CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
What sets this film apart from the 'slasher horror' genre is the fact that it actually has a well-written, well-performed script. Rather than the dialogue serving merely as links between gruesome murders, the script is loaded with innuendo, emotion, and most importantly, clues.
The 'sympathy' aspect of the film begins in the opening scene, when Marion Crane is upset that she must meet her lover in secret and cannot yet marry him. She believes she is hard-done-by and put-upon...until she meets Norman Bates, a good-hearted but spineless young man who is kept tightly under the thumb of his dominating mother.
The scene in the motel parlor between Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh demonstrates the high level of acting that went into this film. It contains some of the film's most memorable lines, including:
"Mother, what is the phrase...isn't quite herself today."
"A boy's best friend is his mother."
"She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes."
One does not watch this film merely for the forty-five second shower scene (although that scene alone, still as horrifying the fiftieth time as the first, is well worth it). It is well-written, acted, and especially directed. Besides the shower, there are countless memorable scenes and shots that require no dialogue at all:
--> The first appearance of the motel and house
--> The room of stuffed birds
--> Norman's 10-minute 'clean up'
--> Martin Balsam going down the stairs
--> The discovery of Mother in the basement
In my opinion, this is the scariest movie of all time. Ghosts, vampires and demons are all very well...but THIS story could actually come true.
(Don't go in the shower!)