THE Most Influential Movie of All Time

Rating: 10/10 (31 May 2010)

I challenge you to think of a more influential movie than Alfred Hitchcock's psycho. Such a movie does not exist.

Psycho created its own genre: Sure, there were monster, killer, and "horror" movies prior to 1960, but Psycho is the first actually good one. All pre-Psycho films are merely proto-horror movies. People still watch Psycho and, importantly, they still watch it as a horror movie. When people watch Frankenstein or Dracula, they are watching it for A) a laugh, or B) because it's famous. While Dracula and Frankenstein might sell in cheap monster movie box sets, Psycho still sells as a movie on its own, and to a wide and diverse audience that includes kids, adults, cinema lovers, and nacho lovers. No need to mention that every horror movie since Psycho is inspired by Psycho. This brings us to the next point...

Psycho is still a little bit scary: At its release, this movie had people screaming and throwing up. This does not happen anymore, but VERY few movies can legitimately scare people for more than a few years after they're released. I'm not claiming that Psycho is still legitimately scary, but compare it to more recent horror movies such as Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street. Those movies are also no longer scary, and Psycho is in fact (in my opinion) scarier to a modern audience. Thus, it has stood the test of time as well as one could hope.

The music: you all know it, your grandma knows it, and your 4-year old knows it. How many movies have stolen this score almost note for note?

One last thing. Critics everywhere regard Psycho as a masterpiece, but often include a little clause about the psychiatrist scene and how it's out of place. I'll admit that when I first watched the movie, I was petrified when the psychiatrist started his speech because I, too, thought that this would be the undoing of a would-be masterpiece. However, my fears were not realized. Every time I've watched the movie since, I actually enjoy this scene and I don't feel the need to justify it by saying, "Oh, people back then needed this kind of scene to make sense of the movie and it's just dated now." No, I can 100% truthfully say that I think the scene adds to the movie, and I consider myself brutally honest when it comes to Hitchcock movies, even though I am a fan. I feel that Vertigo, Shadow of a Doubt, and Notorious are all overrated and have problems, but not Psycho.