The most suspenseful film I have ever seen. A classic.

Rating: 10/10 (1 October 2008)

Alfred Hitchcock famously said: "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." I think that what Hitchcock meant by the line is that a moment in a movie that is considered 'scary', such as a murder or a stabbing, is not scary at all on its own; it is the lead-up to and anticipation of it that is scary. I agree with this statement, especially in the case of 'Psycho'. The murder scenes in 'Psycho' are very sub-par by today's standards, in that you don't see much blood (and the blood you do see isn't very vivid, as it is black and white), and in one stabbing scene, you don't even see the knife penetrate the victim's flesh. The murder scenes are also obviously fake, and by today's standards of gore, are almost laughable.
However, these negative points boil down to almost nothing when you compare it with the positive points in "Psycho", and I believe that some of the biggest positive points of the movie were the extremely well made suspense sequences, especially the scene where Lila Crane is in the house at the end. Alfred Hitchcock is known as "The Master of Suspense" and these scenes are a very good example of why he is called that. As Hitchcock said, the terror is in the suspense. In this movie, there are only three sequences which could be defined as "violent", although, because of the heart-pumping terror of the suspense scenes, "Psycho" is, for me, one of the scariest movies I've seen.
When comparing "Psycho" to new horror movies, "Psycho" wins hands down. While most modern horror movies are infinitely more violent than "Psycho", none of them seem to have the same gripping, heart-wrenching feeling because of their lack of suspense. With most new horror movies I have seen, such as "Saw" the movie didn't really get much scarier after the first bit of violence. For "Psycho", the effect was almost opposite, and the lack of violence was, in fact, one of the movies strengths.
I would say that "Psycho" is what a real horror movie is. When making a horror movie, one should focus less on the gore, and take a page out of Hitchcock's book by focusing on the suspense.
A solid 10/10!