My favourite film of all time!

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2014)

By far the greatest work of The Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. When I watched this film for the first time aged 16, I was sucked in by the plot, the characters, Bernard Herrmann's score and the terrific acting. I went in knowing one thing about the movie, and that was that there is a shower scene. It was the first Hitchcock film I'd ever seen and it was the first mystery/thriller I'd ever seen. Now I am a big fan of both Hitch and the genre.
The best aspect of this movie is the fantastic acting. What can you say that hasn't already been said about the performance of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates except that it's a tragedy he wasn't nominated for an Oscar. His delivering of the script, his shyness and sudden twists is one of the best acting performances I've witnessed. But that doesn't take away from the rest of the cast. Janet Leigh is wonderful Marion Crane, and supporting talent from John Gavin, Martin Balsam and especially Vera Miles, make for a film you can watch over and over.
This is the first film I ever saw where afterwards, I wanted to know everything there was to know about it. I watched all the making of documentaries I could find, I wanted to watch all the sequels (Psycho II is also very good by the way) and I even chose the film as my specialist subject in a quiz we did in my college.
I recommend this film to everyone. It's full of twists, turns and surprises that keep you guessing write till the end, and I mean the very end. You can't take your eyes of the screen. You're engrossed by these characters and the plot that you don't want to miss a second.
Suspenseful, sophisticated, chilling, thrilling and an absolute masterpiece of film making.