An absolute master-class in film

Rating: 9/10 (5 April 2016)

An absolute classic, if you haven't seen this yet you must have been living under a rock Shame on you for not watching it and make a note to immediately get a copy and watch it. What can I say that hasn't already been said about this film?
I could tell you that Janet Leigh only ever took baths after watching the famous shower scene played out on a big screen and realising how vulnerable women in showers were. I could tell you that liquid chocolate was used for blood to make it look more authentic in black and white in the film. I could tell you that Hitchcock decided to film in black and white on purpose because he wanted to keep the costs down and also because he was fed up with the star studded glossy films of the time. I could even tell you that Bernard Herrmann's musical score inspired Hitchcock to double the fee Herrmann was receiving, especially after seeing and hearing the shower scene which Hitchcock had originally intended to be silent.
This film has been talked about, written about, studied and idolised to death - but deservedly so, so lets not look at trivia and facts and progress with this review.
Psycho is a departure from the standard horror movies of the time which generally had physical monsters in them. This film looked more at the human psyche and how much of a horror your average Joe Anybody could be - and believe me Anthony Perkins does a fine job on delivering that. The film helped to break a lot of stereotypes which Hollywood had in place and with it's perfectly emotional delivery the films is an absolute master-class on how to make something out of seemingly very little.
This is arguably Hitchcock's finest film and plays on many emotions through sight, sound and feel. An amazing cast of stars bring the characters to life, the setting is authentic and feels right and the musical score (Bernard Herrmann) is just as famous as the film itself, both rely heavily on each other to deliver perfection but it could equally be said that they would be brilliant standing alone too. Although I wasn't around during the 60's and 70's I have been led to believe that this film is as authentic as it comes for summing up the era and this is absolutely down to Hitchcock vision. If you sit down having not seen this before you could mistakenly think this is a robbery/heist based film with the leading lady, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) on the run from her employer for stealing $40k. Although stealing is bad Marion being the central lead assumes the role of heroine and the audience are almost encouraged to root for her. As it turns out the money is not that important and soon takes a back seat to the plot - albeit the other characters looking for Marion are motivated in part by the desire to find the money and clear or validate the accusation Marion is facing. Up until arriving at the Bates motel you are only fed snippets of information about Marion, any time you get close to discovering more about her via the other characters, they are soon met with a dead end. Norman Bates (Perkins) seems to manage to delve the deepest into Marion but what he finds out isn't happy news to his mothers ears.
I'm not going to delve too much into the plot of the rest of the film in case you haven't seen it - the last thing I wasn't to do is spoil the ending (if you are one of a few people who haven't actually seen this). What I will say is watch this and enjoy, it's a good old fashioned horror film which has embedded itself in pop culture and the halls of film legend due to it's depth, charm and it's absolute quality.