We're all caught in our private traps...

Rating: 9/10 (20 October 2007)

"We're all caught in our private traps, we scratch and claw at the air, at each other, but for all of it, we never budge an inch".
Yes, "Psycho" is missing the vibrancy of "North by Northwest", vividity of "Vertigo", ambiguity of "The Birds", and claustrophobia of "Rear Window", but it is a unique movie in its very own league. With Hitchcock's sharp eye with little details, genius camera angles, and keen sense of generating suspense and tension, "Psycho" is multi-layered and richly-textured film, actually this is Master's last great picture.
The film starts out very slowly. During the first hour, Hitchcock focuses on a single specific event and takes the viewer somewhat familiar point mostly seen in classic film noirs: a confused woman, being stuck in an impasse with a lover bogged down in financial woes, steals money off her employer. Things becomes to go awry en route California (where her lover lives), while she encounters some "MacGuffins" such as a mysterious patrolman and suspicious used-car salesman, both are the harbingers of incipient tension and terror. Her edgy trip ends in a sleazy motel off the main highway in a rainy night. Hitchcock startles the viewer while central female antagonist dies half-way through the film, and takes us another sinister place where the real secret is revealed. From this point, Anthony Perkins lead the show as twitchy motel keeper with peculiar idiosyncrasies. This is the role of his life, as everybody is waiting horrified whenever this schizoid time bomb will go off.
From the very beginning, Hitchcock imbues the film with a heavy atmosphere of impending doom. Blood-chilling strings of composer Bernard Herrmann adds greatly to the overall moodiness. Today's horror/thrillers depend too much on graphic violence, where blood, gore, decapitations, and dismembered bodies galore. Not overly violent and with almost no blood and gore, the unshakable effectiveness "Psycho" mutters up comes from what is implied, but not shown. He always used to make the audience use their imagination. This is the greatness of Hitchcock.
Now for the downside, I found the second half of the film somewhat forced. Private eye Arbogast's insatiable obsession with Norman and his ill mother is totally unconvincing. Lila's (Marion's sister) intuition about something bad had happened in the motel is groundless. Sam and Lila's visit to the motel and their sureness about Marion's stay in room number 1 is totally implausible. Also, the secret of the film is predictable half-way through, as soon as all the pieces are put in proper places. But, neither of these weak points undermine the cleverness and effectiveness of this great piece of cinema. "Psycho" is definitely a classic and deserves to be called so.