First movie of the modern era

Rating: 10/10 (1 October 2018)

Young audiences today no doubt find it hard to believe that a horror classic such as this could have been made without a thought toward youngsters going to see it. But PSYCHO was made when nearly all top quality directors were making movies routinely for adults. It would be another 8 or 10 years before studios would discover the youth market as perhaps an answer to their financial woes. Flash forward to the present when adults have to hunt for the elusive independent, unpublicized gems that are available today for them.
Hence this thriller makes the audience wait 45 minutes for the first scare. That script would never get shot today. But when that scare came, it was a pip- killing the star off half way through! Something new had happened here, and Hitch became the first to insist no one be admitted to the theater after the movie had begun. At that time it was common for patrons to walk into movies at any time and stay to see the start of the next show up to the time they
had come in. Hitch changed the way audiences went to the movies.
It suddenly became okay for major stars and directors to develop nasty or violent projects that would always be a thorn in the side to conservative producers. Eight years after PSYCHO, Bonnie and Clyde would break new ground too with its technicolor bloodshed in that film.
After all these years, it's still painful to decide which of his films is his best. Is it the cold brilliance of this, or the hauntingly beautiful tragedy of Vertigo - or the terrifying, inexplicable The Birds?