One of Hitchcock's very best works, and among Herrmann's finest scores

Rating: 10/10 (11 July 2013)

Despite being shot in 1960, when colour technology had taken over and was thriving, Alfred Hitchcock decided to shoot his masterpiece "Psycho" in black and white, in order to keep his budget down. However the black and white adds so much more suspense and mystery to the film, which keeps throwing curveballs at the audience. It tells the story of Marion Crane (at the start anyway), a woman who decides one day to run away with Having done this, she becomes instantly paranoid, convinced that a policeman is following her. While driving off in the rain, she gets panicked, and checks in at a strange motel called "Bates Motel", inhabited only by a young looking Norman Bates and his mysteriously unseen mother.
I don't really want to say more about the plot than that, since it's a film that constantly surprises with its plot. Sure, 90% of people know about the famous "shower scene" which is still very scary to this day, but what comes after it was very unexpected for me. I had no idea at the 60 minute mark where the film was going to go. Anthony Perkins' performance as the calm looking but psychopathically twisted Norman Bates is a fine one, and there is a lot of depth and evil concealed behind his eyes for most of the film. From the first moment we see him, you are certain he's a killer, he's just got an evil look to him.
The set design and cinematography are both fantastic, and the Bates house is particularly creepy standing atop the hill. The opening shot of the cityscape is also great, with the camera gliding over into the hotel room. What really makes this movie so incredible to me is the soundtrack. Bernard Herrmann here provides one of his very best movie scores, with so much menacing, anger and suspense in every cue. The violence of the "Prelude" music sets the audience up instantly for a thriller, and even though the first 25 minutes are fairly tame, the music keeps returning to remind you that something is coming. Also, the fact that he writes only 4 proper cues which he reuses throughout the whole first 50 minutes is incredible, because they don't seem monotonous, and have a new side to them each time.
In short, because I really don't want to give much away, this is an absolute masterpiece, one of Hitchcock's very best works. It's got violence, suspense, drama and thrills, and somehow a lot of depth along with that.