The Original and Best "Wrong Turn" Movie

Rating: 10/10 (2 November 2009)

(Spoilers – in fact, this movie should be watched by all before any reviews read. Experience it first and then learn so much more.) It pained me when I heard that M. Night Shyamalan compared himself to Alfred Hitchcock. Where Shyamalan's movies are simply dreadful, half-assed, slow and contain hilariously bad scripts, Hitchcock remains the master no matter what year you watch his films. 'Psycho' is my all-time favorite Hitchcock film, and one of the best suspenseful movies of all time. It has such depth, both the intriguing (even today) story and characters, never a dull moment was experienced here. And talk about before his time; this movie was ingenuous: The main character is not only enormously flawed (a Hitchcock staple, and one I love so much about his films – see: 'The Birds') but she dies half-way through the feature, leading the way to another, more iconic main character: Norman Bates. I personally wasn't around in 1960, but I'm sure this caused quite a stir with its graphic scenes (by today's standard, this is PG) but I'm glad they didn't just go for the gore. The story, acting, cinematography, and especially the incredible score, were all brilliant. Everything about this movie is excellence, and I am glad that this and that famous shower scene is studied in film classes. This is what movie-making is all about. Marion is attempting to "escape" with the man she loves by stealing $40,000 to pay off his debts. Though her "inner-voice" gnaws away at her since the theft, just as her conscious gets to her, Bates and his mental illness (shown superbly and believably by Perkins) puts an end to that. Everything works in this masterpiece. In fact, books could be written about all the angles this took, and I'm sure they have been.
Side Note: I live in Phoenix, AZ, and despite it being hot for a good 6-7 months out of the year, it's rarely, make that, I've never experienced a hot day in mid-December like they supposedly said it was in this film. Perhaps they made it in the summer, or they've never visited Phoenix before and assumed it's always hot. That is the only "flaw" I detected in this excellent film, and even that's really no big deal.