Works because of the performances

Rating: 7/10 (29 October 2007)

Reviewing Alfred Hitchcock's famed black and white opus Psycho from a 21st century perspective gives the film less credit than it deserves. For it's time, it was revolutionary. Now, it is just a well acted, yet somewhat dated horror film. The editing in the shower scene has become a clichÃ© in pop culture, but one cannot deny the original brilliance of the scene. The movie really only works as well as it does because of the performances of Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. Perkins never really had another role he was better in, save Mike Nichols' Catch-22, a personal favorite. After Hitchcock died, he later starred and directed in numerous Psycho sequels before Perkins' eventual death. Hitchcock's killing of Leigh at the onset is also quite ground-breaking. It was mirrored in Wes Craven's Scream with the Drew Barrymore character, as well as in many other pictures.
Psycho also created the character of Dr. Sam Loomis, a name later used in the other revolutionary horror film, John Carpenter's Halloween. Overall, the movie doesn't age as horrible as some other select black and white 50's-60's horror films, but nevertheless it does age a reasonable amount, leading to many cringe worthy and laughable scenes, most likely due lackluster performances by the rest of the cast, low production values, and shady effects and "skeletons."