Flawless

Rating: 10/10 (22 October 2006)

A groundbreaking film from beginning to end even by today's standards. Psycho has been reviewed over and over in Film schools and Universities and with very good reason. Alfred Hitchcock was a savage stuffed bird genius. He was so very inventive, courageously creative and true to his cause. He was so ahead of his time. Psycho has no clichÃ©s, on the contrary it broke boundaries and crushed all sorts of taboos in film making. Apart from shocking this film must have been downright scandalous too. This film is great from all angles. Starts with Janet Leigh fleeing the city with the stolen cash like an escaped canary to freedom or the unknown dangers outside. Hitchcock was obsessed with birds and totally inspired by them, yes hence the movie 'The Birds'. The suspense in Psycho is superb. We are constantly at the edge of our seats and what comes to us is way beyond our expectations and imagination. Anthony Perkins was perfect for the role which was to follow him for the rest of his days. He even had the right shape for this part and that is were I think they failed the most in trying to remake this film, it was a small but very effective detail, they did not take into consideration the shape of this man Hitchcock had chosen. Hitchcock was also the first as far as I know to ever slash our starring attractive blonde actress to pieces in the middle of the movie and sending the film off into another direction with our suspense at its peak. The shower scene is an all time classic that must have downright shocked the audience at the time because even watching it today will keep you with it imprinted in your memory forever, no matter what we are used to seeing on our screens today. The irony in those shots is that as they were being shot Hitchcock is going "cut" "cut" "cut".....That knife is the beak of a bird of prey. Metaphorically there are birds everywhere in this film as in most of his work. The mother is a stuffed bird.