60 years since Psycho (1960)

SKREECH! SKREECH! SKREECH!  

Yes, it's time to talk about things most horrific, in time for the season, but also what happens to be my favorite of Hitchcock's canon. Its influence goes far beyond making people afraid to take showers--for entire realms of blood-splattered cinema would arise over the decades in its wake, challenging the limits of what could be shown, and still resonating to this day sixty years on. It's the masterwork of shock, it's the progenitor of the slasher--it's Psycho. Spoilers will follow below, so if this is one you want to check out by yourself first, you've been warned. 

After North by Northwest, Hitchcock chose to downsize, ironically enough. Gone was filming in color, gone was extravagant location-hopping, focused on something more down to earth. You're probably familiar with the basic setup--an embezzling secretary (Janet Leigh) goes on the lam with 40,000 dollars, making her way from Arizona to California. It starts off as a rather tense roadtrip movie, effectively, that soon changes track in more ways than one.

Hitchcock, master as always, doesn't waste time in laying on the suspense. Leigh's character is visibly wracked by paranoia the whole trip--and this is only exacerbated when she has a rather nervous encounter with a somewhat nosy road cop, who probably ends up being the most physically threatening figure in the film. Both she and perhaps the less assuming viewer seem to expect a relief from all this when she checks into the remote Bates Motel, with the young friendly Norman (Anthony Perkins) there to be of assistance. But, once her conversations with this slightly awkward but otherwise well-meaning man start getting stranger, once mutual suspicion starts to rise, that's when we know things are up. And it all comes to a head with that iconic bathroom stabbing--those piercing strings, the blood trickling in, leaving the rest to your imagination...it's a classic sequence over half a century later for a reason. 

Killing off Leigh was a bold move for then, and even now if you're watching it blind for the first time, it can be a bit jarring--especially after all the time we spent following her every move. Still, it does make for an interesting latter act once you consider the followup characters who arrive trying to track her down are in a mystery the viewer already knows the answer to. And with Norman not taking kindly to these either, once again, we find ourselves on a sharpening knife-edge waiting for everything to go down. Perkin's excellent performance, the taxidermy-littered interior of the motel, and best of all, the shadowy interior of the gothic house his mother supposedly dwells in overlooking it all...it all adds up to a great atmosphere waiting for the bloodshed to interject. 

Perkins is indeed the real star--considering this was still filmed in the fifties, his acting his so much more naturalistic than what you usually have with the accusative way folks in that era usually played it. He's got all sorts of nervous tics, he's like an awkward kid...ironically, he feels almost like a deconstruction of the future invincible, masked, mute killers like Jason Voorhees, or even masterminds like Hannibal Lecter. He's not a juggernaut, or particularly smart--he's a fundamentally broken boy struggling with a murderous split personality. Though Psycho inspired future 'stabbing killer' movies for decades to come, it still seems to defy some of those cliches they later set up. 

If there's one somewhat ill-fitting scene, it's at the end, where someone has to essentially explain what's up with Norman to the rest of the cast--bearing in mind that at the time, concepts like split personalities weren't that well known beyond something fanciful like Jekyll and Hyde. Now, it just kind of drags and feels like it's spelling out what the viewer's already figured out. Still, it's nice that they spell out that Norman dressing up for his 'mother' personality isn't related to any issue of gender, which was considerate particularly for the time; and it is followed up by the end scene, where Perkins puts on perhaps the best evil smile in all of cinema. The way it zooms, accompanied by the ever-creepy narration...it's a favorite image of mine for damn sure. 

The last expression you want to see when you ask about your driving test results. 

Now, we have to talk about the rest. I've touched on Psycho's horror legacy, but as with any success, the film industry couldn't leave well enough alone. Twenty years later, we had a string of sequels in the eighties, bringing back Perkins and more or less putting the focus squarely on Norman. Hitchcock was dead, the focus seemed to be more on just the stabbing...but surprisingly, the Psycho sequels do have their defenders. I haven't seen all of them, beyond chunks of the second and fourth on television, but for what they were, there did seem to be more effort put in that you'd think. Perkins largely carries it all, trying his best give his excellent emoting as the second as Norman try to rehabilitate itself-- the fourth seems to dig into his past, and why he became the way he was. Hitchcock would've undoubtedly done it better, but with the right expectations, it does seem that they might not be an awful a watch as many would assume.

Except Psycho 3. Nobody I've seen seems to want to defend that. And you know what else nobody wants to defend? The 1998 remake!

Now that's just the face of your stoner friend that still thinks his chilli farts are funny. 

Yeah. It's the worst kind. It's literally just shot-for-shot with different actors--except, sometimes, they take the daring and subversive route of replicating a scene with the opposite panning direction Hitchcock did! What sublime auteurs! Oh, and Norman is played by Vince Vaughn. Apparently it's more accurate to how he was described physically in the original book, but then again, who cares. This sort of remake is the sort I hate watching and hate talking about, because there's just not a whole lot to see or say. Even a crappy one that goes in some nutball direction would provide conversation fodder. 

So yeah, that's basically all there is to say about that one. There was also the Bates Motel series in the 2010s, which I saw a few episodes of here and there; like the fourth movie, it focuses on Norman's childhood (though being set in contemporary times as opposed to the 1940s or so means it's not really 'canon'). It seemed passable, but it vacated my mind in short order if I'm being honest. 

Still, none of these detract from the first, nor the legacy it created. Black Christmas, Halloween, Friday 13th...these all went directions of their own, and some of them, we'll talk about soon. Either way, Psycho's great, the rest you can take or leave, and make sure you keep an eye on your shower door...