BY MATT ROSE
Psycho has been called the “the first psychoanalytical thriller” (Kaganski). and received mixed reviews when it premiered in 1960. Now however, it is considered to be Hitchcock’s greatest film (The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time), even going so far as to have spawned two sequels, a prequel, and even a T.V. spinoff series (imdb.com). Based off a book inspired by actual events, the film seems plausible enough to happen to anyone.
I loved watching Psycho in a theater. The electric atmosphere intoxicated me even farther as I slipped into Hitchcock’s world. The laughter and screams magnified as they jumped from person to person around the room, as the audience added their own little soundtrack to go along with the macabre instrumentals of the movie.
Walking in, I had no idea what to expect. I had previously heard bits and pieces about the movie, but I had no idea when those pieces would come into play. I knew the shower scene from many allusions, yet I still jumped as the figure rushed in with a knife. Hitchcock played the tension really well in this movie. Knowing something would happen couldn’t protect you from all the side tangents Hitchcock implied.
At first, the situation just seems like a crazy, jealous, controlling mother trying to protect her son. The plot gets more complicated when we find out that the mother died 10 years ago. Instantly, little theories jumped into my mind. I had seen the mother stabbing the girl, I had seen her! But this theory only left that Norman Bates had killed some other girl to fill his mother’s tomb. I was convinced at this time that Norman was a good person (he had appeared so sweet when first introduced on-screen), but maybe he was a little crazy about his devotion to his mother.
Norman’s sweetness slowly slipped throughout the movie, foremost with his amusing little hobby of killing birds and stuffing their carcasses. While I have known some people who stuffed big game they hunted, the thought of killing and stuffing animals simply for boredoms sake struck me as odd. I started wondering how to know we can trust people. We’re told to never judge a book by its cover, which certainly would be good in this case, yet if we wait to see what’s on the inside of a tiger, we may just end up finding out. So when my instincts started ringing warning bells about the stuffing of the animals, the best thing would have been to lock the door, and sleep (or shower) with one eye open.
The best tragedies are the ones with characters we could connect to, and I think this is what made Psycho so wonderful. We could see this plot happening to a love one, or even ourselves, and it terrified us.
Leave a Comment
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
