Classic Movie Review: Psycho (1960)

Here we are. The grand finale of my 2017 Halloween-themed movie reviews. Hitchcock's greatest masterpiece, "Psycho." At least in my opinion. Hitchcock was a master at suspense and thriller, and with that being my favorite genre of film, I have a deep appreciation for Hitchcock's work. I was introduced to "Psycho" about five or so years ago after many recommendations that it was a movie that I would love. Those people were right. Not only did it blow my mind, but it hasn't really left since. After that experience, I checked out a few other Hitchcock films and was also impressed. So much so that I simply couldn't get enough and I practically binge-watched his whole filmography. One of these days I will give you a list of my top 10 Hitchcock films, but now is not the time for that. Now is the time to finally give my thoughts on "Psycho," which managed to remain my favorite Hitchcock film through all of my Hitchcock binging. Movies like "Vertigo" and "Rear Window" come close, but they don't quite match the depth and the brilliance of "Psycho." I've thought for a while now that I want to write my review of this movie, but I had a hard time determining the proper timing. At some point earlier this year I determined that this Halloween would be the day.

This is both an exciting and a daunting task. I have so many thoughts I want to get out that I've had bottled in, yet how to do so in a way that does this movie justice makes me really intimidated. Nevertheless, I will proceed. This will also be a good practice in getting all my thoughts out in a concise manner. However long this review ends up being, know that it could definitely be a lot longer. Before I dive in, I want to metaphorically get down on my hands and knees and beg everyone who hasn't seen "Psycho" to please close this review, go watch the movie and come back. Upon this movie's initial release, Hitchcock went to great lengths to make sure the secrets of the movie were preserved. Upon obtaining the film rights to Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho," he had his assistant buy as many copies as possible so that it would be difficult to obtain a copy. He also established strict guidelines at theaters that once the movie began, no one would be let and and no one would be let out. Not even the Queen of England. And he begged people who saw the movie to not share the secrets. Obviously you have the ability to choose what to do, but in true Hitchcock fashion, it is my heartfelt desire that no one who hasn't seen this movie reads this review.

In case you have continued onto this paragraph without having seen the movie, allow me to stall for just another paragraph and talk about a minor annoyance I have with a certain letter that will be printed on the back of every copy of this movie. The upper-case R in a little square box. I obviously don't have a problem with watching R-rated movies. My personal philosophy is to look at the content of the film and make my choices based on that because I think the MPAA is a flawed system that too many people lean too heavily on. There's a lot of reasons why, but "Psycho" is a classic example. Upon initial release, it was given the Approved rating by the Hays Code that existed at the time. When film ratings came out, it was given the M rating, which eventually became PG. It wasn't until the 80's when parents were flipping out about adult content in their PG movies that "Psycho" was re-branded as R, 24 years after its initial release. And right before the thing called PG-13 came into existence. I don't know why they didn't do one final change, but content-wise, "Psycho" is absolutely a PG-13 film. I bring this up simply to say that if you've decided to skip "Psycho" because of its rating, I'd beg of you to treat it as a PG-13 film, because that's what it is.

Now onto the review itself. If I were to sum up all of "Psycho" in just one statement, I would say that it's the tragic reflection of the human condition. The movie tells the story of two individuals whose lives ultimately get flushed down the drain for two very different reasons. Hitchcock had the guts to NOT give audiences the happy ending they were expecting, which was a huge deal back in 1960 when most movies were tied up in a pretty little bow. If you told the story of a girl being terrorized by a monster, the girl always survives, right? Especially when the girl is played by one of the biggest names of the day? Yeah, no. Hitchcock was very much ahead of his time and he had a lot more in mind than simply giving audiences a pretty, little story that went exactly the way they anticipated. Like, what if the main girl DIDN'T survive? And what are the life lessons that could be learned from that? Because I hate to break it to you, but life isn't always rainbows and butterflies, and Hitchcock wasn't about to just go with the flow and deliver the expected. Which is why critics of the day actually gave the movie negative reviews when it first came out. It was different. It pushed boundaries. And they didn't like that. But they eventually came around.

So yeah, these two people whose lives get flushed down the drain in this movie are Marion Crane and Norman Bates. As we watch the tragic tales of their lives unfold before us, there are two things we can do. The first thing we can do is to learn from their experiences and not repeat the same mistakes as they do. The second is to ignore their stories and end up like them. The harsh reality of life that this movie so beautifully tells is that many people will choose the latter. And I think the entire message of this is encapsulated in one conversation that the two of them have right before she goes into her room:

"You know what I think? I think that we're all all in our private traps. Clamped in them. And none of us can ever get out. We scratch and claw, but only at the air. Only at each other. And for all of it, we never budge an inch," Norman says to Marion.

"Sometimes we deliberately step into those traps," Marion responds back.

"I was born in mine. I don't mind it anymore."

"Oh, but you should. You should mind it."

"Oh, I do. But I say I don't."

Given that none of us are perfect human beings, I think there's a lot of truth in Norman's statement there. We're all trapped in our own struggles and it often seems that there is no out. Obviously there is a bigger picture present, but I also think this conversation is reflective of the mindset of each of these individuals. Norman feels trapped. He's always felt trapped. He feels there is no out. In many ways, he's accepted his fate and given up. But deep down, he wishes he could escape from this. I think there's an honest sincerity coming from Norman in this scene where he's able to express his honest opinions of life and his situation to this strange girl who he's decided to trust because she is a very attractive young lady who seems equally as troubled as he is. Thus you feel for Norman. You care about him. You wish that he could overcome these personal traps of his and find happiness. As we find out later, much of his traps come from a legitimate psychological disorder of which he doesn't have much control over. Perhaps he once did when he was much younger, but various choices he's made in his life have sent him far over the edge to the point of no return, which then makes him a rather terrifying antagonist when you realize the harm he is capable of inflicting.

More on Norman a bit later, because much of his tale is detailed in the second half of the movie. The first half of the movie is all about Marion Crane and her struggles. I'd be willing to bet that most people reading this review can relate much more to Marion Crane's story. She seemingly has a lot going for her if she would take the time to look around her. She has the physical beauty that most girls aspire to. She has a good job with co-workers and a boss that have full trust in her. She has a boyfriend who is madly in love with her. But yet she is caught up in the negatives, specifically when it comes to this thing called money. The opening dialogue of the movie is a very important one between her and her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, where they are discussing the idea of getting married, but his personal debts stand as a barrier between them. At least in Marion's mind. We can tell that she is very conflicted about this, and Janet Leigh pulls off a marvelous performance of portraying this. Thus when her boss gives her $40,000 to deposit in a bank, she secretly pockets it and begins the journey from her place in Phoenix, Arizona to Sam's home in Fairvale, California. If she gives him the $40,000, the two of them can be rich and live happily ever after.

The choice to steal the money is a heavy one that weighs on her mind quite a bit, as one might expect. It's a choice that ultimately leads her down a dark path that she doesn't feel comfortable with, making her very on edge when she interacts with a police officer and when she trades her car at the dealership for a new car. Meanwhile, while her personal choices are leading her down a dark path, the element of nature as well as getting caught up in the crossfire of other people's poor decisions also fights against her, which are elements that all of us have to deal with and sadly they are often out of our control. In this instance, when Marion is just 15 minutes away from her destination, the rain becomes too much for her to drive in and she pulls off at the Bates Motel, a decision that would turn out to be fatal. Not that we can blame her for this because she had no idea what she was getting herself into. But nevertheless, she would not walk out of that motel alive. The time at that motel allowed her time for self-reflection about her choices she had made. That and conversations with Norman Bates helped her determine that she was going to right her wrongs and return home. In both a literal and metaphorical sense, she steps into the shower to cleanse herself.

There's a lot that could be said about this famous shower scene. It's certainly the most powerful and shocking moment in this movie and thus honestly one of my personal favorite movie scenes in the history of cinema. Yes, part of that is the shock value. I mean, they spent 50 minutes building this character of Marion Crane and then the movie kills her off. That was unheard of for 1960 and thus is the perfect movie twist that sends one reeling, because now the audience has no idea what direction the movie is going to go. Another part of that is the effort it took to construct this scene. They took two weeks to film this one scene and there is a ton of brilliant splicing. I counted somewhere around 40 different cuts in this short sequence all edited together in a way that makes the scene flow perfectly without having to do any actual stabbing or showing any nudity. Add onto that the sound effects and the iconic score and you have a masterwork of a scene. And of course seeing Norman slowly creep up from the background might be one of the most unsettling images that'll you'll see. If you go weeks without ever taking a shower after watching this movie, I wouldn't blame you. Combine that with the bathtub scene in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and you just might never clean yourself again.

Even though I could spend 2-3 paragraphs on each of those three elements that I crammed into that one paragraph, there's another element of this scene that I think is what makes the scene so great and that is the emotional weight that it carries. Here's a girl who represents the common human and the mistakes that we make. I honestly feel that I connect with Marion and thus I care deeply for her. And it is so sad that the moment she decides to change her life around is the moment that she gets killed. You can say there's a flicker of hope that she was putting herself in the right direction, but I can't help feeling the sensation of "too little, too late" applying to her and it makes me scared that something similar could happen to me. I mean, I don't consider myself a horrible person, but none of us are perfect and all of us have wrongs that we want to make right. But what if we are like Marion and don't get the chance to? That's a scary thought. Thus seeing Marion slide down the shower wall, reach out and grab the shower curtain, and then flop over dead is the saddest moment ever. Then we cut to the water and blood draining down the shower drain, transitioning into a close up of her and eye and face, and it's honestly almost too much for me to handle.

Whenever I'm watching this movie on my own, this is the moment where I almost have to pause the movie. It is a signal of the ending of the first half of the movie and I need time. I did the same thing last night when I re-watched the movie. I paused the movie at the head shot of Marion Crane and I spent an hour or more in personal reflection. In fact, I almost decided to stop the movie there and pick up the second half in the morning. The next time you watch "Psycho," I'd recommend trying the same. Stop the movie at that moment and let the gravity of the situation simmer into your soul. I only continued because I wanted to get this review out before it got too late on Halloween. But it still took a while to get through. I also honestly think that if the movie ended right there, transitioning from dead Marion to end credits featuring sad music, that it would be en extremely effective 50 minute short film. But nevertheless, we have to continue. After seeing Marion die, I want that hate and anger to simmer in me and to unleash it all on Norman Bates. But I can't. Because it's just as much of a tragedy on the part of Norman because I think he was able to connect with Marion on a level that he probably never connected with anyone before. And he, himself, didn't really kill her.

Thus the second half of the movie begins with Norman crying out to his Mother for the awful tragedy she has committed in Marion, while then being forced to take Marion's dead body, throwing it in the trunk of her car and sending the car to the bottom of the swamp. So what in the heck is going on? I really love a good mystery movie and that's what the second half of this movie is. Now that we know what Norman is capable of, we have Marion's sister Lila Crane teaming with Marion's boyfriend Sam Loomis and Detective Milton Arbogast to uncover the mystery of Norman Bates. Arbogast would've figured it out, but he ends up dead in the movie's lone jump scare, which is quite brilliant if I might add, resulting him being put into the same swampy grave as Marion a few movie minutes before. Now Lila and Sam are super confused because both Marion and Arbogast are missing and they are dead set on talking to Norman's mother, the old lady in the house who they think holds all the answers. Adding to their confusion is that the police chief is convinced that Norman's mother died 10 years prior, which is a huge curveball because we as an audience heard Mother yelling at Norman while Lila and Sam saw her in the window. So again, what's going on?

If you made it this far without seeing the movie, well shame on you. Because the twist of the movie made me gasp so loud when I first watched the movie, which I personally had the pleasure of knowing practically nothing about going in, outside knowing about a famous shower scene and that Norman Bates wasn't a very nice person. But here I thought Norman was simply a troubled young man who gets devastated when his mother kills all of his love interests. Yeah, he was a bit messed up, especially when he spies on Marion undressing through his peephole, but the mother was the killer, right? Well, wrong. Lila finds the downstairs cellar where Mother is hiding, taps her on the shoulder, which spins the chair around to reveal a rotten corpse. Yeah, Norman's mother has been dead for a long time. Thus once Sam comes in and saves Lila from suffering the same fate as Marion, Norman is turned in to the police, who come have a psychologist figure out what's going on with Norman. That psychologist then explains to us as the audience the mysteries of this movie, which stems from Norman suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder after killing his mother 10 years prior when she fell in love with a man, causing Norman to be jealous that he wasn't her main focus. It's a bit of a unique relationship to say the least.

Is the portrayal of Dissociative Identity Disorder, or D.I.D., done accurately in "Psycho"? I'm not sure. It's definitely a real disorder where a traumatic experience can cause multiple personalities to exist in one's mind. When certain triggers go off, other personalities take over and the original personality has no idea what happened when it comes back. The trigger for Norman is whenever he starts feeling romantic feelings towards anyone. Because Norman got jealous when his mother fell in love with another man, when he killed her and sent his mind spiraling into D.I.D. with the mother personality taking over in his head, he assumes with that personality that she felt the same way. Thus Norman is never allowed to love. So when he starts loving anyways, the mother personality takes over and kills the girl. Again, I don't know how realistic this is for real D.I.D. Can there be situations where a part of your personality is a serial killer? I have no idea. I do know that Robert Bloch loosely based Norman Bates off of the real life psychopath Ed Gein, but I don't think he suffered from D.I.D. He was just a creep who did a lot of disgusting things, even though we wasn't technically a serial killer due to him only being charged for two kills. But eh. Semantics.

Realistic or not, I think having Norman Bates suffer from D.I.D. and kill because of that is a fascinatingly unique way to set up a serial killer. It adds a whole lot of depth and connectivity to his character. He's not a killer who goes around killing for the heck of it. There's motive and there is purpose. Norman Bates is as equally interesting of a character, perhaps even more so, than Marion Crane is. When you can care for your protagonist and your antagonist, completely understanding each person's motive and reasoning, I think that makes for a much better horror movie than having serial killers killing for the sake of killing. Even though I still see "Psycho" as more of a psychological thriller than an all-out horror film, it is considered the very first slasher horror film as all of our 70's/80's slasher horrors, of which I've reviewed a handful of this Halloween season, took inspiration directly from "Psycho." In my opinion, though, most of them were never able to capture the magic of why "Psycho" was so good. Hitchcock left a gold standards of how to make proper horrors and thrillers. That formula was mixed around. Even though the result was often successful, none of them ever had as much depth and power as "Psycho." They went for the simple entertainment instead.

If you made it this far into the review, give yourself a big pat on the back and make sure to reward yourself this week. That was a long read. But I think you all know that was coming with this movie and I'm glad that I finally got around to reviewing "Psycho." I honestly hate declaring a favorite movie because there's so many movies that I haven't seen. Literally hundreds of movies have been made each year for the last hundred years and there's no way I will ever be able to see them all. So how can I declare a favorite? Of the movies I have seen, there's a lot of movies that I love for completely different reasons, so it's often hard to compare that way, too. But nevertheless, I absolutely love psychological thrillers. That specific subgenre of film is my favorite. Thus when it comes to diving deep into the psychology of two very different characters in a very thrilling way, it doesn't get any better than "Psycho." Pondering on both Norman Bates and Marion Crane, watching their stories weave together, is beyond fascinating to me. I honestly don't know if there's been a more impactful film that I've spent this much time thinking of. When it comes to my grade of "Pyscho," do I really need to say this? Was there any question going in? Of course "Psycho" gets a 10/10.