"A Boy's Best Friend Is His Mother ... " - June 18, 2010

(Editor’s note: Even though we’re discussing a 50-year-old movie, SPOILERS AHEAD.)

Imagine that you’re a filmgoer in 1960. You see that Alfred Hitchcock's new movie, Psycho, is going to open on June 16th. You like the star, Janet Leigh, and Hitchcock's recent pictures -- North by Northwest, The Trouble with Harry, and Vertigo -- have combined suspense, drama, and even comedy. Even his television show (Alfred Hitchcock Presents) tends to combine thrills and chuckles more often than not.

You head down to your local movie theatre (one screen, 800 seats), expecting to kill a couple of diverting hours. You have no idea what time the movie starts, but (as usual) the friendly ushers will seat you in the middle of the picture and, when you reach the point at which you came in, you’ll leave.

You arrive at the theatre and are met by a strange sign; one that tells you that no one will be seated once the picture has started. (That's odd.) Fortunately, the show is about to begin, so you plunk down your 50 cents admission and head into the cool darkness.

The movie begins and it seems to be a standard caper. Leigh's character steals $40,000 from her boss and goes on the lam. After a long drive, she checks into a roadside motel that has seen better days. After dinner with the somewhat-odd owner, she takes a refreshing shower -- and is suddenly stabbed to death in a brutal attack.

What the hell? She’s the star! She can't be dead.

And yet she is. And that was only one of the many shocks that faced the 1960 audience when Psycho opened. The movie, which was based on a novel by Robert Bloch (which was, in turn, based on the life of serial killer Ed Gein) was something audiences had never seen before in a mainstream Hollywood film: leading and supporting actors brutally murdered on screen, blood pouring down drains -- even a flushing toilet. (Seriously. It was the first one seen in a Hollywood movie since 1928.)

Here in the oh-so-sophisticated 21st century, Psycho may no longer pack the punch it once did. Nowadays, a "horror" film that doesn't feature graphic violence and oceans of gore is considered old-fashioned and tame. But Hitchcock was interested in more than shocking an audience (though he was a genius at that); he wanted to make them sweat. He often talked about the difference between "surprise" and "suspense." Surprise is when a bomb suddenly goes off; suspense is when the audience knows that bomb is going to go off at any minute but has no way to warn the characters. It's one thing for an audience to suspect that characters are going to be murdered, but when the leading lady is butchered in the first half hour, their world is upset and anything can happen.

Contemporary reviews ranged from lukewarm to outraged (the film critic of the London Observer was so offended that she quit her job), but audiences couldn't get enough, and Psycho was the highest-grossing film of Hitchcock's long career, even garnering four Academy Award nominations. 

Its cultural impact has been long-lasting: the shower scene has become iconic, as has Bernard Herrmann's screeching score. And in spite of the changes in audiences' tastes over the last half century, recent polls still rank it as one of the scariest movies ever made.

So, if you get a chance, why not load the Blu-ray into your player, turn out the lights, and give yourself a good scare. Just be careful if you shower afterward.

Suggested Sites...

Rotten Tomatoes: Psycho - 96%. Pretty fresh. Read reviews of Hitchcock's masterpiece. Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense - everything about Hitch. Psycho Trailer - one of the greatest previews ever made. Join Alfred Hitchcock on a tour of the Bates Motel. Here's Lookin' at You, Kid! - Hitchcock's Oedipal nightmare. Wikipedia: Psycho - good overview of the film, its making, and its impact.