Psycho, indeed.

I’ve always had this aversion towards horror movies ever since a friend of mine made me sit down and watch ‘the Ring’, which is supposed to be this cult horror movie. This was quite a few years ago and it genuinely did scare the daylights out of me, although I find it absurd that it did now.  I mean, some person coming out of a television screen and trying to kill you isn’t expected to be that terrifying. Psycho, I had watched a few years after the ring experience with my mother, who thought that ‘Psycho’and ‘Rear Window’ by Alfred Hitchcock are two movies I really must watch. My mother always said that the very famous bathroom scene in Psycho gives you goose pimples and really does scare you; as opposed to the same friend who made me watch the ring, who said Psycho was a joke and the bathroom scene was anything but scary and that she laughed through the film. Now that I’ve watched both of them and yes, I understand that Psycho isn’t a horror film by genre but I feel incredibly silly to even compare the two films. Psycho is immoderately better than some silly new age horror film of the 21^st century with strange ghosts coming out of television screens and killing people. Horror films today have no story and meaning to them; they seem almost pointless to me.

Coming back to Psycho, the main character, Marion is shown to be on the run with a large wad of cash and eventually has to stay at this shady looking motel for the night. The proprietor of the motel, Norman Bates seems to be this young, amiable chap. He asks Marion to have dinner with him and over dinner he tells Marion of about his mother who is mentally ill. Norman comes across as a nice, genuinely friendly, amiable chap. Afterwards Marion is shown to be taking a shower, during which a shadowy figure crops up from behind the curtain and stabs her to death. The scene really is quite haunting with Marion’s echoing screams. Norman Bates then comes into the bathroom to find Marion’s body. We are expected to believe here, that Norman believes his mentally ill mother is responsible for the murder and he has to cover up for her. Through the film, we see this detective come up to the motel only to be murdered by Norman Bates and then Marion’s sister and fiancé are shown to come to the motel to find out what is happening in the suspicious motel. Norman Bates is quite nervous and fidgety when the detective and Marion’s sister and fiancé turn up unexpectedly and question him, leading them to believe that something fishy is up. During their visit, we see Marion’s sister almost getting murdered by Norman Bates, who is dressed as a woman. We are also horrified as the corpse of his mother is revealed. After this sequence of events, we finally understand that Norman Bates was the killer all along.

Later on, it is revealed that Norman Bates has a multiple personality disorder, and he had killed his mother when he was younger after finding his mother in bed with another man. He probably never recovered from the guilt of the incident and assumed his mother’s personality too. In the end, after everything is revealed we are shown that his mother’s personality is the dominant one within him.

Psycho was such a great classic suspense and thriller film created by of course, the renowned Alfred Hitchcock and I don’t think the brilliance of the film could ever die out with generations. The film makes you cower away in parts, make you sit up on your chair wondering what’ll happen next, it even makes you want to close your eyes in parts. The director really is a genius, for the film is so spectacularly made. Each and every scene seems well thought out and brings about some reaction or the other from the audience. It surpasses most films similar to its genre in today’s day so easily. Apart from all the praise for the direction, the acting is good too. Anthony Perkins gives the audience the jitters with his wonderful portrayal of the spooky Norman Bates with multiple personalities. The entire film has this eerie feel to it, especially towards the end. The huge success of Psycho is probably because everything seems so real and plausible in the film, so unlike a ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’.  It really is a must watch film, even if you don’t like other films of the same genre; Psycho is just something else, it’s incomparable.