Reel Horror

Psycho (Collector's Edition) asin: 0783225849

Doghead is our reviewer from Sweden.

The year is 1960. Your name is Alfred Hitchcock and you are a successful film director. But you get the feeling that you are losing your "touch", because there are so much money in the films you do, to guarantee the profit. You see a lot of young movie makers stuff, and you came too think: Hey! What would happen if a director whit my nolage would make a low budget movie? Perhaps that's what went down in Sir Alfred's head, when he decided to shot Psycho. And what a movie it became!

It's a story bout Norman Bates, a young and disturbed man, who likes to punish himself, when he gets horny for a visitor at the motel he runs. This is best done by dressing up as his dead mother, and killing the object for his hot feelings. Marion Crane, rents a room over the night, and Norman finds the girl sexy. And his "mother" has to punish him again, for the filthy thoughts. On with the dress.

This is one of the best movies ever made. And it contains the "shower scene". A scene that still makes people feel uncomfortable in the bathroom, when the shower curtain is wrong. In that scene you can really study a master of movie-making in action. He uses the camera as a knife, by rapidly changing picture, as Norman stabs the woman. In the same way you hear a sound that gives you a feeling of a woman screaming combined with the sound of a knife. ( At least in my ears)

Another great thing in this film is that Hitch lets us feel sympathy for the murderer. We all (admit it) feel just as nervous as Norman, when the car for a few seconds, want to sink in the swamp. And that is strange, because we have just seen him slaughter that poor shower girl. When this movie came, the audience didn't know that Norman was the killer until the end, but everybody knows it now.

If you haven't seen this movie, and are into horror movies, I really think you would enjoy a staying at Bates Motel.

Make sure you don't get a copy of the remake from 1999.