Psycho (1960) Review

Written by: Gardenofstone10   

Always a difficult task to put such a great film into so many words.  Let's start off quickly with the plot, as if we don't already know it.

Marion Crane steals 40,000 dollars from her company and goes on the run with it.  She buys a used car.  She gets tired in the rain and finds The Bates Motel.  Checks into room 1.  Takes a shower and dies in the shower.  Sister, boyfriend and private detective start to sniff around for her.  Private detective dies.  Sister and boyfriend almost die.  Norman bates is his mother.  Superimpose a skull over his smiling face and you have Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic film....PSYCHO. 

While watching this movie, I was discussing it with another forum member whose name is David.  Dave and I were talking about how Hitchcocks films have highlights and lowlights and are mainly great for a few pin points of the story and the cinematography and music. 

In Psycho, the story is rather dull.  Hitchcock would be (and is) a good silent film director because he is a visual artist with his movies.  He places the setting right in front of us and paints a beautiful picture with it. 

The man is a camera genius, too.  He knows the right angles to get to portray a certain mood he's trying to get across in X scene. 

THE MUSIC.

Throughout the entire movie, the music is what I noticed the most.  It's grabby and illicits  the proper mood it's supposed to, mainly fear and suspense.  The most notable music from the film is that in the infamous shower scene.  What has ruined that music, though, is the fact that a ridiculous amount of movies, tv shows and even commercials have used that music or similar sounds for their products making us grow tired of hearing it. 

A big highlight for me is the ending scene where Norman's face is superimposed with a skull.  For 1960, that is pretty cool work and caps off the movie, which I consider great and legendary.  Also the suspense of finally finding Norman's mother in the basement to be a corpse.  Nice little nod to Ed Gein there. 

All in all this movie was rather classic.  For being almost 50 years old, it's still a great movie to watch and doesn't feel too dated.  The hairstyles are still used today, the clothing isn't too off the charts, it was a nice timeless tale of a boy and his mother.  Afterall, A Boy's Best Friend Is His Mother.  Peace.