Census Flashback: Afterthoughts

On our Fright Flashback/Census Bloodbath crossover, every week this summer we'll be exploring an 80's slasher film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to the weekend's upcoming blockbuster.

This week, the last week of Census Flashback, we’re anticipating the dregs of the summer season: Logan Lucky and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. In honor of this last gasp of the project, we’ll be reviewing a movie that isn’t even an 80’s slasher, but completes the mini-marathon we’ve been running within this very segment: the 1990 sequel Psycho IV: The Beginning.

Year: 1990

Director: Mick Garris

Cast: Anthony Perkins, CCH Pounder, Henry Thomas

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

And so goes the mighty slasher franchise. Norman Bates, the granddaddy of the genre whose crimes have spanned decades and been helmed by the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Hitch’s foremost Aussie acolyte, and then eventually Bates himself, finds his fourth and final outing to be a TV movie. It’s nauseating. Mind you, this wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to Norman Bates in the 90’s, and the TV movie is actually quite good, but still. How undignified.

Mother would be furious.

The movie joins late night radio host Fran Ambrose (CCH Pounder) in the middle of her call-in criminal psychology show “The Mother Killers: Boys Who Kill Their Mothers.” In a moment of serendipity so perfect it’s almost like some screenwriter wrote it that way. Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is the next caller. He wants to tell his story so people will understand why he killed his mother… and why he’ll kill again tonight. While Fran and her producers scramble to figure out where he is and who he’s targeting, Norman tells the story of the events leading up to his matricide.

As a young man, Norman (played as a teen by Henry Thomas and in one scene as a child by Ryan Finnegan) lives alone with his mother (Olivia Hussey), with whom he has a tempestuous relationship. His burgeoning sexuality is twisted by his needy mother, who alternately eggs him on and punishes him for his lust. When his mother starts dating local bartender Chet (Tom Schuster), Norman’s complex about his libido ignites in the face of his pious mother’s lustful hypocrisy.

Also, young Norman wanders around shirtless for like 90% of the movie.

I don’t like prequels, for the most part. There’s something intrinsically stagnant about the way that the character arc dumps you in a place you’re already intimately familiar with. But Psycho IV, for the most part, does it right. The only reason the “present day” angle is there is to squeeze in a few more moments with Tony Perkins without taxing him too much, but tying Norman’s past with his current condition allows the story a bit of freedom to go unexpected places and further flesh out the character.

And even if the flashback segments don’t provide much new insight, Mick Garris directs them with a flair that’s of a piece with the other two sequels. I’m especially fond of the transitions between past and present that use matching elements – sometimes including Norman himself – to create a distinct visual fluidity. And those scenes in the past have a palette to die for, with soaring candy colors emphasizing Norman’s youth and vitality.

And shirtlessness.

Plus, while I wouldn’t call the casting “brilliant,” it’s at least deeply weird – which it needs to be. Henry Thomas is a compelling presence, capturing Tony Perkins' entrancing all-American charm, with more than a hint of tumultuous eccentricity surging beneath the surface. And while Olivia Hussey in no way matches the version of Norman’s mother the other films have presented, her dubiously-accented rendition is pitched right over the top in a deliriously effective way, providing the feeling of Norman’s relationship with his mother more than the look or sound of any previous actress.

Hussey is perhaps even more unpredictable than her already unstable character, turning even the simple act of drinking iced tea into a three-minute odyssey of bizarre psychosexual mania. She commands the screen, demanding every last ounce of your attention through pure weirdness.

But soft, what light through yonder lunatic breaks?

It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than a made-for-TV third sequel really has any right to be. Mind you, this was made-for-Showtime, so some of the limitations of TV horror are avoided. There aren’t boobs and blood galore, but there’s enough to remind you that the spirit of the 80’s hadn’t quite died yet.

Really, nothing in Psycho IV is bad. There’s a hell of a lot that’s underwhelming, but there’s a distinct difference. For one thing, there’s no conclusion to the CCH Pounder storyline. Personally, I found it the most compelling part of the movie: a lazy night shift is suddenly plunged into chaos by the introduction of a deadly mystery. That’s exactly what I want to stumble across on TV at 2 in the morning. The efforts of the radio crew to keep Norman on the line and eke out details of his plan are essentially the driving force behind whatever narrative this loose collection of vignettes has, but they vanish as soon as he finishes his story, revealing themselves as the cheap framing device they truly were.

Psycho IV deflates like an unknotted balloon, forgetting everything that made it interesting and contorting the final ten minutes into an effects showcase that quite conspicuously avoids actually damaging the Psycho house in any way (Universal Studios would have had a fit), despite that being the only possible conclusion to this particular narrative.

It tiptoes to the finale of a story that has until that point been pretty fearlessly nutty. The disappointing ending isn’t enough to deflate a startlingly solid film, but it does show its hand as the weakest of the Psycho entries. But it’s hard to complain. Four films deep, it should’ve been impossible to make a movie this ultimately satisfying, but they did it against all odds.

Killer: Young Norman Bates (Henry Thomas)

Final Girl: Connie Bates (Donna Mitchell)

Best Kill: The only brutal kill here is CCH Pounder’s plotline, which is ruthlessly murdered.

Sign of the Times: People still listened to the radio.

Scariest Moment: The sound overlay just before the end credits. No spoilers, but it’s a brutal gut punch of an implication.

Weirdest Moment: Norman’s mom tickles him at his dad’s funeral.

Champion Dialogue: “You’ve got a tongue like an elephant’s memory.”

Body Count: 4

1. Holly is stabbed to death.
2. Gloria is garroted and drowned.
3. Chet is poisoned.
4. Norma Bates is poisoned.

TL;DR: Psycho IV: The Beginning is as good as a TV movie Psycho prequel could ever hope to be.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1116

Reviews In This Series

Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)

Psycho II (Franklin, 1983)

Psycho III (Perkins, 1986)

Psycho IV: The Beginning (Garris, 1990)

Census Flashback: Trilogies Nobody Asked For

On our Fright Flashback/Census Bloodbath crossover, every week this summer we'll be exploring an 80's slasher film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to the weekend's upcoming blockbuster.

This week we’re anticipating War for the Planet of the Apes, the third in the unexpectedly popular reboot/prequel franchise. In honor of this film, which people may be looking forward to now but certainly would never have claimed that they wanted back in 2010, we’re watching another third film in a franchise nobody asked for: 1986’s Psycho III.

Year: 1986

Director: Anthony Perkins

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Diana Scarwid, Jeff Fahey

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The thing that’s most infuriating about the deeply unnecessary second sequel to the belatedly pointless first sequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s horror classic Psycho is that it’s also a pretty great movie. It’s difficult to grouse about cash grab franchise extension when you actually like the movies.

For being such a good sport and returning to his most notorious role, Anthony Perkins was allowed the luxury of actually directing the film. And although his directorial debut is but an imitation of Richard Franklin’s imitation of Hitchcock, that bar is set so high that everything still winds up above average.

I can’t believe I waited so long to watch these movies.

Psycho III has one of the best opening scenes in history: “THERE IS NO GOD!!!” shouts nun-in-training Maureen (Diana Scarwid) as she prepares to jump from the bell tower. She gets in a scuffle with the sisters trying to save her, and one of them cracks her head on the massive metal bell behind her, plummeting ten stories to her death. The Bates Motel hasn’t even appeared yet and already things are going psycho.

The film doesn’t sustain that manic, crazed energy, though it does manage to recapture it from time to time in delicious spurts of mayhem. So anyway, Maureen runs away and hitches a ride with wannabe rock star Duane “Call Me Duke” Duke (Jeff Fahey, who I am now rocking a major 80’s crush on). Although she escapes from his sexual advances, they both wind up at a certain secluded motel. Duke takes a temporary job at the front desk to earn gas money an the troubled Maureen falls helplessly in love with the nebbish proprietor Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), who saves her from a second suicide attempt.

The only problem is, this means ol’ Normie is back to his old ways, sneaking into androgynous women’s motel rooms in the middle of the night. While he resists his new mummified mother’s murderous impulses, he also finds himself tentatively falling for Maureen. Unfortunately their love bubble is threatened by snooping reporter Tracy (Roberta Maxwell), who is looking for evidence that Norman isn’t as mentally fit as he claims to be. The mounting pile of bodies on the motel lot would be exactly the proof she needs.

What’s a Psycho movie without a nosy middle-aged woman poking around?

Now, I wouldn’t want people to think I’m saying Psycho III is a superior film to the original psycho. It’s more enjoyable, but then again so is Cupcake Wars, so that doesn’t necessarily mean a lot. No, Psycho III exists on an entirely different spectrum (that of the 80’s slasher film), and in that realm it excels. What it lacks in psychological nuance, it more than makes up for with pure slash panache. (And let us not misremember the “lunatic drag queen” original as a searingly observant character study. It’s a well-crafted film, but being black-and-white doesn’t make a movie smart.)

For one thing, it has a sure-footed sense of style that makes you wish Perkins had gone on to helm more than just one other feature. The transitions here have an incredible, ephemeral feeling, slipping almost imperceptibly between locations and scenes, keeping you on your toes and putting you in the appropriate off-kilter mindset. And the lighting is full of deliciously unmotivated splashes of color that create a lurid, unnatural dreamscape. Every frame pops off the screen like a demented comic book, and that helps smooth over some of the more (putting it charitably) unrealistic beats of the plot.

Like yet another young woman/wounded bird with a short haircut crossing Norman’s path.

Psycho III is thoroughly an 80’s slasher, bringing Norman Bates crashing into the topless, bloody world of 80’s horror with a sense of culture shock that Psycho II was somewhat lacking. But it’s also just a plain solid thriller, which is something that not many a 1986 Census Bloodbath entry can boast. It features a marvelously compelling antihero. No longer are you speculating whether or not Norman has slipped back into his old habits. He has, but he desperately wants to be free of his mother’s influence, making him a figure you can root for even as he’s slashing throats and stabbing townies in effects sequences that don’t rise to the level of Vera Miles’ departure from Psycho II, but are nevertheless the most blatantly bloody of the franchise.

I’m not gonna pretend I have a problem with that.

Another factor that has Psycho III stand above its slasher brethren is its cast. Tony Perkins the director gives Tony Perkins the actor a little too much leeway to ham it up, but Roberta Maxwell is frankly a revelation, effortless trading witty barbs with the likewise solid Jeff Fahey, and selling the hell out of the dotty emotional climax. Diana Scarwid is also excellent, powering through some truly putrid theological dialogue, and even a random sideline victim (played by, of all people, Stripped to Kill director Katt Shea) has bucketsful of charisma to toss around.

The script certainly has its ups and downs (the religious angle is almost completely forgotten by the end, and the dialogue relies on a few too many cheeky callbacks to events and lines in the original film), but when it’s up it’s tall as a skyscraper. Psycho III defies all laws of cinema by being the third spectacular entry in a horror franchise that had at that point already spanned two and a half decades. Hitchcock fans might not get what they’re looking for, but slasher fans should make a beeline to the continuing adventures of the Bates Motel.

Killer: Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins)

Final Girl: Tracy (Roberta Maxwell), but only incidentally

Best Kill: Sister Margaret takes home the prize for sheers bonkersness.

Sign of the Times: Minimum wage was $5 an hour, and a double room at a motel cost $25.95.

Scariest Moment: Norman turns off the TV, which is showing people screaming, but in the silence the screaming continues.

Weirdest Moment: Duke has sex with a townie (played by Friday the 13th: Part V actress Juliette Cummins), and their foreplay involves her licking her own arm and making out with a nudie photograph while he points purple lamps at her.

Champion Dialogue: “You’re about as warm as a cry for help.”

Body Count: 5

1. Sister Margaret falls from a great height.
2. Red is stabbed in a phone booth.
3. Patsy Boyle has her throat slit.
4. Duke is hit in the head with his guitar and drowned in the swamp.
5. Maureen is impaled in the back of the head by a statue.

TL;DR: Psycho III is a delightfully bananas slasher film with a sure directorial hand.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1222
Reviews In This Series
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
Psycho II (Franklin, 1983)
Psycho III (Perkins, 1986)
Psycho IV: The Beginning (Garris, 1990)

Census Flashback: Sequels Nobody Asked For

On our Fright Flashback/Census Bloodbath crossover, every week this summer we'll be exploring an 80's slasher film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to the weekend's upcoming blockbuster.

In anticipation of Cars 3, a sequel absolutely nobody asked for, this week I’ll be revisiting the Bates Motel with 1983’s entirely unwarranted Psycho II.

Year: 1983

Director: Richard Franklin

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Meg Tilly 

Run Time: 1 hour 53 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Making a sequel to Psycho 22 years after the fact was a monumentally terrible idea. But miraculously, that was the only bad idea made in the process of creating Psycho II. An astoundingly qualified crew was assembled to bring the Bates Motel back to life: actors Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles returning, Child’s Play and Fright Night director Tom Holland manning the screenplay, and Richard Franklin in the director’s seat. Franklin you may recall from the earlier Census Bloodbath entry Road Games, a terrific roadside thriller that proved him such a potent disciple of Hitchcock that hiring him was a no-brainer. With this team supporting the film, at least it would have been watchable no matter what. A little bit surprisingly, it's even more than that.

Hold onto your wigs.

So, Psycho II pretty much picks up where we left off. It’s 22 years later and Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) has been declared sane and released from the institution where he’s been held since his murder spree in 1960. As he tries to get his life back together, he takes in a wayward teenage girl named Mary (Meg Tilly), whose presence in his home sends him (and us) some painful reminders of the beautiful, deceased Marion Crane. As if we needed reminding, considering that her murder is crudely cut and pasted into the first five minutes of the film as if this were a cheap Friday the 13th sequel or something.

Anyway, people who cross Norman start to turn up dead, causing him no small amount of distress. Is he back to his murderous ways, or is someone else framing him? And exactly what is Lila Loomis née Crane (Vera Miles) doing skulking around town after all this time?

I mean, other than marrying her dead sister’s boyfriend like a badass.

Psycho II had quite the legacy to live up to. Not only was it the long-delayed sequel to a Hitchcock classic, it was being released smack dab in the middle of the slasher boom, the genre its forebear helped to create. That’s a lot of pressure. Psycho II is like the kid of the CEO attempting to take up the mantle of the company. It had to prove itself worthy in a massive pool of imitators. And mostly, it did exactly that.

Where Psycho II succeeds is that it doesn’t try to fit in with the slasher crowd. Sure, there’s a little more nudity, a little more blood, and one or two teens in the mix, but the film isn’t focused on the murder spree. It is very much about the aftermath of a broken mind attempting to mend itself, and as such it’s even different from Psycho itself. This is the best place to be, as free from expectation as humanly possible, and it spins quite a yarn out of it.

There’s so much yarn, in fact, that it can be fashioned into at least two different Mrs. Bates wigs, because buckle in folks: Psycho II has a lot of moving parts. The film has so many twists and turns that you’re constantly second guessing yourself, but not too many that it flies off the rails. It’s the perfect kind of melodrama, keeping you on your toes and glued to the screen. The plot is such a bucking bronco that the now-traditional “authority figure clunkily explains it all” scene gets the entire thing hilariously wrong.

As if I wasn’t already on this movie’s side.

Richard Franklin doesn’t get to have as much visual fun as he did on Road Games, but he still finds some cool imagery to play with, especially during the death scenes. Nothing could possibly live up to Psycho’s shower scene, but Franklin stages his murders with brutal flair, utilizing the modern effects without over-relying on them. His kills are full of motion and they’re unrelenting, letting you chew on every stage of the far-from-brief mayhem.

Another benefit of being a Psycho film is that it attracted a pretty solid, venerable cast. You won’t see Robert Loggia skulking around in no Sleepaway Camp sequel. There’s not a single dud in the cast, though it takes Perkins a minute to warm up into his old character. They ground the crazy story in a welcome, almost stately reality that does wonders for the film’s tension.

All this is what allows the film’s gonzo ending to work so well. Although it’s a slow burn to the finish line, Psycho II reaches a shrieking crescendo that feels like Bernard Hermann’s manic score come to life (incidentally, the classic Psycho theme appears in the flashback scene only – the rest of the film has to make do with a subdued and tedious Jerry Goldsmith jobbie). It’s a fun film, bringing Psycho into the 80’s without diluting its inimitable spirit.

Killer: Who could possibly keep track?

Final Girl: N/A

Best Kill: Vera Miles with a knife sticking from her gob. You don’t see that every day.

Sign of the Times: There’s a cameo from a Ms. Pac Man machine.

Scariest Moment: Mary looks through the bathroom peephole and sees an eye on the other side.

Weirdest Moment: A revelation late into the film about Norman’s family tree comes completely out of left field.

Champion Dialogue: “I don’t kill people anymore, remember?”

Body Count: 6

1. Mr. Toomey is stabbed to death.
2. Basement Boy is stabbed to death.
3. Lila Loomis is stabbed through the mouth.
4. Dr. Raymond is stabbed in the chest.
5. Mary is shot.
6. Miss Spool is hit in the head with a shovel.

TL;DR: Psycho II is a surprisingly worthy sequel to an unimpeachable classic.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1012
Reviews In This Series
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
Psycho II (Franklin, 1983)
Psycho III (Perkins, 1986)
Psycho IV: The Beginning (Garris, 1990)

Mama's Boy

Year: 1960

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles

Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

For our class during the week of Halloween, my Horror Studies professor decided to do a double feature of Hitchcock's horror movies. I decided that, instead of including them as mini-reviews in a Splatter University post, I should give each film its own full review because come on. Hitchcock.

There are seven movies responsible for everything that I am today. Twitch of the Death Nerve, a seminal Italian giallo film and one of the first slasher movies to feature a teenaged cast (for a third of the film, at least). Black Christmas and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, both in 1974, cemented in the idea of a Final Girl. Halloween made low budget horror massively profitable again. Friday the 13th incited the slasher boom and Scream dragged it into the modern age.

But before any of this could happen, there was a horror picture filmed for chump change on a studio backlot, based on a pulp horror novel that nobody had ever read. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was a massive splash - a watershed moment for horror and for cinema itself with a violence unparalleled in American cinema at the time.

It's hilariously tame by today's standards, but Psycho's gore took violent cinema to a whole new level. Having spent the last few weeks of class sitting through an onslaught of 50's genre films I can assure you that horror films at the time were like taking shots of milk, whereas Psycho was like having a bottle of tequila smashed over your head.

Woo! Spring Break!

Now I'm going to go ahead and assume that there's no need to worry about spoilers in a 53-year-old film that most everybody has either seen or read about. I think that's fair. If you really don't know what happens, just go watch it and come back. You can let me know how I'm doing.

To properly discuss Psycho, one must start before the movie even begins because Hitchcock isn't a simple filmmaker to discuss. No, he's much too obstinate for that. When filming an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he was impressed with the speed and efficiency of the television crew. Because they were working for TV, they couldn't waste a single second of extra budget so they had to get in, get out, and wrap shooting in record time while still producing high quality material.

He decided to challenge himself to shoot a film cheaply with a TV crew on studio sets in the Universal Backlot. What happened was Psycho and I'm not sure even he could have predicted how successful it would prove to be.

OK, maybe he could.

Which brings us to our next point. Psycho was groundbreaking in more ways than one, because otherwise that would have been way too easy to write about. In addition to its violent content, Psycho explores sex in the modern age with a newfound freedom due to the weakening of the long-standing (and astoundingly Puritanical) Hays Code of film censorship.

Only a few years before, it would have been impossible to imagine any depictions of a real sexual lifestyle, but here we are with a man and a woman in bed together, kissing, obviously post-coitus. And the man is divorced! Positively scandalous. Think of the children!

In addition to this, Psycho is one of the first films to say "transvestite" (a word that was thought at the time to be perverse and almost didn't make it past the censors) and is the first American film to show a toilet flushing onscreen. The horror!

Due to its out of the box material and shockingly modern plot elements, the film was an out and out smash at the box office. It has since made over 30 million dollars, has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (with the majority of the 3 bad reviews complaining that it's "too gory"), and landed the number one spot on the AFI's 100 Scariest Movies list.

So what's it all about, then, eh?

Pecs. That's what it's all about.

Young secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh, who would later give birth to the heir to her Scream Queen throne, Jamie Lee Curtis) is dissatisfied with her life in Phoenix. Her studbucket boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin) lives far away in California, her pay isn't nearly enough, and her haircut is atrocious. When asked by her employer to deposit $40,000 in the bank on the way home (today's equivalent: $315,000), she absconds with the cash and hightails it out of the state.

On her way to her boyfriend's town, she grows weary and the torrential downpour proves too much to handle so she stops for the night in a seedy little inn known as the Bates Motel. It is run by a charming young man named Norman (Anthony Perkins, who is absolutely incredible except, weirdly, in the scenes where he has to have conversation with his mother - the only acting complaint I have throughout the entire film) who takes care of his invalid mother and struggles to keep the business afloat. It's been tough ever since they moved the highway away.

Marion struggles with her guilt over stealing the money, and is eventually (indirectly) inspired by Norman to go straight home in the morning and return the cash with heartfelt apologies (Lord knows how she would have kept her job, but this was the 60's and she was a charming broad so you never know). Unfortunately, being stabbed repeatedly with a knife isn't conducive to a successful road trip.

RUDE.

The rest of the film follows the investigation into her disappearance by Sam, her sister Lila (Vera Miles), and the condescending Detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam). But that's not important right now. Our protagonist is dead. But the film's still going. Who let that happen?

Through clever marketing (and an incredible gimmick of not allowing latecomers into the theater), Hitch primed the audience for the shock of their lives. Janet Leigh was the biggest star on the cast, had the highest billing, and was featured prominently in the advertising. Her character was dynamic, had a change of heart, and was set on a path of redemption, the likes of which the audience was surely expecting. Hitch even put in his customary cameo in the first ten minutes of the movie so people looking for him wouldn't be distracted once the plot proper began.

By quite literally cutting the main character out of the film around the halfway point, audience expectations were rent apart. Anything could happen now. What could possibly come next? (Scream also successfully used this tactic by gutting Drew Barrymore in the opening scene.) Honestly, what comes next is a bit of a letdown considering that any contemporary filmgoer who watches Psycho already knows the ending so they're not impressed with the mysteries surrounding the Bates family.

And therein lies the problem. Having heard so much about Psycho for so long, modern audiences go in expecting to see a deliciously scary film and surprising twists and turns. Due to the oversaturation of discussion on the film, they are likely to find neither of these. Thus the innate power has been diminished and ravaged by time. But for audiences in the 60's, this was enormously inventive stuff (very few of them had read the book, considering that Hitch had bought as many copies as he could to keep them out of stores).

Hitchcock is about as insane as Norman Bates himself.

It is perhaps a better experience to come into Psycho looking for a decent thriller as opposed to a great horror film. If you come in primed for horror, you'll be bored out of your mind. But as a crime procedural, it still holds water. Because, no matter what, it is still an incredible example of filmmaking from one of the medium's greatest auteurs. This is the first time I've rewatched the film since actually learning about the mechanics of the craft, and the symbolism and direction remain incredibly fascinating. 

The opening shot of Psycho is a bird's-eye-view of a cityscape, a setting I in no way associate with the film's small town vibe. But this sets up one of the film's heavy undercurrents of city slickers versus town dwellers and the associated class disparity. Marion is underpaid and overworked, but she still has the opportunity to jet off with thousands of dollars in her purse. Norman is the head of a struggling business abandoned by the highway, a symbol of the fast-moving modern lifestyle. He is trapped there by his circumstances (and his insanity) although he wishes to be free, as evidenced by his obsession with stuffing birds. 

He's jealous of the birds' ability to fly away and be free so he stuffs them and keeps them in his parlor, keeping them trapped just like himself. Just like he traps Marion in death. Also there's the whole bird of prey thing.

Two meanings in a symbol?! That's crazy talk.

Another thing I noticed this time around was Marion's propensity for ending up in bathrooms. When she's packing her bags to book it out of town, she is framed with her apartment's shower head looming over her. When she needs to exchange her car at a used car lot to avoid being followed, she goes to the Ladies' Room to hide the cash in her purse. Mind you, this was not a normal setting for action at the time. This was very very deliberate. We're conditioned to see her in the restroom so the shower scene will be that much more surprising when it finally comes along.

There's an abundance of things I haven't even mentioned, like the fact that Marion's bra changes color with her mood, but the shower scene is what really captured attention. No self-respecting review could get away with not mentioning it. But why has it become so iconic? What about it has so captured imaginations for over half a century?

First off, the attack in an intimate setting really got under people's skin. Janet Leigh herself watched the film and vowed then and there to never take a shower again. Second, the aforementioned premature murder of the woman who was presumably the protagonist. But the most memorable aspect of the scene has to be its rapid editing, with over 78 splices in 45 seconds. This cutting is of a completely different style of any other scene in the film, before or after. Because the scene's content was so jarring, so too was the style in which it was presented - much more evocative and kinetic than anything anyone had ever seen before.

It's time to bring in modern audiences again (I'm sorry, guys). Everybody has seen this scene. Babies have seen this scene. People expecting a movie just like this scene are going to be highly disappointed. Despite its thrills, and it actually is a masterful crime/police thriller, Psycho will rarely deliver upon the massive expectations heaped upon it. It's a darn shame considering the skill behind and in front of the camera. Psycho is a wonderful movie. The trick is approaching it from the proper perspective. And not even in that "it was good for the time it was made" way. It's still great today! It's just carrying way too much baggage for even the most perfect film in history to slough off.

One last thing: a word on Bernard Hermann's score - while everybody knows the screeching shower scene music, I feel that many are unaware that the entire film sounds like that. Even when Marion is driving down the street in her car in the rain, the orchestral score is shouting "CAR! CAR! SPOOKY CAR! MAYBE SOMEONE'S GONNA DIE! LOOK HOW WET AND SLICK THE ROADS ARE! WATCH OUT MARION!" I wouldn't say it detracts from the overall film in any real way, but it certainly dilutes the impact of the major scare scenes. When your score blares the alarm for everything from "BRA!" to "SANDWICHES!" it's hard to give any special attention to something like "TRANSVESTITE WITH A KNIFE!"

Let's look at Sam Loomis one last time before we go.

TL;DR: Psycho is a great, well-made thriller, but it suffers as a direct result of its massive reputation.

Rating: 8/10; and though I am loathe to give it such a relatively low score due to its cultural importance, part of my blog's mission statement is to assess entertainment value from a modern perspective. Ergo, 8.

Word Count: 2099

Reviews in This Series

Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)

Psycho II (Franklin, 1983)

Psycho III (Perkins, 1986)

Psycho IV: The Beginning (Garris, 1990)