Psycho: Still Teaching Us How It’s Done

A passionate romance that drives a normally decent woman to steal $40,000 dollars and flee her city is NOT what Psycho is about. Less than halfway through the movie Hitchcock brutally murders the supposed star, the usually decent woman Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), and replaces her with the lovable and charming, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). The brilliant twist that comes to life with Marion’s iconic death sets the tone for the real Psycho: a Hitchcock classic full of thrills and chills sure to keep you with your heart in your mouth and your nerves all over the place.

The man responsible for this unexpected murder twist was American screenwriter Joseph Stefano. He adapted Robert Bloch’s novel, Psycho, turning it into a Hitchcock worthy screenplay and spicing up the standard movie formula.

Act I tells the story of Marion, a simple Phoenix secretary who is so much in love that she steals a large sum of money to help her partner, and runs away from life and everything she’s ever known as real. Here we have the two essential parts of our Act I screenplay: inciting incident (Marion steals) and the apparent lock-in (she leaves the city branding her crime irreversible). However, as this is a Hitchcock film, nothing is ever as it seems, and it is shortly after this that the twist comes, killing Marion and completely shattering our beliefs of what this movie is about. Hitchcock brilliantly created the false lock-in described above to keep the audience from guessing the truth—that the real lock-in is when Marion meets the terrifyingly charming Norman Bates.

Suspense is not about speeding things up but rather the opposite, quite the opposite actually, and Hitchcock is the genius who has proved this over and over again. Psycho was released in 1960 and yet, still remains one of the most terrifying flicks of horror in cinema history, in part because its suspense lingers heavily in your heart during much, if not all, of the movie. Scares lurk in the least expected places, and even after materializing they continue to make your palms sweat.

An impeccably charming villain is reason two as to why this movie made history, or possibly defined it. Norman Bates is sweet, tall, and hunky (and the girls love him). Even after it becomes clear that he is covering up Marion’s murder, we the audience still feel compassion for him and somehow hopes he gets away with it, even though we’re not sure why. This is a master-level of character creation. Norman Bates is eternally-huggable, even if flawed. He holds a vicious secret though, and Hitchcock waits for just the right moment to reveal it, scaring you for eternity and beyond.

An even more significant secret lies not within the walls of the Bates Motel but rather, behind the camera: Hitchcock’s wife Alma Reville. Perhaps it is not a well known fact that Alma played a significant role in Hitchcock’s career, but she did. Alma helped him flesh out scripts and aided during the production of his films. She was a meticulous film editor prior to meeting Hitchcock, in fact that was how they met. She had an astute eye for the tinniest of flaws and when going over a rough cut of Psycho she pointed out that in the infamous shower scene, actress Janet Leigh had taken the tinniest breath of life, even after her character’s life had been taken—Alma was the only one to catch this!

Psycho went on to influence many of the most well-known horror films of our time, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs. It was a bold movie for its days and it marked a first for many things, including the fact that never before had a beautiful actress shown off hot lingerie on the big screen, nor had audiences ever seen a toilet at the movies before—how sorely neglected those audiences were! Add to that a very sexy script, depicted through the eyes of the masters of suspense, Hitchcock and Alma, and you have, not a movie, but a masterpiece.