Psycho

[Vanilla]

Review/Discuss

[fmpro]

Loved as a kid.. Saw it a couple years ago again..So lame now..Go figure

[Coffee]

This is probably my fav Hitchcock film!

[DAR]

Not my favorite Hitchcock film if only because it seems so familiar now. But it's still worth seeing. B+

[IndustriousAngel]

As with some mystery thrillers the tension is missing if you watch it multiple times, still there are memorable scenes and the camerawork and haunted-house-atmosphere are splendid. Anthony Perkins had a hard time getting out of this prototype role.

[MagnetMan]

This film (which is an almost word-for-word adaptation of the novel) is actually hindered by its popularity. The best way to see Psycho is to do so with absolutely no knowledge of what's going to happen. But it has become such an iconic film, that it is practically impossible to do that now. I like to watch it and imagine the absolute shock that must have overcome people seeing it in its initial run. The film starts out as the story of Marion Crane. How she perpetrates this crime for love. It seems like it is following a routine direction. And there is so much time devoted to her character, and what she's going through. And then for the film to make such a drastic change in direction with the shower scene.... wow.It's so hard NOW to recognize that sudden shift. Simply because, for most of us, we've simply known for our entire lives that that's what the film was about. But to have seen it with no knowledge... man, that must have been a real head-job back in its time!!

[75Live]

One of my top 10 movies.

I remember seeing this as a kid in a drive in. It was the 2nd part of the double feature, the first movie was Star Wars. Yeah it was a really good movie night

Shows that blood and gore is not necessary for tension or scariness. (not that I don't mind a good bloodbath either )

Anthony Perkins is so perfect in the role.

A

[MagnetMan]

One of my top 10 movies.

I remember seeing this as a kid in a drive in. It was the 2nd part of the double feature, the first movie was Star Wars. Yeah it was a really good movie night

Shows that blood and gore is not necessary for tension or scariness. (not that I don't mind a good bloodbath either )

Anthony Perkins is so perfect in the role.

A

Wow. That WAS an awesome movie night!!!

[75Live]

Wow. That WAS an awesome movie night!!!

Yeah it is one of my earliest movie memories, maybe even my first one. With that as an introduction, no wonder I like movies so much as an adult Edited July 30, 2012 by 75live

[Lordmandeep]

Yeah the shower scene is so well known that you know the twist...

[baumer]

The grand daddy of em all!I love horror films. I have reviewed all the Fridays, all the Jaws', most of the Halloweens and a few of the Nightmares. Halloween and Jaws are, to me, the two best horror films ever made. And even though I don't think Psycho is on par with some of the best horror films ever to grace our screens, you have to give credit where creidt is due. Psycho is a pioneer for horror films and it is because of Psycho that we have films like Halloween and Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and directors like Hooper and Carpenter and Craven. I was born 12 years after Psycho was made and I really didn't get into film until at least another 10 years after that, but I can tell you that Psycho must have shocked and revolutionized film. Could you imagine a film maker so bold as to tell theater owners that they are not to permit anyone into the theater after it starts? Can you imagine a film so bold as to kill the main character half way through the film? Can you imagine a film so bold as to kill someone so graphically in the shower? Sure you can imagine all that. It's 2012. This film is more than 50 years old. But imagine what it did to audiences in 1960. It must have shocked the hell out of everyone back then. Psycho is a film like no other. There have been films that have done it better than Psycho but none of them can say they were the first. Psycho is a great film and it is enjoyable, unlike many older films pre 1970 that in my opinion get unfairly praised.If you want to know how horror has revolutionized and evolved to the way it is today, you can look no further than Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant masterpiece, PSYCHO.If Citizen Kane can be lionized because of some of the techniques it invented, then the same should be said of Psycho. If you want to talk about a film that changed the way movies were made and how people viewed them, then Psycho is your film. And the good thing about Psycho (as I mentioned previously) is that it is entertaining. If you look at anyone from Spielberg to Carpenter to Craven, they have all borrowed from Psycho. In Halloween, Dr. Sam Loomis is even named after one of the characters in Psyhco. But this film is not ever discussed when mentioning the greatest films of all time, and maybe it shouldn't be, but it sure did as much for cinema as Citizen Kane did.I can honestly say that the shower scene in here is one of the best directed scenes in any movie. And for me to say that is quite substantial because I am generally not a fan of older films. But the sheer audacity of that scene and the horror that you witness and then feel is something that I can only imagine messed people up. I would imagine it is the same kind of affect that the opening scene of Jaws had on me. This film is a trend setter.The other scene that I thought was brilliant was the one where the detective is stabbed at the top of the stairs and he falls down. That placement of the camera is so perfect that you actually feel like you are falling with him. There was a similar scene in Friday the 13th Part 2, and I'm sure Steve Miner has seen Psycho a few times and he emulated that scene purposely because it works so well.For a film that is more than 50 years old, it really does hold up incredibly well to even the best of todays crop of horror films. But to me this is the film that started it all. If you were afraid to go in the shower after this film, then no one was going to blame you.If anyone hasn't seen this film, find it. Check out a great film and how it manipulates us. It is a masterful job of story telling done with near perfection.9/10

[SchumacherFTW]

I've just finished watching this at long last. Yes there's bits that haven't aged well, the score as an example smacks you in the face harder than Hans Zimmer tries to. But it's still superb. The characters are all great, as are the performances. Espescially the guy who plays Norman Bates, he's scary, creepy, vulnerable, everything. One of the great performances. I do wish I could have been there on original release, when it was so fresh, so shocking, when you were forced by Hitchcock himself to watch it from the beginning, but even so, it's still a brilliant film today.9/10

[luna]

hooray for false protagonists! and the only thing i knew about it going in was the shower scene, so it was pretty good

 

70/100, B

[vc2002]

If you want to know how to build up your film to the very climax and make it worth, this is the film that you learn from. Everything in the film before they found out Norman Bates' secret was to built up the suspense and it was done beautifully. One of my fav of all time.

[RobinHood26]

A- (91)

Edited November 6, 2014 by Jay Hollywood