Psycho (1960)
 With
Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock took his biggest risk and had his
biggest success. The risk was not financial - at less than one
million dollars Psycho was a comparatively cheap film to
make - but there was considerable risk in the subject
matter.
The film was about a deranged split personality, and if the
public and press found it distasteful, the careers of actor
Anthony Perkins and of Hitchcock himself, would suffer a severe
setback.
Hitchcock considered Psycho a "fun film" -
like a roller coaster ride where audience delights in the pleasure
of a good fright.
A lovely embezzler makes a fateful stop at the rundown Bates
Motel, and from that point on the movie is basically structured
around three shocks; The murder of the heroine (Janet Leigh) in
the shower; the murder of the private detective (Martin Balsam);
and the discovery of the mummified body in the cellar which holds
the clue to the identity of the murderer. The biggest shock is the
first, coming completely out of the blue.
 From
that point onwards, the movie becomes less horrific but more
tense, because the horror has been transferred to the minds of the
audience.
The shower murder has become one of the most famous and
analysed of all screen sequences.
In terms of visual gore it is relatively restrained, but the
scene has an enormous impact thanks to the icily effective
screaming violins of Bernard Hermann's score, the fast cutting of
the sequence which corresponds with the slashing of the knife, and
the fact that the victim is not only a star, but the character
with whom we have been identifying so far in the film - The murder
literally cuts the ground from under our feet.
From this point on, Anthony Perkins' performance rules supreme.
He gives the performance of his life (as does Janet Leigh).
Because of Hitchcock's cinematic genius, this movie has proved
an inexhaustible treasure-trove for movie and horror buffs . . .
and motels and showers have never seemed quite the same since.
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