The Gang Reviews Psycho (Catchier Title Coming Soon!)

Maire Says:

Call me a child of pop culture, but honestly, I didn’t know. Yes, I had seen the facade at Universal Studios as a little girl, and I knew Mother was behind it, but that was all I knew. At 34, I had never actually seen the movie, and therefore I did not know.

So naturally, 10 minutes in, my esteemed co-authors, rightfully assuming that their eldest cohort had seen the film (to their credit, I did tell them that Mother was the killer), spoke openly about the killer and the backstory. I then politely watched the rest of the film before letting them know of their misstep. 

So alas, what can I say? Would I have been as shocked as those first movie goers that were not allowed to leave the theater? Or would my reaction be the same as it is now, after becoming so jaded by pop horror, that nothing is really surprising anymore? (Ok, that statement isn’t completely fair, and I still hold Cabin in the Woods up high because of it’s slant.)

Surprise endings aside, and cinematic firsts aside, the film warrants my 2 out of 3 star rating. Norman is the painfully relatable bad guy. You know he’s not quite good, but you can’t help but root for him anyway. I was quite shocked to see the shower scene play out so early in the film. Seriously, HOLY CRAP! SHE’S DEAD ALREADY? But this is the scene the movie is known for? How can it happen so early on? Cue the rest of the film’s plot device to keep it moving, slowly unraveling the mystery of Norman, leaving you to forget about the early murder and focus more on what the heck is actually going on with this guy, how long has this been happening, and will he ever return?

But it must be a happy ending, because, hey! there’s a Psycho II!

Corey Says:

We decided to start our project with the grandaddy of all the slasher films, Psycho.  The beauty of this film lies in the masterful performance of Anthony Perkins as Norman, our favorite hotel manager with mommy issues.  He goes from polite sandwich offering local yokel to a deeply, darkly afflicted (and frightening) psychopath in the time it takes to ask him a question.  I had not seen Psycho in over a decade when we decided to watch it again, and I was blown away at the violence of the transformations that Norman goes through during the film’s process.

Also as a side note: No matter how old a film is, don’t give away spoilers while talking during the film.  One of our crew (she knows who it is) didn’t know about the most classic twist in the history of horror.  (Well, other than the one in Sleepaway Camp, that is). During the film, Salty and I were discussing the twist, not realizing that we were ruining our ONE SHOT to see a true, honest reaction shot to the end of the film.

Oh well, there’s always the next classic horror franchise that has one of the greatest twists of all time.

Salty Says:

Psycho is now old enough that not everyone knows the ending, so if you are going to watch it with someone who doesn’t watch a lot of horror, don’t ruin it for them by blabbing about the end (Sorry, Maire)! Watching Psycho for the fifteenth or sixteenth time makes you really want to read into it. Maybe I was a little late to the examining-subtexts-and-undertones party here, but I sort of like to turn my brain off when I watch movies: classics or otherwise. I’ve read reviews and watched enough documentaries and interviews with directors and critics and anyone who knows anything about movies to know that everything that needs to be said about Psycho has been said and that it has been dissected scene by scene, angle by angle, shadow by shadow. Its greatness need not be mentioned. So, instead of trying to throw my hat into the interpretation ring and pulling apart the suspense, I want to talk about the what makes this film not an edgy thriller, but a full-blown horror epic. I want to talk about corpses.

To me, that’s the real beauty of the film: stinking, rotting human corpses dried out to better withstand exposure, taxidermied to maintain some of their original form. The film is like a wake: it’s tense and uncomfortable and you can try to pretend that you are interested in other stuff, you can analyze the other characters and focus on the details and décor, but really you are just there to check out a cadaver. That’s what I look forward to when I watch Psycho - not the shower scene, which is excellent except for the one tiny twitch of Janet Leigh’s eyes, which I always hope and pray won’t happen, even though it always does – but that glorious moment when the other Miss Crane sneaks into the ominous mansion thinking that she is going to dig up some of the dirt that Norman has tucked into his fruit cellar.

She finds the old lady she was searching for. She reaches out to turn the silent figure and what does she get? A eyeful of parch-paper skin shrinking away from lipless aging teeth on a face dominated by wrinkled and vacuous eye sockets, that’s what! The way the swinging light bulb makes you wonder whether or not you saw the mummy move just a little bit. HA! That’ll teach you to snoop! Then, in runs Norman in full drag with a face full of insane. When Sam grabs him before he gets the kill Norman grimaces and screams, but the look he has on his face lets you know that he doesn’t have the lung capacity to scream as much as he wants. To call it impressive is an understatement.

And what about that swamp? Full of rotting corpses! I like to think that Hitchcock secretly wanted to open the trunk of Marion’s car for in the final shot, but he knew that the censors wouldn’t allow it. 

Yeah, it would have made the movie a lot schlockier, but then you would at least get to compare mother’s husk to a fresh corpse beginning to corrupt in stagnant water. You know, see how Marion’s pretty body broke down and ate itself as a kind of redemption for Norman; a sort of testament to the compassion he demonstrated in trying to help mother avoid that cold damp grave. That would have been a nice ending too.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆