This classic movie from 1960 has been labelled the “greatest film of all time” by Variety. Psycho is a horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin and Martin Balsam.
The film’s synopsis is: “Phoenix secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), on the lam after stealing $40,000 from her employer in order to run away with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis (John Gavin), is overcome by exhaustion during a heavy rainstorm. Travelling on the back roads to avoid the police, she stops for the night at the ramshackle Bates Motel and meets the polite but highly strung proprietor Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a young man with an interest in taxidermy and a difficult relationship with his mother.”
Upon its release, Psycho was met with a mixed bag in terms of reviews. Today, however, it is held up as one of the greats. It’s 97% approval rating fromt he critics of Rotten Tomatoes reflects this. Their consensus states: “Infamous for its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre. Because Psycho was filmed with tact, grace, and art, Hitchcock didn’t just create modern horror, he validated it.”
One fan said: “The movie Psycho is a masterpiece from Alfred Hitchcock, who knows how to use dreary lighting and eerie special effects to punctuate this movie with pure terror. Even Janet Leigh was so terrified when playing the shower scene (where she was viciously stabbed) that she never took a shower again. (I dont blame her!) I highly recommend this 1960 movie!”
In its listing of “The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time” Variety awarded Psycho with the top spot, it said: ” Hailing it as Hitchcock’s greatest movie — let alone the greatest movie ever made — wouldn’t have seemed quite respectable. Yet there’s a reason that every moment in “Psycho” is iconic, and that Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, as Norman Bates and Marion Crane, became fixed in our imaginations like figures out of a dream. The entire movie, while shot on late-’50s TV sets and conceived by Hitchcock as a prank-the-audience Gothic trapdoor thriller, came to exist (and, really, it always had) on the level of riveting mythology. In 45 seconds, the shower scene rips the 20th century in half; what Hitchcock was expressing was profound — that in the modern world, the centre would no longer hold.”
You can watch Psycho on the streaming platform, NOW TV.