36. PSYCHO
36. PSYCHO
(1960)
Director Alfred Hitchcock
There had been movies about human monsters before but this one hit the scene like an atom bomb and got a generation of nervous people thinking about knives while in the shower. The house on the hill where bad things happen is an old gothic trapping but "Psycho" was the explosive declaration of a new era of horror and a strong argument could be made that it's the most important such film of the century and yes, I do believe I've made this very proclamation at a bar or two down the way. Hitchcock was in the midst of his final cycle of important films (his career started way back in the silent era) that included "North by Northwest" (1959), "The Birds" (1963), and that genius masterwork of obsession, "Vertigo" (1958). There's a different kind of obsession going on in "Psycho". Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) can't accept the fact that his mother is dead so he keeps her mummified corpse around and talks in her voice. She tells him bad things. Poor Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) has no idea what kind of twisted mess she's stepped into when she decides to stay awhile in the Bates Motel. Graced by the usual high caliber of suspense one expects from Hitchcock and scored by legendary music man Bernard Herrmann, "Psycho" deserves it's lofty stature. This is also the movie that sparked my interest in taxidermy.
(1960)
Director Alfred Hitchcock
There had been movies about human monsters before but this one hit the scene like an atom bomb and got a generation of nervous people thinking about knives while in the shower. The house on the hill where bad things happen is an old gothic trapping but "Psycho" was the explosive declaration of a new era of horror and a strong argument could be made that it's the most important such film of the century and yes, I do believe I've made this very proclamation at a bar or two down the way. Hitchcock was in the midst of his final cycle of important films (his career started way back in the silent era) that included "North by Northwest" (1959), "The Birds" (1963), and that genius masterwork of obsession, "Vertigo" (1958). There's a different kind of obsession going on in "Psycho". Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) can't accept the fact that his mother is dead so he keeps her mummified corpse around and talks in her voice. She tells him bad things. Poor Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) has no idea what kind of twisted mess she's stepped into when she decides to stay awhile in the Bates Motel. Graced by the usual high caliber of suspense one expects from Hitchcock and scored by legendary music man Bernard Herrmann, "Psycho" deserves it's lofty stature. This is also the movie that sparked my interest in taxidermy.
posted by scottra at 3:00 AM
1 Comments:
Have you read the original novel by Robert Bloch? I picked up a collection of his short stories a few years ago and was thoroughly entertained. "The Movie People," "The Hell-Bound Train," and "The Man Who Collected Poe" are a few titles that I remember liking best.
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