Sunday, February 15, 2009

Psycho (1960)


Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: No One ... BUT NO ONE ... Will Be Admitted To The Theatre After The Start Of Each Performance Of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

Plot: A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer's client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother.



My Rating: 10/10

Would I watch it again? DUH!

This is in my top 10 favorite movies of all-time. It's flawless. You've seen it. We've all seen it. It's an astonishing work of horror art from the frenetic opening credits to the closing shot of Norman Bates.




I've seen this more than twenty times, easily, and I never tire watching it. One of my silly dreams is to see this in a theater someday. Bernard Herrmann, my favorite film composer, knocks this score out of the park and it's one of the most atmospheric, haunting, beautiful scores written for film.




The shower scene is classic. The shot composition of entire film is worthy of art gallery exhibition. The performance of Perkins is one of the greatest captured on film. It's up there with George C. Scott's as Patton. He cannot be separated from the role he was born to play. It's iconic. PSYCHO changed everything in cinematic horror in 1960. It was the shot in the arm the genre needed and without it you wouldn't have many of the classic horror films we know today. PSYCHO is a horror masterpiece that holds its own with the best of film from the past 100 years.



1 comment:

  1. So this was the first time I have seen this movie. I know it is sad, but there are a lot of classics I have never seen. Anyway, I liked it much more than I thought I would. The story was more interesting than I thought it would be, and Anthony Perkins was really good. He was very, very creepy, but also very captivating, and slightly sexy.

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