Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay There is perhaps no other name as synonymous with horror filmmaking as Alfred Hitchcock. Commonly referred to as the “master of suspense,” many of Hitchcock’s movies of the 1950s and 1960s laid the groundwork for a new visual language and approach to storytelling within the genre. Many of his more famous movies, ranging from the 1958 psycho-triller Vertigo to the 1963 natural horror film The Birds, rely less on gore and cheap thrills and more on visceral human drama and suffering (typically of the psychological nature) to show his audience that humans are the greatest threat to ourselves and the world around us.
While I have not seen every single Hitchcock film, I have seen enough of them to come to the conclusion that I am not a big fan of his work. With one notable exception: the 1960 groundbreaking classic Psycho. To this day, it remains the only Hitchcock film I have seen twice. Furthermore, I enjoyed it much more on my second watch. So, allow me to share with you why I think that Psycho is the first modern horror movie. [NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “Psycho.” You have been warned.] For all intents and purposes, Hitchcock pursued Psycho as a passion project. Coming off of the high-budget pictures Vertigo in 1958 and North by Northwest in 1959 which made little to no profit, Hitchcock was seeking out fresh material for a new film following two unfinished films at Paramount Pictures. After his personal assistant, Peggy Robertson, read a positive review of Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel about hotel manager and murderer Norman Bates, she gave a copy to Hitchcock who read it and acquired the film rights quickly thereafter. Despite the many efforts by Paramount to force Hitchcock to give up on the adaptation, he persevered by agreeing to shoot cheaply in black-and-white, using his television crew, and taking a salary cut. In hindsight, these handful of facts alone predict the success of Psycho. Without a doubt, Hitchcock approached this film with so much care that it boggles my mind that the studio executives doubted the success of this picture. Of course, I was not alive in 1960 and thus lack intimate familiarity with the cultural norms and sensitivities of the prior decade that the film would smash to pieces upon its release. It turns out that Paramount was justified to be apprehensive about making Psycho. It faced much criticism from censors for its depictions of sexuality, gender, and violence. Hitchcock spent much of his time wrangling with the board of censors over what became some of the most famous scenes of the movie: the opening with Marion and Sam in bed together, Marion’s murder in the shower, and the reveal of Norman Bates’s cross-dressing in the film’s climax. Most concerned with potential nudity during the shower scene, the censors demanded that it be edited to avoid what they claimed were shots of Janet Leigh’s breast and buttocks. Hitchcock waited several days, showed the scene to the censors again, and they all reversed their positions. Furthermore, Hitchcock agreed to re-shoot the opening scene with the censors on set if he could keep the shower scene intact. Since none of the censors showed up, Hitchcock kept the opening as it was originally filmed. Famously, Hitchcock enforced a “no late admission” policy for Psycho because he worried that tardy theatergoers who missed Janet Leigh’s performance in the film’s first act would feel cheated. While theater owners initially protested the move out of fear of losing business, they acquiesced upon the film’s released because they enjoyed the sight of long lines of people outside their theaters. Nevertheless, all of the obstacles faced by Hitchcock in making the film were well worth it once the film came out. While critical reviews ranged from praising the performances to mourning the death of Hitchcock’s career, Psycho made a total of fifty million dollars at the box office on a budget of less than one million dollars. (Today, this would be approximately the equivalent of making nearly 440 million dollars on a seven million-dollar budget). So, now you know the history of this film. But why do I think it is the first modern horror movie? Let me explain. As I stated (in one way or another), in my blog earlier this month, “I Have a Problem with Horror Movies,” I tend to steer clear from horror due to its overreliance on cheap scares and unenticing melodrama. And while sometimes that can be fun (lookin’ at you, Child’s Play!), I would much rather spend my time engrossed in a character-driven tale of suspense and intensity. And Psycho scratches that itch in a way that most films made to prior to 1970 just fail to do. First, let me address the “controversial” aspects of the film. The elements of sexuality, violence, and unconventional gender norms that were deemed unfit for viewers in 1960 are exactly what makes Psycho feel like such a modern movie. Hitchcock employs these elements not to gross out or offend, but to flesh out its characters and story. The opening scene with Marion in bed with her boyfriend immediately gives the audience a feeling of intimate connection with her. We see her in one of the most vulnerable scenarios that help us relate to her and sympathize with her. And such sympathies begin to wither away gracefully as the first act progresses, but I will get to that later. Secondly, the film’s depiction of violence (notably the notorious shower scene). Compared to the gory horror, war, and action films of the last forty years, Hitchcock’s Psycho is relatively tame. Rather than relying on excessive amounts of blood and guts to induce vomiting in the theater seats, Hitchcock employs quick cuts from both the killer’s and Marion’s perspective to give the audience a connection to both sides of the murder. He wants to put us in the shoes of both the murderer and the victim to emphasize the moral complexities and ambiguities of the human condition. In other words, this scene (in addition to exploiting perhaps the most vulnerable situation a human being can be to heighten the suspense) affirms what is, in my opinion, Hitchcock’s central thesis: Sometimes, the most insane of people effectively cloak themselves in sanity while those who appear good on the outside are anything but on the inside. Which brings me to perhaps my most controversial opinion about Psycho: I do not believe that Marion Crane is a good person. What I mean is that she is not a wholly sympathetic person who I fall in love with in the first five minutes of the movie. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the first scene, I find her to be representative of what second-wave feminists may have referred to as an “independent woman” back then. Janet Leigh plays Marion as a woman who lives in a man’s world and therefore will not sit idly while the men in her life (such as her boyfriend and her boss) decide her fate. I may not like her all that much, but I respect her. For the next roughly fifteen minutes of the film, we see her lie about having a headache in order to flee with the $40,000 that she was instructed to deposit in the bank for a client in the hopes of convincing her lover to leave and have a life with her. Again, I sympathize with her but I certainly find such an action inadvisable. Even as she trades in her car to avoid suspicions by the police, I lack much empathy for her since I think she has brought some (if not all) of these watchful eyes on herself. Still, I like the movie up to this point. And it is because Janet Leigh is not playing a likeable doll-face with few (if any) believable traits or flaws that was all-too typical of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Rather, I believe in her as a real person and I am interested in her journey long before her arrival to the Bates Motel. But, when her path finally crosses with that of Norman Bates, Psycho goes from a good movie to a fantastic movie. Within minutes of their first meeting, Leigh’s Marion and Norman Bates (played expertly by Anthony Perkins) foster near-perfect chemistry between each other. Despite his awkward mannerisms and somewhat off-putting personality, Marion warms up to Norman as he divulges what he characterizes as an existence defined by his oppressive mother. She is so moved by his vulnerability and seeming honesty that, before her demise, Marion decides to return the stolen money. The film creates a powerfully human antagonist in its first half to the point where he indirectly serves as Marion’s conscience. It took a mentally unstable, lonely, and isolated person with dissociative identity disorder (“split personality” as it is referred to in the film) and cloaked in a façade of normality to show her the questionable nature of her actions. But then, Hitchcock takes this intriguing story of two kindred spirits trying to break free from the authority figures in their lives and flips it on its head. For the very person (at least physically, if not mentally) that helps her realize the error of her ways is the same person that ends her mundane, if righteous, existence. From here on out, Psycho cements its status as not just a classic in horror cinema but as one of the best films of the 20th century. It invented (and utilized to lasting effect) many of the tropes that are synonymous with the “slasher” subgenre today. From quick-cutting in murder scenes and a chilling, violin-heavy score to perspective shifts as a means of enhancing the diversity of the narrative structure, Hitchcock’s late-career masterpiece holds up today as both a tentpole of horror and a gripping, dramatic tale of the deviant and twisted side of humanity. Needless to say, Psycho stands today as the foundation of modern psycho-thriller and horror films because it subverted the moral reservations of its time. By doing away with the strait-laced, tame approach to scaring people of the 1950s, Hitchcock’s tale of Norman Bates defied expectations in order to deliver a fascinating examination of the human psyche about the lengths people will go to preserve some semblance of the reality that they desire for themselves. What are your thoughts on Psycho and the “slasher” subgenre as a whole? What are some other groundbreaking horror films I should check out? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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