Psycho - Collector's Edition

Rating:
Summary: Don't Close Your Eyes in the Shower
Review: This is an awesome film for all the reasons already stated. The DVD looks great, and watching it I noticed something I never had before: it is often stated that in the shower scene, Hitchcock creates the illusion of stabbing with clever camera work, even though the knife never actually penetrates. This turns out to be ALMOST true. If you go through the shower scene frame by frame on the DVD, at one point the knife tip clearly disappears within the skin of whichever body double was standing in for Janet Leigh. Also, blood appears to well up on the blade. I don't know if it is some clever film retouching or an unfortunate accident, but these few frames undoubtedly have a subliminal effect on the viewer and contribute to the scene's legendary horror. See for yourself!

Rating:
Summary: Still Scares!
Review: I saw this movie over 40 years ago, when it first came out, and I remember the screams in the theater. Although the filming techniques and the dialogue and some of the acting shows its age, the film is no less exciting to watch than when I orignially saw it. The logic in the development of Norman into what he became is perfectly credible, whether or not there are people who have actually gone "psycho" off the movie screen. Every time I see the movie I see at least one more thing that I didn't notice before, and I am still shocked at the "mother's" appearance and actions. It still scares.

Rating:
Summary: Psychotic
Review: I have never seen this movie until tonight, but one view of this movie and I can say this is one of the best horror films ever created. Alfred Hitchcock really knows how to create atmosphere and that alone is what makes this movie more than just a horror flick. And Psycho, I won't tell you what happens, but it comes to a point to where the movie totally delves into the mind and the possibilities within. The famous "shower scene" is intense because of the whole atmospheric build-up before the woman is killed. And I will tell you, since I have seen this movie, I will be taking a second glance over that shower curtain.
One more thing, to that one star idiot. It is Ed GEIN, not Ed Gaines you foolish imbecile. That right there proves that you have no idea what the hell you are talking about when you bad-mouth this movie. Take the corncob out of your arse and be quiet you infantile little snot.

Rating:
Summary: A TRUE ART OF HORROR.
Review: Hitchcock is, without question and by any standard, one of the handful of greatest English language film directors we have ever had. The fact that he strove, for personal, complex reasons, to make films that had appeal to the ordinary entertainment-seeking film audience as well as having the highest artistic quality has had some very interesting, though not always desirable, consequences.
When Hitchcock placed his work in that vast, swift, hopelessly cluttered current of the popular cinema industry, it was, because of that work's exceptional quality, bound to be imitated, copied, and just plain ripped-off by many far less talented, skilled, intelligent, insightful, and generally `artistic' directors and producers. The still not very well understood phenomenon called PSYCHO led to the creation of so many horror/thriller films that it would be virtually impossible to track them all and, because of the low quality of so many of them, not really even worth the effort. To actually find films that also have a serious central horror theme and that are of a quality comparable to that of PSYCHO, one would have to turn to such rare films as Fritz Lang's M or Carl Dreyer's VAMPYR. And yet PSYCHO is usually to be found bobbing obscurely in that sea of Hollywood Horror amid countless films, some of which might be good within the narrow limits of their type, but almost none of which are anywhere near having the artistic quality of PSYCHO.
One of the causes of this confusion, besides Hitchcock's own deliberate effort to give PSYCHO a popular appeal, is Hitchcock's amazing ability to make his highly subtle and complex editing technique come out so seamless and look so effortless and easy. So easy, in fact, that a not very aware viewer who has been glutted and deeply conditioned by the truly trite, mediocre, all-too-obvious technique of most film-making simply loses his or her concentration if the scene does not forcefully impose itself on them. But the fact is that most of the emotion and information in PSYCHO is generated by subtle and highly edited sequences of images rather than by anything that is actually said, overtly acted out, or explained in any other way. The entire shower scene is, of course, famous (all-too-famous), but mostly because of it's brutal impact rather than because of an awareness of the extraordinary number of shots it actually contains and the remarkable skill with which they are put together. The same can be said for the amazing scene when Arbogast slowly climbs the stairs and then is stabbed by the suddenly emerging Norman/Mother at the top of the stairs in the stunning, disorienting, overhead shot only to stumble backwards right back down the stairs and be savagely finished off on the bottom landing where he began his unwelcome and ill-advised probing. These great scenes get so much attention because they brutally impose themselves, but they are no more subtle or revealing than the long sequence of brief, alternating face and road shots when Marion is fleeing in her car, from the time she leaves Phoenix until she enters the rain storm and finally reaches the Bates Motel. This sequence gets so little attention and is considered merely transitional or even boring by many viewers, but it is an essential part of Hitchcock's connecting the viewer with Marion. Within this sequence, which seems so quiet and unimportant, the viewer is violently manipulated back and forth from voyeur posture to subjective-Marion-eye-view posture until the two are fused into one conflicted consciousness in the viewer which is then made one with Marion's own conflicted self. This theme of conflicted self which the viewer is radically part of then opens into the bottomless conflict realm of Norman/Mother from which Marion never finds her way back out and which by implication in the entire film is an essential quality of the world itself however comforted, protected and separated from it the psychiatrist's official explanation at the end may make Leila, Sam and the viewers feel. Mother does indeed have the last word, harmless though it is.
My point is that if you watch PSYCHO with only enough awareness to be impacted solely by the scenes that put the blade-edge right up against your skin, then I can understand why you might mistake this film for just another horror film, but even then...

Rating:
Summary: The Genius Shines AGAIN!!!
Review: Has all aspect of a fantastic, wet-your-pants, horror film. It is finely directed by Alfred Hitchcock the master of suspense. THis time he incorporates a thieving cow, an isolated loony in a motel and a head-splitting horror tune and you get Psycho. This film is an indoubted classic, it starts with some inept Janet Leigh after she steals off her boss, she goes on the run and stops at the infamous 'Bate's Motel' to her peril, she has no idea that within half an hour she is murdered in the even more infamous 'shower scene' and then disposed of in the boot of her car. Then a little later on a cop of some sort tries to track her down and ends up stopping at the motel she was murdered at a little time earlier. He ends up being killed too weh nhe decides to check out the creepy house that Mr Bates lives in. After a short interlude of figuring out what happened he is soon apprehended and branded as the psycho. THE END.
The score to the film and the sheer suspense created by Hitchcock whilst watching is phenomonal and this is what leaves the film as a cult classic in every respect.
It may be a bit of a no brainer slashfest but it is always going to be soomewhere in mine (and probably everyone else's) mind because it is too good and too influential to forget.

Rating:
Summary: Great movie for its time!!!!
Review: "Psycho" is often touted as the ultimate slasher film! It is fantastic for its time, but it is pretty dated. It is scary...sure. It simply isn't as enjoyable to watch as "Halloween", which features a similar scary soundtrack. The movie is in b&w which makes it less attractive. "Halloween" is the better movie by its simplicity and better overall horror effects.

Having said all that, this is where the slasher movie got its start. Hitchcock really showed us what suspense was all about and John Carpenter copied his utilization of music for overall scary effects.