Hitchcock's 'Pyscho'!

So, I've finally seen Psycho, Alfred Hitchock's classic 1960 horror film, thanks to a screening of it for our
media classes. So I thought I'd post a blog on it!

(<-- that there's the original poster for the film)

I'd somehow managed to go 16 years without hearing too much about the plot of the film, apart from that there's a creepy guy called Norman Bates and a shower scene. So that was pretty good 'cause I wasn't sure quite when the famous scene was, and so the build up of suspense was really effective, and I really enjoyed watching it.


The Plot
The film opens with two characters - Marion Crane and her lover Sam Loomis - in a hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona, having a disagreement about their future. They want to get married, but Sam can't afford to support her due to debts inherited from his father and alimony payments. Marion returns to her job as a secretary at the real estate office, where a client, Cassidy, buys a house from Mr. Lowery (her boss) for $40,000 in cash. Lowery gives Marion the money to take to the bank safety deposit box. She runs away with the money, and becomes increasingly paranoid. She trades her old car plus $700 cash for a new car, and drives on. A rainstorm makes the visibility very poor and she sees a sign for the Bates Motel, and stops there for the night.
A quiet, shy young man who introduces himself as Norman Bates greets her, and tells Marion he lives with his mother in the large house next to the motel, which very rarely gets any business after the local highway was bypassed with the new interstate - she realises she must have taken a wrong turn. She registers with a false name and is checked into cabin 1, next to Norman's office. She hears him have an argument with his mother in the old house, from what she can hear, about her. Norman returns and apologises and makes her dinner. She then returns to her room for a shower, and is unexpectedly killed by the shadowy figure of an old woman with a kitchen knife.
We hear Norman's voice from the old house shout "Mother! Oh, God! Mother! Blood! Blood!" and rushes to Marion's room to find her dead. He clears up the whole mess and gets rid of any evidence of her being there.
A week later, Sam, Marion's sister Lila, and a detective named Arbogast looking for the missing money set out trying to find Marion, and Arbogast goes to Bates Motel. Norman lies, but he suspects something strange going on after hearing about Norman's mother, and although Norman doesn't want him to talk to her, he sneaks into the house, and is killed by the old woman. Sam and Lila report Arbogast missing to Sheriff Chambers, and they do some investigating and find that Norman's mother has supposedly been dead for the past 10 years, having poisoned her lover and then herself.
Sam and Lila go to do their own under-cover investigating, and while Sam distracts Norman, Lila looks for Mrs Bates - and finds the remains of an old woman's corpse. The figure of an old woman appears wielding a knife blocking the entrance to the cellar, screaming "I am Norma Bates!" Sam arrives and saves Lila, and the wig falls off the 'woman' to reveal Norman, dressed as his mother.
The group hear from a psychiatrist that Norman killed his mother due to jealousy and feeling replaced by her lover; he stole the corpse and treated it to preserve it as best as possible. His guilt at his crime of matricide caused him to divide his mind with his mother, and assumed his mother was as jealous of him as he of her. The attraction he felt towards Marion set off the jealous side of his 'mother', who then killed her - the latest in a series of many young women. The Norman side would then return and clean up. However, by the end of the film, it seems that the mother side of him has taken over completely, totally driving out Norman, winning the battle that always develops with multiple personalities.

The Cast

Norman Bates - Anthony Perkins

Marion Crane - Janet Leigh

Lila Crane - Vera Miles

Sam Loomis - John Gavin

Milton Arbogast - Martin Balsam

Sheriff Al Chambers - John McIntire

I really enjoyed seeing this film (at last!), as it had really interesting and original characters. I liked how everything was explained rather than there being things which didn't make sense, so were just omitted. Psycho is just one in many horror/thrillers where the theme of jealousy takes a starring role, and works so well because it is something that pretty much everyone can relate to on some level - but would not go to the extents of killing over it. It could be seen to demonstrate, in part, Rick Altman's (1999) theory of counter-culture attraction, whereby the audience can abandon themselves in the enjoyment of viewing actions that break with social acceptability and morals, or legal regulations. Barthes' theory of the enigma code is also very clear to see, with a whole lot of mystery surrounding Norman Bates himself and his mother.