STORY STUDY (HORROR MONTH) - MEDIUM: FILM - “Psycho”
It’s the time of terror, monsters, and pointless jump scares.
For the month of October, I will be posting about horror and/or thriller movies that inspire fear in everyone.
The films will be posted in chronological order of their release date.
Let’s start it off with one of the most famous horror films from a master director, Psycho.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Joseph Stefano, and based on the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, Psycho is about a secretary named Marion Crane, who decides to steal $40,000 that a rich client dropped (cash, of course) into the office she works at. She wants to use it to pay off her boyfriend’s debt so they can finally get married. She takes the money, and drives to California.
When a rainstorm hits, Marion is forced to stop at the Bates Motel, where she is to be the only guest. There, she meets the owner and manager, Norman Bates.
Before having dinner with him, Marion overhears an argument between him and his overbearing mother in the mansion they live in behind the motel. It’s very clear that Mrs. Bates doesn’t want Norman to have any other woman in his life other than her. \
After dinner, Marion decides to drive back to her office to return the money the next morning.
However, later that night when she takes a shower, in Psycho’s iconic scene (and musical score), she is multiply stabbed by an elderly woman, and is left for dead.
The rest of the film involves other characters, which include Marion’s boyfriend and her sister, Lila, trying to find her.
Psycho does something unique in plot structure. In his novel, Bloch introduced his main character, only to have her be killed off half way through. Hitchcock retained this format for the film.
Decades later, Psycho is still considered one of the most influential films of all time. The atmosphere, the archetypes, and the climactic plot twist all still resonate in contemporary horror films. It’s a film that has been analyzed frame by frame in terms of its filmmaking, and its story and characters.
The film has inspired three sequels, all starring Anthony Perkins, a 1998 shot-for-shot remake directed by Gus Van Sant, and is the basis of the prequel series Bates Motel set in a contemporary time period), developed by Carlton Cuse, Kerry Ehrin, and Anthony Cipriano.
The production story of Psycho, which we won’t go into here, was the basis of the 2012 film, Hitchcock, directed by Sacha Gervasi, written by John J. McLaughlin, and based on the non-fiction book, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello.
Honestly, I have no idea what I can say about it that everyone else hasn’t. It was a very different kind of film at the time; it’s a film that’s been parodied since its premiere; the film had a “no late admission” policy, the list goes on.
I assume mostly anyone who knows anything about movies knows about Psycho and its plot twist.
Even so, give it a watch, and when you can… be nice to your mother.
