Alfred Hitchcock
Psycho

Marion Crane, an employee in Phoenix, attempting to reach her partner and under the illusion of changing her life, escapes with $40,000 that she was supposed to deposit in the bank for her employer. During her escape, she encounters a violent storm, which forces her to leave the main road. Exhausted from the long journey and consumed by guilt, she decides to spend the night in an isolated motel, run by Norman Bates, a shy and solitary young man who lives with his elderly mother in a California Gothic-style house near the hotel. The woman becomes acquainted with the gentle young man, and after having a frugal dinner, before going to bed, she decides to take a shower. The next morning, Norman discovers that the woman has been murdered, and shocked, without noticing the stolen money wrapped in a newspaper, meticulously cleans the room, places the body in the trunk of Marion's car, and then sinks it into the murky waters of a swamp.

Psycho is not only the most famous film of the undisputed master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, but also one of the most celebrated movies in cinema, an unsurpassed study of suspense. The shower scene is undoubtedly one of the most renowned in cinema, seen by all on television, as the very symbol of the film. In this shock-thriller, the director succeeded in creating horror and tension without ever resorting to bloody special effects, generating emotion solely by playing on the viewers' expectations, expectations that are regularly disappointed; the most striking example is when he kills off Janet Leigh, considered by those watching the film to be the protagonist, just over half an hour into the movie. Another of Hitchcock's devices to create further involvement is shooting scenes in which one doesn't see what's happening but must infer it. An example is the sequence in which Norman climbs the stairs and enters his mother's room to scold her... one hears the argument between the young man and the woman, but the camera remains focused on the door for the entire time of their dialogue. Psycho is also and above all a film dealing with the split personality; at the end, the psychiatrist perfectly explains the inner world and the reasons that drove Norman... the explanation is stunningly lucid and unassailable. In the past, with Spellbound and later with Marnie, Hitchcock tackled the theme of the unconscious, but in these cases, without delving deeply into psychoanalytic subject matter objectively.

Almost every scene tends to keep the viewer in suspense, this also thanks to Anthony Perkins, who portrayed Norman Bates with such force that he couldn’t later free himself from that role. The final scene is unforgettable when a fly lands on his leg, and his thoughts are voiced. Then, the camera zooms in on his face, which conveys the mocking grin of a psychotic, the true protagonist of the film, because one cannot think of Psycho without recalling Norman Bates, without Anthony Perkins coming to mind.

PS: The film is based on a story by Robert Bloch, which in turn was inspired by the life of Ed Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield, one of the most notorious serial killers in U.S. history. On the internet, I found an article about this murderer. In his house, among filth and squalor, human parts were found preserved, skulls and skeletons, inside a box was an object that at first glance might seem like a necklace, but it was made of nipples. There were also pickled vaginas, and parts of the furniture were composed of human organs. I quote a statement from a neighbor: Ed Gein seemed like a good person to me, like everyone else, only sometimes he seemed a little strange. He seemed like a harmless type. (It seems like a description of Norman) Some years later, Tobe Hooper also drew inspiration from him when he made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and even The Silence of the Lambs drew from Gein's figure.