Halloween Countdown Day 6: Psycho

It’s Halloween, and Geoff is getting into the spirit by snuggling up on the couch and watching a scary movie every day until the trick-or-treaters arrive.

If you haven’t seen these movies, you should. You really, REALLY should. 

Miss any of the countdown? 

           Day 1: My Bloody Valentine (1981)     Day 2: In the Mouth of Madness (1995)     

           Day 3: The Walking Dead / Dead Set  Day 4: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) 
           Day 5: Let Me In (2010)

Day 6: Psycho (1960)

There's just no way of getting around it, Alfred Hitchcock is simply the coolest of the cool. I remember exactly where I was when I first saw Psycho, and I remember the effect that it had on me. This movie alone is what made me afraid of a) roadside motels, b) showers and c) people's mothers.

And it's not just this film. Hitchcock movies are gold, as we briefly discussed last year. 

Hitchcock is, and always will be, the master of suspense and Psycho is still, after more than 50 years, one of the best horror films of all time.

 The Plot in 140 characters: Marion has had one hell of a day. After all, stealing from work really takes it out of you. Now, it's time to relax with a nice warm shower.

The Actual Plot: Janet Leigh steals $40,000 from her work and runs off to start fresh. But when she makes a stop at the reasonably priced Bates Motel, she meets a charming young innkeeper.

On Janet's trail are the police, and her family, wanting to get their hands on her for running off with all the cash.

"Have you seen this boy?"

That charming innkeeper, Norman Bates, is not a psycho-killer, if that's what you're asking. He's just a nice boy who wants to stuff animals and hang out with his mother.

His, mother, by the way, doesn't take kindly to the sexy Leigh invading her son's hotel. 

Doesn't take kindly at all.

Why I Love It: What can you say about one of the most celebrated movies of all time?

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knows what happens in Psycho. It doesn't matter if you are 8 years old or 80, the second anyone says "Psycho" you think of Janet Leigh being butchered in a shower, while the famous shreiking violens play the film's famous theme.

"Oh my, I should probably stop reading this."

Psycho has embedded itself firmly into the American psyche, more so than any other Hitchcock film ever has.

Norman Bates, specifically, is one of the single greatest villians of all time. He is a character that is tragic, horrible and at he same time perfectly likeable.

See? Look at that face! How could you be scared of that!?!

Psycho is one of those movies that has so invaded American consciousness that we don't even realize it. It effectively kick-started the horror genre, and broke almost every rule in the Hollywood book. 

The film plays with our expectations, and features the mother of all twist endings (no pun intended, sorry) that set the bar for people like M. Night Shyamalan decades later.   

"Shyamawhat? I'm scared, Sam!"

There has never been a film that shocked as much as Psycho. It pushed the strong censorship rules of the day and made bold decisions for its time. After all, it starred women in their underwear, featured gruesome death scenes, and had the audacity to show a TOILET!?! (Seriously, Psycho was the first American film to feature a flushing toilet).

It also features a fairly large amount of FACE.

What is best about it, is how the films destroys our expectations. The first half of the film plays like a standard Hithcock thriller: Woman steals thousands from her boss and the cops are on her trail, but the second that shower door opens the film changes completely into one of the most terrifying films of all time.

Psycho is a bit tame by today's standards, but it stays as one of the best horror films of all time.

Tomorrow: We're almost there, so let's change things up a little bit. What's the scariest creature in the world? Grizzly bear? Cobra? Nope, you'd be wrong.

The real answer, the ONLY answer has got to be a creature known simply as BRUCE.

No, not that Bruce. THIS Bruce.

That's right. We're talking 'bout JAWS.