Alfred Hitchcock's PYSCHO, film review

Alfred Hitchcock’s

PSYCHO

Film Review by

Joanna Marie Tan

Casts:

Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates

Vera Miles as Lila Crane

John Gavin as Sam Loomis

Janet Leigh as Marion Crane

           

Titled as the “mother” of all modern horror suspense, truly, Psycho gave me goose bumps; it felt like someone was also running after me. Although it was Hitchcock’s first real horror film, it seems like he already is a master at making one. It was story of a woman, Marion Crane, who stole $40,000 from her employer’s office and run away to start a new life. On her way to another state, tired and exhausted, she decided to stop by to a motel run by a man named Norman Bates, a silent and mysterious type of person who seems so preoccupied by his ill mom. Suddenly, Marion was killed and now reveals the truth that Norman’s the killer and his mom had already died a long time ago. The woman’s silhouette seen in his window was just a mummy of his mother’s body.

            The nightmarish, confusing identities, vulnerable situations, and deadly effects of money, victimizations and mummy-terrifying doll were realistically revealed. Its theme, suspense, was revealed through repeated uses of birds, eyes, hands and mirrors. Hitchcock’s use of Psychoanalytic model theory, particularly Voyeuristic Pleasures shows how he manipulates viewer’s attraction and pleasures that could be obtained and connecting it to guiding the viewers into identifying the main character, their real identities and twists behind the true story of the film. Scenes from the killing at the shower, suspense scenes at the office, bedroom and even the first scene of the film showing Marion having a lunchtime affair in her white, sexy undergarments were voyeuristic.

            Psycho is very complex and stuffed with mysterious events which made it more exciting. It’s not just a typical type of film that would just occupy your mind only from the beginning till the end; it would boggle you until you sleep. It’s one of the most frightening films ever made and it is filled with suspense and full murder mystery panorama.