‘Psycho’

Stars: Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, Anthony Perkins

Rated: R

Released: 1960

What I “know:” Probably more than most movies. I know Anthony Perkins killed his mom and keeps her in the basement. And I know there’s some shower murder scene with Jamie Lee Curtis’s mom. What I don’t know is why.

What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where twitchy manager Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) cares for his housebound mother. The place seems quirky but fine … until Marion decides to take a shower. Director Alfred Hitchcock’s Oscar-nominated shocker has been terrifying viewers for decades — and for good reason.

OK, so No. 1, I’m just about Hitchcocked out. Whoever organized my queue screwed me on that. (Edit: I just looked and I still have three more Hitchcocks to watch. Ugh.) I’ve yet to be “shocked” or “stunned” or anything. And I realize it’s hard to watch it 60 years later when you’re not a film historian to see the things he broke ground with. But ugh. And phew! This whole time (nearly 41 years) I thought they were portraying Janet Leigh as his mom and I was like, “She’s a little young, no?” So glad that’s not the case. Also, my mom just told me tonight it took her years to get over the shower scene, but I think I’ve seen like 98 percent of it, so I figure I’m OK. Not like he could show the knife plunging into her or anything.

Trailer!

Holy crap on a cracker, that thing’s 6:31 long! I’m not watching that.

1:01: NOOOO JOHN GAVIN? Freaking Stalker Steve from “Imitation of Life” is back to haunt me in another movie? Dammit. I hope he’s not creepier than ol’ Norman here.

3:17: Ewww post-coital Stalker Steve.

5:12: “You makes respectability sound … disrespectful.” Sister, you don’t know the half.

6:05: So I’m taking from this, even already knowing she apparently rips off her boss and goes on the run, that Sam is the worst choice Marion will make. Even worse than staying at the Bates Motel. Hell, maybe Norman did her a favor. Don’t meet up in a seedy hotel with a guy who just keeps talking about his ex-wife.

6:25: So she’s like “Let’s get married” and he immediately talks about his ex-wife again, then backs out of frame. Girl, run.

7:35: This woman who works with Marion, however, is sheer gold. She took tranquilizers on her wedding night and ran through her husband and her mother’s calls when Marion asked if there were any calls while she was getting her Afternoon Delight. More of her, please!

9:15: Ick at the gross old Southern man who’s flopping his cash all around like it’s his manhood. Maybe it is.

11:04: “I guess I’ll go put this money in the bank, then go home and sleep it off.” My ass you will, Marion.

12:13: Want to know why I could never do this? I’m a terrible packer. I’d leave something mandatory at home, have to turn around and get it, and get caught. And yes, I could probably buy another of whatever it was with $40K in 1960 money, but that doesn’t last forever!

14:10: Generally, it’s unsafe for a woman to sleep in her car alone on the side of a road. But considering where this whole thing ends, she should have stuck with that.

23:01: She should just tell the cop she’s running from an abusive boyfriend. Some women did that in the ’60s, right?

26:17: Janet Leigh’s eyebrows are on POINT.

 

27:59: Stop honking your horn! You don’t want to make Norman angry!

28:19: Dude, Anthony Perkins is taller and skinnier than I thought he was. Or Janet Leigh is shorter. Either way, he looks like a scarecrow.

30:11: I’m kind of glad I know he’s, you know, psycho. Because otherwise I’d totally have a dork crush on Norman.

33:11: The Bateses should really look into doing better insulation on their house. I can hear every word through a rainstorm at the hotel hundreds of yards away.

35:29: “I’m not hungry. Go ahead.” The same guy who 5 minutes ago said he was just getting ready to eat dinner and would love for you to join him, and who has stuffed birds on his wall, wants to sit there and watch you eat after luring you into a back room in the office of the hotel where there are no others guests. Sheesh, Marion.

37:13: Oh, the body language. He’s all open and touching a bird and she said, “Do you go out with friends?” and he pulled his hand down and closed his legs and looked up toward the house and said, “Well, a boy’s best friend is his mother.” 1. Sweet, but no and 2. Yikes. Anthony Perkins is really quite good.

39:45: Holy crap, he killed his stepfather, didn’t he? Oh, Norman. This whole killing thing has got to stop! I mean, not yet, because Marion’s still alive, but you know. At some point.

39:59: “A son is a poor substitute for a lover.” Gross.

40:02: So the same thing that drove me crazy in “Dial M for Murder” is done SO WELL here. This entire scene is great. I guess it’s partly because I know more of the story than people watching it normally do, or did in that time, but seeing these two play off each other, building this tension … this is much better.

41:54: Y’all, I’m serious. This is the only thing I’ve ever seen Anthony Perkins in but he is (pardon the term) killing it! I’m 100 percent in on Norman Bates. “We all go a little mad sometimes” and then that smile. I mean, he’s clearly insane. Norman, not Anthony. But still … killing it!

43:34: OH NO SHE SAID CRANE. But she signed the book as something else (can’t remember what). Is that what spurs him? Is that what makes him slash her to bits? Man, she should have just continued stinking after two days without a shower. More deodorant, a little perfume, and get out of Dodge. Ah, Marie Samuels. He just picked up the book. Silly Marion. That mistake will cost you!

44:44: Now, wait. The layout is all wrong. When she went into the office, the desk was to her left, and this room was behind it. So her room would be the other end of the office. Even if the desk were straight ahead, this would still be parallel and he’d be looking out the back of the hotel. When he walked her to her room, it wasn’t a far enough walk to have covered a desk to the right, then a parlor, then the full depth of her bed. Dammit, Hitchcock.

45:04: See? Right there! He hangs the picture up, walks out the door across from it, walks straight out and turns left out of his office. That wall doesn’t even touch her room!

46:49: Oooooh she ’bout to get it! P.S. Even though I’ve seen most of this scene (the shadow, the curtain opening, her screaming and cowering) I’m still nervous. I really hate scary things. I hope this doesn’t mess me up, for real.

Obligatory clip, even though I’m assuming everyone’s seen it:

48:00: Dude, never leave them still alive. I mean, I’m pretty sure she dies eventually, but don’t run the risk. P.S. how is there no blood? I mean, none of the wall, none in the tub, none on her body? Even with the water running, you’d still be able to see the blood running out of her cuts.

48:41: HAHAHA and so now that the upper half of her is out of the tub and on the tile floor, NOW there’s blood running toward the drain? I guess from the 14 stab wounds he inflicted to her calves?

50:27: So I think at this point I’m supposed to think it was his mother who did this. This is the great Hitchcock switcheroo. But I don’t know if Norman had an actual break and is shocked at the sight of the blood, or if he’s acting it out so he can say he walked in on her like that when the cops come a’callin.

50:40: I’m also going to say this: Young Anthony Perkins looks strikingly like young Adam Levine.

52:51: Norman seems a little too practiced in how to get dead bodies out of hotel rooms, nah mean?

53:24: Norman should have called an exorcist, because I have NO IDEA where all that blood came from. It’s literally all around the tub, dried, when there was none after the killing, AND the water was still running when he came in.

54:27: Now this scene is taking too long. Hitchcock is killing the mood!

55:01: Wait, why is it basically dawn already? He’s really slow at cleaning bathrooms.

55:15: Very convenient that her trunk is already neatly lined.

58:13: Wait, his grand plan is to drive a car with a dead body in it into some brush and that will just take care of it? Oh, of course, there’s just a convenient pond there.

59:49: HAHAH a convenient pond that is inconveniently shallow. Is that a tar pit? That “water” is super dark.

59:59: OK, seriously, the little twitch/half-smile/smirk he just pulled when the car started sinking again was perfection. God, I love this guy. Anthony, not Norman.

1:01:48: Bob’s my second favorite person behind the nitwit that worked with Marion. Stalker Steve/Sleazy Sam tells him to skedaddle because Marion’s sister is making a scene and putting his business on blast and Bob’s like “I don’t need to go get lunch, I packed one.” Awesome.

1:02:09: PLAYER 3 HAS ENTERED THE GAME. Boom, there’s a private investigator who now wants to get all up in the Marion info. He looks super familiar so I was scanning his IMDB and I was like “I’ve never seen this guy in any … WAIT A SECOND he was in “All the President’s Men.” Got it.

1:11:59: I can see why Anthony felt trapped and confined by this role. I swear, even if I see him in something else, I’ll only see him as Norman. That apparently sucked for him, and I get it. But god, is he good. That whole scene with the private investigator slowly breaking him was tremendous.

1:16:11: Don’t go to the house of the crazy man! Oh, silly private investigator. That house just screams “murder house.”

1:17:37: Oh no! Norman’s “mother” has killed again!

1:18:00: “He’ll be back” says Sleazy Sam. Uh, no, he won’t. He’s sinking in a pond right about now. Man, that pond didn’t look big enough to hold more than 1-2 of those giant cars from those days. Norman better reign himself in!

1:18:50: HAHAHAH he really was in the pond. This is awesome. Also, stop yelling. You’re going to anger Norman. And you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry! Although, I’m OK with Sleazy Sam getting his due.

1:19:00: Dammit, Sam lives. Is there no mercy in this world?

1:20:52: Haha the look between the deputy sheriff and his wife when Sleazy Sam said, “no, his mother” was priceless.

1:23:36: Paraphrasing, but “I called the guy who runs the motel where two missing people were last seen but he says he knows nothing so we’re good here.” Good work, copper.

1:23:54: AND THERE’S THE HITCHCOCK TWIST. I mean, I knew the mother was dead, but those people didn’t, and Marion sure didn’t.

1:25:09: No. 1, Norman should stick to poison. Fewer questions. And No. 2, who is the woman buried out in Greenlawn Cemetery?

1:33:14: So cabin No. 1 is just unlocked? The one he killed someone in, he doesn’t lock up after himself? Even when people come around asking questions? And why did she look in the toilet? And why didn’t the ink fade on the paper after nine days of sitting in toilet water? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

1:37:17: The sister just walks into the house and starts going through all the rooms. A.) You think people might have been killed and B.) You think some old woman lives there. Maybe call out like “Mrs. Bates?” or something. I mean, it’s not like she can answer, but you don’t know that!

1:39:41: The jaw clenching is EVERYTHING. I totally would have had a thing for Anthony Perkins. Yeah, I know. It’s never stopped me before. The gay thing, not the psycho thing. Though, actually …

1:41:25: Holy shit, that reveal of Norman in the dress and wig is amazing. He looks truly frightening. Well done, Anthony Perkins!

1:45:36: I don’t think this is how psychiatrists who have just talked to a murderer are supposed to be talking. This guy is getting really in-depth and it’s weird. “The MOTHER killed the girl.”

1:48:31: OMG that last scene, where he looks up at the camera and smiles while looking under his brow? Chilling. Like “Charles Manson in that Time-Life commercial where it froze on him staring right at the camera and gave me nightmares” chilling. Am I the only person who remembers that commercial??

OK, EASILY my favorite Hitchcock movie so far (though I’m sadly only halfway through apparently). It seemed … less Hitchcockian in some ways? Less overbearing, less tracking shots and psychedelic things. I actually really liked this movie, which may say something about me … though not anything my friends haven’t already said. And Anthony Perkins was a revelation. I know that’s probably not the right word for a guy who’s been dead for 25 years and who starred in this movie 57 years ago, but lordy. That man was good.

Next up: “The Last Picture Show!”