Live Life Team
Genre: Horror
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles
Psycho is Hitchcock’s horror masterpiece, and seems not to have dated at all in the near 50 years since its release. The menacing opening chords of the now famous theme tune instantly makes the heart beat faster while in the same instance making it clear that the rest of the looming story is not going to be pleasant for any of the characters. In addition it was Hitchcock’s objective to hoodwink the viewer from the start; for the initial 30 minutes of the movie Psycho is a pure crime thriller, centred on a well-known star on the run for fraud – typical Alfred Hitchcock fare that comfortably fits the assumptions you might have upon sitting down to watch for the first time.
Psycho, which was Hitchcock’s first horror film, was shot in black and white and the effect is astonishing. Every scene is shot with subtle magnificence to attain precisely the desired dramatic effect. For the astute film fan this will not be a surprise, and it is for exactly this reason Psycho appears in almost every classic movie fan’s “all time top 10” list. The film was lavished with care and attention, and this all happened at a time when the horror genre was not taken truly seriously by the movie world.
Psycho’s lasting impact was to transform the way movie-goers looked at an entire genre. It was making horror respectable again, and countless classic film fans are very glad Psycho succeeded.
