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Psycho (1960)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

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5 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Where would we be without ‘Psycho’? Fifty years on and Hitch’s delicious cod-Freudian nightmare about a platinum-blonde embezzler (Janet Leigh) who neglected to consult a guide before selecting her motel still has much to answer for. It blazed a bloody trail for the much-loved slasher cycle, but it also assured us that a B-movie could be A-grade in quality and innovation. It dared to suggest that your star didn’t need to surface from an ordeal smelling of roses (or, indeed, at all). It combined a knife, a scream, a melon, some chocolate sauce, Bernard Herrmann’s greatest score and more than 70 edits to push the envelope of screen violence. It lent ‘The Simpsons’ some of its best gags: (Seymour Skinner: ‘Oh there’s Mother now, watching me. What’s that, Mother? That sailor suit doesn’t fit any more!’). It offers perfect case studies of suspense, paranoia and montage for lazy film-studies tutors. And, of course, it was the first movie to show a toilet flushing, so we might also credit it with spawning the entire gross-out genre. ‘Psycho’: we salute you.

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 2067: 1–7 April, 2010


User reviews of this film

  • It's about time semoone w said...
    Posted on Nov 07 2011 19:06 It's about time semoone wrote about this.
    Report as inappropriate
  • Stay with this guys, you' said...
    Posted on Nov 07 2011 15:07 Stay with this guys, you're helping a lot of peolpe.
    Report as inappropriate
  • matthew said...
    Posted on Jan 28 2011 22:30 Absurd to give this any less tha 5 stars.
    Report as inappropriate
  • Magmabulle said...
    Posted on Jun 09 2008 11:29 The horror movie to which all other horror movies are compared. It is suspense and well-made, although maybe not as frightening as it was fifty years ago.
    Report as inappropriate
  • KT said...
    Posted on Mar 08 2008 06:57 To Author GA: Psycho was a movie that fit it's time . . . written for a more simple era and for an audience that didn't sit and dissect every scene. It's easy to criticize something when all movies now a days leave nothing to the imagination. Psycho IS a masterpiece and will go on being a masterpiece. It was written for entertainment purposes. If you want to talk about a two hour joke, try the remake of Psycho with Ann Heche and Vincent Vaughn....Now THAT one REALLY sucked rat eggz! And the acting!....ha, ha, ha, ha!
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