Retro-Shock Theater: Psycho (1960)

I believe that every horror fan has a list of movies that came out before their time that they wish they could’ve experienced first run in the theaters. As much as one can still appreciate classics like Jaws or Night of the Living Dead even if they first encounter them decades after their initial releases, the fact is catching up with a classic after the fact can’t quite compare with the seismic experience of seeing a game changing film fresh out of the gate with an unsuspecting first-time audience – long before every moment of the film has been committed to the cultural lexicon.

If I had my own movie-going time machine at my disposal, at the very top of my must-see list would be 1960’s Psycho. I would love to see that film with an audience that had no idea what was going to happen – and even more, to experience it with an audience that wasn’t jaded by the many decades’ worth of slasher pics inspired by Psycho.

As part of Psycho’s promotion, Alfred Hitchcock forced theaters to employ a then-unprecedented policy of not letting any patrons in after the film had begun and he also urged viewers who had already seen the film to keep the film’s secrets to themselves. The marketing of Psycho was very much about preserving the surprise, to keep the viewing experience as pure as possible. But it’s a testimony to the airtight artistry of Hitchcock as well as that of screenwriter Joseph Stefano (adapting Robert Bloch’s novel) and the film’s cast (particularly the irreplaceable Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh) that even long after Psycho has lost the ability to ambush viewers that it still endures.

It may not shock in the same way it once did – only that first generation of Psycho viewers ever really experienced the movie in that way – but it still chills and entertains and fascinates. Despite the way that Hitchcock sold Psycho, shrouding it in secrecy, it wasn’t simply a cinematic sucker punch destined to only work on the uninitiated. Instead it was a movie that revealed its wicked sense of humor only after its secrets were fully known and it’s a movie that is also possessed of a piercing, and perpetually timely, understanding of life’s sadness with its characters that “never budge an inch” from their private traps.

Amid all the accolades that Psycho has received in the fifty-plus years since its release, the one common nitpick revolves around the penultimate scene, in which Simon Oakland’s psychiatrist character explains, in tedious detail, Norman Bates’ schizophrenia. The psychiatrist is purposely depicted as a self-satisfied windbag.

When Lila Crane (Vera Miles) asks if Norman killed her sister, rather than giving Lila the courtesy of a straight answer, the psychiatrist instead responds “Yes…and no.” Oakland plays the psychiatrist as someone who’s somewhat smug and who enjoys playing to an audience. His long winded explanation is all about demystifying what we’ve seen transpire in the fruit cellar.

But then Hitchcock pulls the rug out from under that speech by bringing us back to Norman in his cell and letting us hear “Mother’s” thoughts (the voice of actress Virginia Gregg, who returned to voice Mother again in Psycho II and III before her death in 1986). While everything that the psychiatrist says about Norman may be true from a clinical standpoint, the coda with Norman shows just how empty those words are.

Hitchcock could’ve let the audience off the hook with Oakland’s explanation and left it at that. Vera Miles and John Gavin could’ve walked out of the police station after Oakland’s speech with a big ‘The End’ title imposed over them. That would’ve signaled the restoration of normalcy. But in letting Mother’s thoughts be the film’s final words, Hitchcock kneecaps everything Oakland just said and thumbs his nose at any attempt to comfortably explain away Norman’s madness – or madness in general, for that matter.

The second half of Psycho in which Lila, Sam, and the ill-fated Arbogast (Martin Balsam) try to unravel the mystery of the missing $40,000 that Marion stole from her boss is all about people looking for rational answers. To their mind, the money must be at the heart of it. Either Bates killed Marion (Janet Leigh) for her money or Bates is hiding Marion or some variation on either of those scenarios. They’re looking for motives that make a “from point A to point B” kind of sense.

In the end, though, Psycho guts the search for rationality and gives madness the upper hand. While the influence of Psycho lives on with the murderous “Bloody Face” terrorizing TV viewers on this season’s American Horror Story, the serial slayer of The Collection butchering on the big screen, the making-of Psycho tale Hitchcock now in theaters as well, and a Bates Motel prequel series coming to A&E next year, Psycho itself remains the Mother of all shockers.

Originally published 12/1/12 at Shock Till You Drop

Hitchcock On Hitchcock

I wouldn't be me if she wasn't her



And it's far too late anyway.

Still Crazy After All These Years

Now celebrating its fiftieth (!) anniversary, Psycho is still a living thing, not some stuffed carcass like the birds that decorate the office of amateur taxidermist Norman Bates. Fifty years since Alfred Hitchcock single handedly created the modern horror film, we're still reeling from the way Psycho changed both movies and our collective psyche. One wonders what Simon Oakland's glib psychiatrist character would have to say about that.

Maybe just "Happy Anniversary."

Analyze This

The common wisdom concerning the penultimate scene of Psycho (1960) has always been that the speech delivered by actor Simon Oakland - in which his psychiatrist character explains in exacting detail why Norman Bates has been committing murder while dressed as his dead mother - is a tedious attempt at summation as Oakland is given the thankless task of walking us through Norman's twisted mind, dryly explaining the craziness we've just witnessed. But while this scene is usually singled out as a misstep, a speech that could've used some judicious editing and still conveyed the necessary info, I feel like there was an underlying method to Hitchcock's madness.

Every time I've watched Psycho, I've always felt that Hitchcock wanted this scene with the psychiatrist to work on two levels. One, I think he felt that a large part of the audience would really need an explanation and that he was obliged to include this scene for the sake of clarity. Even though what we see transpire in the fruit cellar is enough to roughly put it all together, a more deliberate connecting of the dots had to be there. But I also feel that while Hitchcock knew he had to include that scene, he purposely portrayed the psychiatrist as a windbag - knowing that he would let the air out of everything that was said with the coda that followed with Norman alone in his cell. Oakland plays the psychiatrist as a self-satisfied blowhard who likes the sound of his own voice. He's smug, he's comfortable playing to an audience. After talking to Norman - or specifically, to Mother - he's got the whole story. His explanation is all about demystifying what we've just seen. He takes all the mystery out of it.

But then Hitchcock pulls the rug from under that speech by bringing us back to Norman and letting us hear his thoughts as Mother. While everything that the psychiatrist says about Norman - about his crimes, about his split personality - may be true, the last scene with Norman shows just how empty those words are. Hitchcock could've let the audience off the hook with Oakland's explanation and left the film at that. That would've been the conventional choice. Vera Miles and John Gavin could've walked out of the police station with matching sad faces as soon as Oakland finished talking with a big 'The End' title imposed over them - Janet Leigh may be gone but hey, at least normality is restored. But for Hitchcock to go back to Norman instead and let Mother's thoughts be the film's final words (courtesy of actress Virgina Gregg) is a brilliant undercutting of Oakland's speech. By doing this, Hitchcock is able to have his cake and eat it too. Yes, he gives the audience the explanation but then he shows how bullshit it is to believe we can understand a person as disturbed as Norman.

What's always made my skin crawl the most about Psycho was imagining what Norman's victims saw in the last moments of their lives. To know that these people suffered a death that was inexplicable to them - to see who was attacking them, to be able to recognize Norman (even though in the shower scene we only see Mother in silhouette, I always felt that Marion could see Norman's face just as well as Arbogast clearly does) but to have no way of comprehending why Norman was dressed the way he was or why he was out to slaughter them - was an idea that burrowed into my brain. And when Hitchcock returns to Norman after the psychiatrist has had his say, he is putting a fine point on the idea we are eternally vulnerable to the madness of others. This is what Hitchcock wants to leave us with, not Oakland's hollow explanation. The psychiatrist can dissemble Norman's mental state with practiced professional acumen now that Norman is in custody but the truth is, if this psychiatrist had gone to the Bates Motel a day earlier, he would've stood face to face with Norman and not perceived his insanity.

By knee-capping the psychiatrist's speech, Hitchcock obliterates any comfort those words might've offered, allowing Psycho to endure as the ultimate public service announcement for watching your ass at all times.

"Hot Creepers!"

I was just watching Psycho again today for the first time in many years and while most of it was as familiar to me as the back of my hand, one bit jumped out as though I was hearing it for the first time. When Marion Crane is driving to her new life and is imagining the various reactions that her theft of $40,000 dollars belonging to raffish oil man Tom Cassidy will cause, the phrase that she imagines Cassidy blurting out is "Hot Creepers!" How I ever forgot this, I have no idea because 'Hot Creepers' is perhaps the funniest shit ever. This very blogspot would probably be named 'Hot Creepers', in fact, had I properly earmarked those words. Although I've never heard it spoken elsewhere, I find it funny that in my many viewings of Psycho over the years that this is the first time that it struck me as being a nutty expression. While she was on her way to finding out what crazy was all about, it's clear that Marion was already a little bent herself.

Norman, Is That You?

I don't remember my reaction to this spot but I imagine that at the time this commercial originally ran (somewhere in the late '80s, early '90s) I would've considered it heresy to use the iconography of Psycho to hawk Bud Lite. At the very least I would've rolled my eyes at the crass abuse of a classic film in the name of commerce. But I was, of course, younger then and much more prone to taking things seriously.

Now to watch this makes me nostalgic for a time when an ad spoofing Psycho was guaranteed instant recognition - from baby boomers who were traumatized by the original and from their kids who saw the Psycho saga continue in the '80s with Psycho II (1983) and III (1986). Norman Bates was widely recognized as the godfather of Jason, Michael Myers, and Freddy so even though he was old, he was cool - the single vintage horror character at the time who wasn't simply another generation's idea of what was scary. Psycho was a film that parents who didn't understand the new wave of graphic FX could hold up as an example of how it was possible to scare people without gore (even though people conveniently forgot the virulent reaction that Psycho's violence received) but thanks to the sequels, the series was in step with the '80s (I can attest that my ninth grade classmates unanimously felt Psycho II was a huge improvement over the original!).

It's been a long twenty-two years now since Psycho III debuted in theaters (the exact amount of time between the original and Norman's return in Psycho II - as that sequel's tagline noted "It's 22 years later, and Norman Bates is finally coming home"), eighteen years since Anthony Perkins' final appearance as Norman in the made-for-cable prequel Psycho IV: The Beginning, sixteen years since Perkins passed away, and ten years since Gus Van Sant tore the stuffing out of mother in his Psycho remake. Today the world is more psycho than ever (Perkins' widow and the mother of his two children, perished in one of the ill-fated flights on September 11th) but it's not a Psycho world any more.