The second Alfred Hitchcock movie we watched, Psycho was also very good. I personally liked Vertigo better, but Psycho was a thrill ride that I probably shouldn’t have watched alone at 2 in the morning. Hitchcock was forced to use black and white to shoot this movie, due to the fact that otherwise it would have been too bloody to be allowed in theaters. In my opinion the black and white actually added to the movie, making it much darker and more suspenseful. The mystery behind Psycho is not as well developed as the one in Vertigo, which does hamper the story a bit – once I had figured it out, the plot became somewhat predictable. This did put a small damper on the end of the movie, but didn’t stop it from being an emotional thrill ride. Again, watching this movie at 2 in the morning was a very bad idea. The “shower scene” that has become so infamous was pretty much everything I expected it to be, but there were other moments (that I won’t spoil) that made me freak out. Just a little bit.
This movie is a very very well done, if a little predictable, thriller. The main villain is among the scariest movie psychos out there, the setting and atmosphere are spot on, and this movie is really vintage Hitchcock. Well worth watching, if you aren’t too squeamish.
Score: 4/5 (A 4 is a movie that I really really liked, and would definitely see again, but some very minor issues kept me from rating it as one of my favorite movies ever. It does come with my completely unqualified recommendation unless you really don’t like that particular genre of movie.)
