You can like it or not - but nobody can deny its iconic status - Psycho (1960) Discussion

I love this movie! I even love Psycho II, III, and IV.

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Psycho really is one of those films that helped reshape cinema. There had never been a film quite like it before - although many were influenced by it.

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Thank you, Doctor Thirteen, for this comprehensive overview of Psycho and its impact.

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The much reported hype of the of the time wasn't exaggerated. My mum saw it in the cinema with a friend when it was first released. They were just expecting an efficient Hitchcock thriller. What they got scared the living daylights out of both of them.

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Nothing is more satisfying to this Psycho fan than to read "first hand reactions" of those who saw it in the cinema on release in 1960. Two or three books have "collected" stories on "the first time I saw Psycho" and when its in 1960(rather than on TV)...its like feeling history. I recall one such viewer saying "I walked out ot the theater after a matinee , in daylight, and it was like the sky itself was dark with the evil of the film."

I have attested to a full-house college viewing in 1979(the year that the far more graphic Alien came out) where everybody screamed LONG AND LOUD at everything OTHER than the shower scene (something about the staging of the shower scene seemed to leave that audience groaning rather than screaming.) But I've read that in 1960 showings, the screams during the shower scene almost drowned out the screeching violins. Almost.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

It's very easy to look at it today and say it's 'tame', 'mild', or even 'boring'.

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All of the above, alas. I think those first 30 minutes before Norman (and the creepy motel and Gothic house) show up really throw modern audiences for a loop. And yet I NOW find those 30 minutes to be utterly unique: weird, off-balance,. like a REAL nightmare or dream feels. Psycho starts in a very artful, weird way.

And even today I don't think the shower scene is THAT tame. The set-up is terrifying -- not only is the victim naked in a shower, she's all alone in a backwater motel miles from anyone -- and we HEAR the stabs all through the murder -- 11 times, I've read. The key is how LONG the stabbing goes on. One censor who cut down the shower scene for Psycho in a 1960 screening said "One stab is as good as ten." But NO...the fact that the stabbing goes on and on and on helps keep the terror going.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

Times were different when Psycho was made. Audiences weren't desensitised to blood and violence in the way that they are today.

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Absolutely. I'm not even sure audiences scream at violence anymore. They might scream at a "jump scare," but not AT blood.

Critic David Thomson has written that when it comes to blood and gore in the decades since Psycho came out "we are a different species."

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When assessing Psycho you have to view it in the context of 1960.

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That's right. And though today it may not SEEM all that bloody, as Janet Leigh said "Hitchcock directed the film so that you THOUGHT you saw what you did NOT see." One example is blood ON Janet Leigh(Hitchcock in his trailer said "you should have SEEN the BLOOD" or in the tub(two quick gouts during the murder -- I can picture grips tossing Bosco chocolate syrup from small buckets into the water.

Another example is Arbogast getting finished off(stabbed) at teh bottom of the stairs. I had friends tell me that they SAW him getting stabbed over and over, but no, he was below the frame line, we HEARD him getting stabbed, and we HEARD his gutteral scream of pain and fear.

Also one kid I knew in the 60s saw Psycho and said that "the detective's face gets slashed in half and blood pours out" -- well, THAT didn't happen. THAT was in the kid's mind. Just one rather narrow blood slash on forehead and cheek.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

. As for 'boring', Psycho is a film where watching it has to be a conscious act. You can't just have it on in the background (unless you've seen it countless times before); you need to pay attention.

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If you really concentrate on Psycho -- give it your full attention -- the movie is almost HYPNOTIC. Like when Marion decides to take the money(in her room, on the bed.) Or when Marion counts out some bills(in the car dealership restroom.) Or when Norman talks to Marion in the parlor ("The rain didn't last long.") The combination of Bernard Herrmann's music (always brooding, humming and insinuating when not screeching) AND Hitchcock's carefully timed shots ..creates hypnosis. (Marion in her car on the highway, too.)

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

The direction, lighting, camera-work, music, are all faultless.

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Yep. Absolutely perfect.

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As for the featured performances, Anthony Perkins is perfect. The fact that he wasn't even nominated for an Oscar is baffling.

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One of the greatest snubs in Oscar history. Not simply that he didn't WIN. He wasn't NOMINATED. And the poor guy actually made the mistake of giving an interview where he opined that he WOULD be: "I think I'll be nominated. Janet, too." Well, Janet WAS -- but in the wrong category(Supporting, she should have been nommed for Best Actress.) And no nominations for Best Picture, Best Score, or Best Film Editing. THAT was psycho.

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Janet Leigh is excellent, as is Martin Balsam. However Vera Miles and John Gavin don't make as strong an impression, and for me the film flags when it's just the two of them onscreen

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Its been ever the problem with Psycho. Leigh and Balsam are excellent, but they also entered film history as the first Female Slasher Victim and the first Male Slasher Victim in movies. That each of them gave great performances in well written roles was part of it, but so was their fate. Meanwhile, both Sam and Lila SURVIVE(she's kind of a "final girl") and are pretty dull characters in the service of the story (though I think both of them were fine and Gavin was a very tall very handsome guy.)

12 years later in Hitchcock's only psycho movie AFTER Psycho -- Frenzy -- two unknown British actors named Jon Finch and Anna Massey got THAT movie's dull expositional scenes -- the "Sam and Lila scenes' in Psycho become the "Richard and Babs" scenes in Frenzy. In Frenzy, all the good scenes are the ones with the psycho in them. But there are differences. Frenzy also has a Scotland Yard inspector and his wife for comic relief and Babs...dies. Lila didn't.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

There's also the massive exposition dump near the end by the psychologist. To be fair Hitchcock himself hated that scene, feeling that the film stalled at that point. However, the studio insisted the whole thing be explained for any audience members having trouble grasping a subject matter that wasn't widely discussed back then; that being the case, it's difficult to see how else they could have done it.

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Why does it seem -- today -- that Psycho has TWO very famous scenes: the shower murder(movie history -- a great scene) and the psychiatrist scene(movie history -- exposition that ruins the movie at the end.) There seems to be more ink spilled on the psychiatrist scene(filmed in one day) than on the shower scene(filmed in seven days.)

My stance is well known, and I'll attach it to your excellent post.

The shrink scene not ONLY explains Norman to the audience, it reveals THREE key plot points that aren't handled anywhere else:

ONE: Norman was mysterious about mom's boyfriend and "the way he died. Its nothing to discuss while you're eating." The sheriff said Mrs. Bates poisoned the boyfriend --and HERSELF(murder suicide.) The shrink solves the mystery: No murder suicde. NORMAN killed the boyfriend AND Mother and "Matricide is perhaps the most unbearable crime of all...most unbearable to the son who commits it." KEY INFORMATION.

TWO: People may have thought that Mother's corpse in the basement was ONLY a corpse. A dead person. But it was MORE. Sickeningly so. We learned that Norman stole his mother's corpse, gutted it, and stuffed it with taxidermy materials(sawdust, chemicals) "to keep it as well as it would keep." That's HORROR. And it directly ties into Norman's taxidermy hobby and the comment that Mother is "as harmless as one of those stuffed birds."

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

THREE: Norman killed two other women before Marion. "Young girls" is the 1960 phrase, but I figure they were young women -- the only two young women before Marion who made the mistake of coming to the Bates Motel alone. Marion wasn't the only victim. She was Norman/Mother's "bad luck victim" : having stolen money she had a detective on her trail, and her boyfriend lived only 15 miles from the motel. Anyway, thus Norman is exposed as a true serial killer.

Your great key point is this: "Its difficult to see how else they could have done it" (the psychiatrist scene.) I don't think there WAS another way -- this is what would happen in real life.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

Arguments rage as to whether Psycho is a horror movie.

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Well, Hitchcock in a 1960 TV interivew said "this is my first attempt at a horror film." So...HE said it was. Ha.

I think it is(even BEFORE we reach the "slasher" argument.) The horror elements include a "haunted house"(even if it is not really haunted), Mother as Monster(when killing) and as a zombie-faced corpse(gutted and stuffed in taxidermy -- THAT's horror.) There's a swamp filled with cars and bodies. And the motel is a "new kind of horror setting." (Isolated in the middle of nowhere off the main highway, no guests.) Its horror alright.

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And if it is, is it a 'slasher'? For me it's a psychological horror/proto-slasher, a forerunner.

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Agreed. And I say it IS "the first slasher movie." Some say that Halloween(18 years later in 1978) is. Nope -- THAT movie even has a character called Sam Loomis in it as an homage! Some say that Friday the 13th is. Nope - YES, this is where "multiple bloody murders," "dead teenagers" and "the final girl" arrived -- but in the first one MOTHER is the killer. So Psycho led the way again.

But Psycho is MAINLY the first slahser movie because...someone gets SLASHED. Not Marion in the shower(taht we can see.) No -- Arbogast on the stairs. Slashed down the face -- the "badge of Mother's madness" tearing his face open in blood -- a 1960 shock that started it all.

Psycho in 1960 had a great tag-line on the poster that "saw the future": " A new..and altogether different..screen excitement!"

That was it, exactly. New and altogther different. History was made(the slasher movie.) Excitement. (Screenwriter Joe Esterahas said Psycho in 1960 was "the most exciting movie I ever saw.")

The poster for The Birds(1963) actually had tag-lines better suited TO Psycho: "...could be the most terrifying movie I have ever made" and "..the sheer stabbing shock of The Birds" but..."new and altogether different screen excitement" is what movie history was about

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

Compared to the 'slasher formula' it's short on body count

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Hitchcock had a saying "Thou shalt not kill...too many people." He believed that limiting murder victims on screen to one or two people allowed you to get to know the victims and to feel the impact of their deaths with greater power. Psycho -- the book -- came equipped with only two murders and they were doozies. And there is this: I saw the original Friday the 13th(at the theater) and various sequels(off and on, in bits and pieces) on TV and...for the life of me I can't remember who gets killed in which movie, how many, how often, which boys which girls(I do remember a boy sleeping on a bed and an arrow comes up through his throat.)

Psycho wasn't structured like THAT at all

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(short on blood)

As I posted up above -- in 1960 Psycho seemed to have a LOT of blood -- that people only imagined. And yet there WAS blood -- not only the two gouts to the floor of the shower druing the murder scene, but the blood in the bathroom AFTER the murder scene, and the blood that Norman mops up in the tub, and the blood on Norman's hands, and the blood on Arbogast's face.

A critic extolling "Halloween" in 1978 noted that 1960 Psycho actually had MORE blood. I think he's right.

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and there's no 'final girl' (or even an analogue).

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I think one of the great things about Psycho is that Hitchcock had not yet seen any other slasher movies(they didn't exist yet) so he "skipped all the tropes." No 10 victims. No blood everywhere. No doorknob turning(though that shadow on the floor as Arbogast approaches the door comes close) and best of all: no killer chasing the potential victims all over the place(when Mrs. Bates comes out to play, she KILLS , right away). Oh, and no 'dead killer comes back to life"(which became a cliche but was great in Wait Until Dark first.)

And no "final girl." Except -- without intending it at all -- Hitchcock SORT OF gave us a final girl in ...Lila Crane. But there was only ONE girl ahead of her(sister Marion) and only ONE man. So she's final by default but in no way intended by Hitchcock AS a final girl.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

It also generates more sympathy for the killer than slasher films do now; Norman Bates is a monster but it's hard not to feel sorry for what happened to make him that way.

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As the psychiatrist says, "Yes...and NO." There can be no doubt that folks watching Psycho for the first time found Norman Bates -- in the shy, handsome, boyish and polite person of Anthony Perkins to be VERY likeable, very innocent and (as Hitchcock said in his trailer) "you had to feel sorry for him." But as the story goes along, it becomes clear that he is at LEAST an accomplice to his mother's horrible crimes and that he lets flashes of anger out from time to time that suggest he's not that nice after all.

And then..the reveal. He IS the killer. . OK...MOTHER is the killer. But he killed mother and her boyfriend. So he IS the killer, I say again.

And this: setting Norman entirely aside, MRS. BATES is the monster of the story, a "creature" never seen before in movies. New York Times critic Bosley Crowther opined that Psycho terrified audience mostly because "of the demon Hitchcock created to commit the murders." She is so scary "up close and personal" in the shower(in shadow) and scarier STILL seen from above as a stomping robot out to kill Arbogast.

Had Psycho been made in a later age, "Mrs. Bates" would have been the Michael Myers, Jason, or Freddy of her time. Action figures and costumes would have been sold.

Actually, along with wondering "what would it have been like to see Psycho in 1960," I've sometimes wondered: "What were adult Halloween parties like in October of 1960? Did men dress up as Mrs. Bates? Did women? Did women wear shower curtains and men come as a detective with fake blood slashed down their faces? Maybe. Probably. Sometimes.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

On the other hand, from what I've read -- and my memories of Psycho advertising in re-release -- Psycho was considered so horrific that there were NO references made in media to Mrs. Bates and her victims. Psycho was kept "under lock and key." It was considered to horrible to talk about..or to make fun of. A stuffed mother? The Church did not approve!

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

The film also has way more character development

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Yes. Hitchcock was a maker of "A" movies and he demanded "A" screenplays -- structure, character developlment and dialogue. So we get to know a lot about Marion Crane for the 47 minutes before she dies(she is on screen in every scene til then). Her boyfriend Sam has a rather sad life for a "stud," divorced, saddled with alimony and debt..LIVING in the backroom of his hardware store. We sense enough about Lila to sense that she was lonely and maybe angry BEFORE her sister disappeared. And though Arbogast has no back story at all (like, what if he had a WIFE?)-- he is defined in dialogue and Martin Balsam's performance as an intelligent and somewhat sensitive man(he worries enough about Lila to call her with his information.)

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and shows more of the attempts to investigate and solve what happened (albeit not by the police) than slashers, which focus more on the relentless actions of the killer.

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Yes, again, Hitchcock was an "A' filmmaker and demanded a plotty script. But there is suspense as well -- the investigators are doing the right things for the WRONG reasons. They have no idea what they are heading into(though after Arbogast disappears, Sam and Lila treat the Bates Motel with great caution.)

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[–] roger1 (2433) 15 days ago

But it was an early pioneer, one of those that helped pave the way for Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc. It still holds its own against newer, flashier, and bloodier rivals. Not bad for a film that's over 60 years old.

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All true. Its funny that the critics of Sight and Sound went out of their way to name Vertigo as the Greatest Movie of All Time, when it isn't even necessarily HITCHCOCK'S greatest movie of all time. Not everyone votes for Psycho, but I do...largely because of its landmark, game changing status but also because I remember how it affected my young life and the lives of others I knew.

And Psycho's status as the first slasher film(it is) is rather a red herring, too.

In the Arizona-set small town romance "Murphy's Romance" of 1985, four people go out to watch a Friday the 13th movie -- Sally Field, her older possible boyfriend James Garner, her young son, and her studly young ex-husband(hanging around for plot reasons.)

As a teenager starts to get stabbed on screen, the camera cuts to the foursome watching the movie, camera panning left to right: The boy is terrified, the ex-husband is chortling in delight, Sally Field has her hands over her eyes -- and James Garner is disgusted -- and walks out of the theater.

Outside, he tells Field "I worked one summer in a slaughterhouse, I see no reason to pay good money to watch it again."

Fair enough. For an old guy, I guess. But its true...the "bloody horror" of Psycho could only lead to more blood, more bodies, more mindless murder without much plot.

But the 109-minute Psycho had about 106 minutes WITHOUT any of that.

It is the first slasher movie, yes. But it also used the horror movie to tell audiences that the movies COULD change and WOULD change . Not all of them - healthy family entertainment would keep coming(ET, anyone?) But now heroines and heroes could die, friendly people could prove deadly, the whole world could be a more exciting and dangerous place "at the movies."

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[–] Horrorlover656 (25) 15 days ago

I am a 19 year old who watched Psycho for the first time back in 2020. Other than the shower scene, it was rather creepy and tense. The Arbogast murder and Norman Bates running into the the basement scared me(I didn't know he was the killer. Which is unfortunate since I was developing a crush on Norman Bates throughout the film.)

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[–] roger1 (2433) 14 days ago

I am a 19 year old who watched Psycho for the first time back in 2020.

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Excellent! You are from a new generation experiencing this classic...likely without the terror of its original release but still sensing its power. And -- this is great -- you didn't know the twist. I think entire new generations will watch Psycho (as an "old classic") without knowing the twist and at lesat it will still work that way.

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Other than the shower scene, it was rather creepy and tense. The Arbogast murder and Norman Bates running into the the basement scared me(I didn't know he was the killer. Which is unfortunate since I was developing a crush on Norman Bates throughout the film.)

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Hitchcock was BANKING on a lot of people liking Norman Bates...and of females(and likely gay males) indeed having a crush on him.

Anthony Perkins had quite a "teenage girl" fanbase when he made Psycho...he was swooned over. Very handsome -- MOVIE STAR handsome -- but also boyish and vulnerable, like girls like 'em at that age.

One critic wrote that the twist in Psycho worked so well because "audiences desperately DID NOT WANT Norman to be the killer -- so they refused to see him that way until they had to." Because: Anthony Perkins was so loveable.

I can only imagine the shock to 1960 audiences on seeing Anthony Perkins, after years as "a sweet young good guy", suddenly switch not only to a villain part but such a HORRIBLE villain(in his vicious murders.) Musta been a shock.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 15 days ago

'Thank you, Doctor Thirteen, for this comprehensive overview of Psycho and its impact.

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My stance is well known, and I'll attach it to your excellent post.'

Thank you roger1 - and thank you for all your very interesting points. I'm a huge horror fan (I was born the year after Psycho came out and first saw it on TV when I was about 12).

I confess I didn't know about that unfortunate interview comment by Perkins! In hindsight, whoops.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 14 days ago

Thank you roger1 - and thank you for all your very interesting points.

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Thank you for reading them. And thank you for bringing "a new voice and a new perspective to this board."

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I'm a huge horror fan (I was born the year after Psycho came out and first saw it on TV when I was about 12).

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I expect the generation of people "who saw Psycho in 1960" is lessening..though not necessarily en masse. We still have surviving WWII veterans out there. But for LATER generations, it seems to have been a rite of passage on TV and (from what I have read) in film and English classes in high schools and colleges.

"When and where were you?" when you saw Psycho USED to be a major question for people, but it has long been left behind as the question was applied to later movies over time: "When and where were you when you saw...The Godfather? The Exorcist? Jaws? Star Wars? Alien? Raiders of the Lost Ark? ET? Ghostbusters? ...Jurassic Park? Iron Man? Batman(which one?) Superman(whjch one?) Spider Man? (which one?)

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[–] roger1 (2433) 14 days ago

I confess I didn't know about that unfortunate interview comment by Perkins! In hindsight, whoops.

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I wonder if he said that ("I think i will be nominated..") BEFORE all the ballots were in. If yes...some Oscar voters might have made sure NOT to vote for him. But I really don't know.

I do know this: part of what I try to bring to moviechat is a memory of stray articles and books I have read over the years about movies - -and not just about Psycho. Still I found that article while researching the film for a paper and in addition to Perkins boo-boo about being nominated , it is still an interesting interview. Perkins proudly notes to the interviewer that as of 1960 "Psycho is the highest grossing black and white film of all time." (I will assume it held that title forever after? Black and white movies largely went away.)

Perkins also said that, before Psycho came out, he was getting ready to QUIT his movie career "and to concentrate on Broadway and road company stage plays." He felt he was a bust as a movie star. Then Psycho became the highest grossing black and white movie of all time and...Perkins found new hope. Norman Bates did NOT ruin Perkins movie career...it GAVE him one.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 14 days ago

'I wonder if he said that ("I think i will be nominated..") BEFORE all the ballots were in. If yes...some Oscar voters might have made sure NOT to vote for him. But I really don't know.'

I would not put that past some people!

'Perkins also said that, before Psycho came out, he was getting ready to QUIT his movie career "and to concentrate on Broadway and road company stage plays." He felt he was a bust as a movie star. Then Psycho became the highest grossing black and white movie of all time and...Perkins found new hope. Norman Bates did NOT ruin Perkins movie career...it GAVE him one.'

That's very interesting. I know Perkins said that had he known in advance just how big a shadow Norman Bates would cast over his career, he would still have taken the job. Perhaps that's why.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

'I wonder if he said that ("I think i will be nominated..") BEFORE all the ballots were in. If yes...some Oscar voters might have made sure NOT to vote for him. But I really don't know.'

I would not put that past some people!

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Some day, maybe I can track that interview down. It was probably in early 1961 when Oscar voting was in the air? (A Variety magazine of early 1961 had a full page ad showing a photograph OF a giant photograph of Janet Leigh screaming in the shower -- draped on the side wall of the Crest Theater in Westwood, (Los Angeles, near UCLA) and the ad said "ACADEMY MEMBERS: HAVE YOU SEEN PSYCHO YET?" I went to a few movies at the Crest Theater in Westwood in the 70's...including Murder on the Orient Express co-starring Anthony Perkins and Martin Balsam.)

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

Perkins also said that, before Psycho came out, he was getting ready to QUIT his movie career "and to concentrate on Broadway and road company stage plays." He felt he was a bust as a movie star. Then Psycho became the highest grossing black and white movie of all time and...Perkins found new hope. Norman Bates did NOT ruin Perkins movie career...it GAVE him one.'

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That's very interesting. I know Perkins said that had he known in advance just how big a shadow Norman Bates would cast over his career, he would still have taken the job. Perhaps that's why.

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Yes, he said one of his grown sons asked him if he regretted accepting the Norman Bates part, and he thought long and hard on it and said "No, I would have taken it." He also said something key which I believe: "Who knows, without Psycho I may not have prevailed."

Remove Psycho from the Anthony Perkins resume, I believe, and somewhere in the sixties he would have faded away as a "youth star"...like Richard Beymer or Tab Hunter, I think. Perkins WAS a bigger deal than them, I think (an early Oscar nomination for Friendly Persusasion, high star pay and some major films) but...most of his movies flopped and who would remember those movies WITHOUT Psycho to lead us to them?

Hitchcock wanted to use Anthony Perkins in SOMETHING when he saw him in Fear Strikes Out, a bio of baseball star Jimmy Piersoll(who had a nervous breakdown in real life, and who, in the movie has as a sympathetic psychiatrist -- ADAM WILLIAMS -- "Valerian the knifeman" in North by Northwest! Valerian gets about five lines in North by Northwest. He talks all the time as the shrink in Fear Strikes Out.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

Anyway, here's Hitchcock with "an eye out" to cast Perkins and along comes the 1959 novel Psycho -- with a "fat and forty and bespetacled Norman Bates" and -- Hitch made the switch. "Tony, you ARE this movie" Hitchcock told Perkins. And he promised Perkins top billing . He had just been billed FOURTH(over the title, and after Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Fred Astaire) in "On the Beach."

No, Psycho did a lot of things for Anthony Perkins, and if there was an "immediate career hit" from the role(Perkins said his access to Hollywood romances and comedies was cut off -- he made movies in Europe for awhile), the long term value of the role was invaluble. Three sequels in the 80s and 1990 kept him in the public eye, and he got other, better character roles -- thanks to Norman's "delayed reaction" appearance on TV in the 70's.

One take I have on Hitchcock's genius in casting Perkins as Norman. In movies like Tall Story(where's he's a college basketball player purused by cheerleader Jane Fonda for sex and marriage) and On the Beach...Perkins looks very handsome but there's something "off" about his romantic chemistry with Fonda and, in On the Beach, a gorgeous newcomer named Donna Anderson playing his wife.

Hitchcock "flipped it": cast Perkins AS a strange, "off" weird person but -- his great looks and voice make that weirdo...sympathetic and sexy.

"On the Beach" is a film from the atomic age of fear -- 1959. Its a bleak film from a bestseller about a group of people in Australia being the sole survivors of a nuclear war that has killed off everybody else in the world. They are all just "waiting" for the radioactivity to reach them, and kill them. Its a movie about being doomed and trying to live a regular life as long as possible.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

Perkins holds his own in the film. He has one scene where he screams and emotes, but the rest of the time, he is ALMOST a regular guy -- trying to protect his beautiful wife and never-seen baby from the end. Way too skinny, though. Ha.

Anyway, there is a scene near the end where, all cramped together in a submarine stand Gregory Peck, Tony Perkins, and Fred Astaire -- two beautiful men (Peck, Perkins) and one stylishly handsome one. They are waiting for news from ashore in California that someone has been found alive. But a morse code tells them that what was found "alive" in California was a Coke bottle tapping on the morse code machine(what are those things called?) endlessly because of being caught on a curtain cord.

The three men SHOULD be devastated -- nobody is alive outside of Australia, after all. But instead, the men chuckle and laugh -- its all a big joke. And Perkins breaking into a great, real smile with those two other major movie stars next to him...its a great moment for him..."one of the guys," a young star among older ones...manly camaradie.

And then Psycho a year later put an end to all that.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 8 days ago

'They are waiting for news from ashore in California that someone has been found alive. But a morse code tells them that what was found "alive" in California was a Coke bottle tapping on the morse code machine(what are those things called?) endlessly because of being caught on a curtain cord.

The three men SHOULD be devastated -- nobody is alive outside of Australia, after all. But instead, the men chuckle and laugh -- its all a big joke.'

What an ending!

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

'They are waiting for news from ashore in California that someone has been found alive. But a morse code tells them that what was found "alive" in California was a Coke bottle tapping on the morse code machine(what are those things called?) endlessly because of being caught on a curtain cord.

The three men SHOULD be devastated -- nobody is alive outside of Australia, after all. But instead, the men chuckle and laugh -- its all a big joke.'

What an ending!

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Yes, I don't think I quite articulated it well enough, but the idea is that this "morse code beeping" has been heard on Australian equipment and submarine commander Peck takes Perkins(an Australian naval officer) and Astaire(a nuclear scientist) and his crew on this long journey to the coast off San Diego, California to "track down who is tapping the Morse code signal." Another actor -- a bit player of sorts -- dons an anti-radioactivity suit and tracks the signal down to that Coke bottle in the curtain cord. This actor then taps out his own message to Peck's submarine and...

...we get that impressive shot of Peck, Perkins, and Astaire slowly breaking into grins and chuckles. Its emotional in a funny but sad way: All hope is now gone and...what to do but laugh.

"On the Beach" is from that 50s/60s cusp period I so favor. It was from producer-director Stanley Kramer, who made several "big message" movies in a row on that cusp: The Defiant Ones(Poitier and Curtis chained together on the run) On the Beach(the nuclear End of the World -- played without any bomb scenes -- just people desperately trying to hang on to life a little longer), Inherit the Wind (in the Psycho year of 1960 -- the Scopes trial dramatized so Kramer's issue was religion versus evolution) and Judgment at Nuremberg(Nazi war crime trials and the Holocaust.)

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

Weirdly, and even though his films got Oscar noms and wins(Maxmilian Schell for Oscar's 1961 Best Actor for Nuremberg), these Kramer movies seemed to get lightly mocked and dismissed as "too didactic and square" and not good enough for their topics. I dunno, I moved Judgment at Nuremberg to my personal favorite of 1961 (over The Guns of Navarone, West Side Story, and childhood fave 101 Dalamations) so I know I like what Kramer could do with his all-star casts and Big Topics.

None of those movies made much money at the box office, BTW. Stars or no stars people evidently didn't want to go to movies about the nucelar End of the World, or attacking religion, or reminding us of the horrors of the Holocaust.

So Kramer turned to his famous comedy epic "Its a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World" which he originally wanted to title "Something a Little Less Serious." Ha. But even THAT "light chase comedy" had at its core a rather sad take on how greed can turn "regular folks" into animals in competition.

A nice digression: we can supermipose OVER Hitchcock's cusp movies(Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho....The Birds at the end) Wilder's cusp movies(Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, One Two Three, Irma La Douce)...KRAMER's cusp movies(The Defiant Ones, On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg...Mad Mad World.)

And Tony Perkins landed in two of them. Good for his legacy.

I'll add one more I just recalled the other day: Frank Capra.

Capra's biggest years of success were in the 30s(It Happened One Night, You Can't Take it With You, Mr. Smith, Lost Horizon) and the forties(Meet John Doe, Arsenic and Old Lace, Its a Wonderful Life).

But he took almost the ENTIRE fifties off, less a couple of movies in the early fifties. He made some short educational science films!

CONT

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

And then, just in time for the 50s/60s cusp , Capra made his final two films: A Hole in the Head in 1959(with big star Sinatra and the Oscar winning song High Hopes) and Pocketful of Miracles(a remake of his own 30s movie, "Lady for a Day.") This final film -- in Technicolor and Panavision, was a wonderful throwback to a sweeter time at the movies -- Capra's contribution to keeplng the 50s/60s cusp a bit nostalgic even as Hitchcock and Wilder and Preminger were getting more adult.

Speaking of Preminger, HIS cusp movies were Anatomy of a Murder(James Stewart anchoring a coutroom drama of rape and murder with graphic testimony), Exodus(Paul Newman anchoring a "birth of Israel" epic; Advise and Consent(a movie about DC politics that takes it wonderfully seriously -- an antidote to today's circus) and The Cardinal(about the Catholic church.)

What a time at the movies.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 8 days ago

'Anyway, here's Hitchcock with "an eye out" to cast Perkins and along comes the 1959 novel Psycho -- with a "fat and forty and bespetacled Norman Bates" and -- Hitch made the switch. "Tony, you ARE this movie" Hitchcock told Perkins.'

Genius move, no doubt about it.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

'Anyway, here's Hitchcock with "an eye out" to cast Perkins and along comes the 1959 novel Psycho -- with a "fat and forty and bespetacled Norman Bates" and -- Hitch made the switch. "Tony, you ARE this movie" Hitchcock told Perkins.'

---

Genius move, no doubt about it.

---

I always wince a bit when I type the phrase "fat and forty" -- but the alliteration DOES serve the less-than-romantic characterization of Norman in the book. Screenwriter Joe Stefano many times told the tale of how disappointed he was in reading Psycho the novel at trying to dramatize such an unappetizing central figure -- UNTIL Hitchcock told him "how about we convert the character into Anthony Perkins?" "Now you're talking!" said Stefano to Hitch.

Convincing Perkins to take the role was hard work on Hitchocck's plart, but Hitch was at his peak of power in Hollywood(the hit TV show, North by Northwest as a big hit movie) and Perkins just couldn't say no. Evidently Perkins had turned down the Jack Lemmon role in Some Like It Hot over the cross-dressing...and he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

12 years later, Hitchcock did simliar things in making the good but not quite classic Frenzy, and this time one of the results was different.

First of all, he converted the loser-ish anti-hero of the novel -- a middle-aged WWII veteran -- into a much younger man(British unknown Jon Finch was cast in the part) , which was sort of like turning fat-and-forty Norman into Tony Perkins(except Finch was -- kinda/sorta -- the hero here.)

In casting the Cockney villain, Hitchocck wanted to again "go against type" by casting the heroic Michael Caine as the sexual psycho in Frenzy. Unlike as witih Psycho, Hitchcock was NOT at the peak of his powers when he pitched Frenzy(his last three films had been failures) and Caine said no.

Still.one can see Hitchcock continually making changes to the source material and attempting certain casting coups well up to the end of his career.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 7 days ago

'In casting the Cockney villain, Hitchocck wanted to again "go against type" by casting the heroic Michael Caine as the sexual psycho in Frenzy. Unlike as witih Psycho, Hitchcock was NOT at the peak of his powers when he pitched Frenzy(his last three films had been failures) and Caine said no.'

Caine would have been interesting, no doubt. But I liked Barry Foster. By the time I first saw Frenzy I knew Foster from his TV show Van der Valk so it was interesting seeing him go from pillar of the community cop to murderer (and back again!).

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

Perkins proudly notes to the interviewer that as of 1960 "Psycho is the highest grossing black and white film of all time." (I will assume it held that title forever after? Black and white movies largely went away.)

--
roger1(ecarle maybe again someday) returns to note: I mused on this for awhile and it hit me -- No, Psycho likely did not hold the title of highest grossing black and white film much longer.

Two years later, the Number One film of 1962(or so at least one article has said) was the black and white D-Day epic, "The Longest Day" with John Wayne and an all-star cast from America, Britain, and Germany.

In the 70s, long after black and white had been dropped as a "constant option for movies" (the coming of color TV in many homes around 1967 had killed the option) SOME black and white movies were allowed to be made and I expect that Young Frankenstein(adapted for inlfation?) beat Psycho. Maybe two Peter Bogdanovich movies, too - The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon (though neither of those were line around the block blockbusters like Psycho.)

I'm guessing "major"60s black and white sixties movies like The Manchurian Candidate and Dr. Strangelove did well, but I'm guessing neither of those beat the Psycho grosses. Psycho evidently drew a LOT of teenagers and even kids. There is a great 1960 LA Herald Examiner review of Psycho in which the critic --banned as with all critics from seeing the movie privately, she had to go to a packed LA theater -- said the matinee was PACKED with KIDS, evidently dropped off by parents who thought Psycho was some sort of William Castle type movie. The kids were screaming throughout -- " one fell into the aisle." Ha...so Psycho -- made before the R and X rating kept people out of theaters in America...was exposed to young 'uns as well.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 14 days ago

'I expect the generation of people "who saw Psycho in 1960" is lessening..though not necessarily en masse. We still have surviving WWII veterans out there. But for LATER generations, it seems to have been a rite of passage on TV and (from what I have read) in film and English classes in high schools and colleges.'

When I first saw it on TV (as I say, I was about 12) my mum didn't want to watch it after her experience with it on the big screen! My dad did, he'd never seen it before. But I remember my mum finding plenty of excuses to keep going out of the room, and when she was there she'd have her head buried in a book!

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

When I first saw it on TV (as I say, I was about 12) my mum didn't want to watch it after her experience with it on the big screen! My dad did, he'd never seen it before. But I remember my mum finding plenty of excuses to keep going out of the room, and when she was there she'd have her head buried in a book!

---

That's a great continuation of the story of her "terror lasting" years after the theatrical experience.

Evidently it took all the way to 1973 and The Exorcist to again so terrify a generation and generate lines around the block...but Psycho held ITS title all the way through the 60s. Competitors like Robert Aldrich's "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane"(with no gory murder) and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte(with one gory meat cleaver murder) weren't at the same level, Wait Until Dark generated big screams but was a big too stagebound and starry(Audrey Hepburn); Rosemary's Baby was famously said one of its makers "the greatest horror movie with no horror in it"(few scream moments, if any.) No, it was Psycho for a long, long, time.

When Psycho got its first Los Angeles showing on a Saturday night at 10:30 pm(to keep it in prime time to score big ratings) some kids in the neighborhood got to see it. Some didn't. I didn't. But my PARENTS watched it-- I realized in retrospect that they had NOT gone to the theater to see it i '60 and they were big moviegoers.

Anyway, the Sunday morning after the Saturday night came and I asked them for their report.

My father: "Well, that was a classic, alright."
My mother: "I thought the first half hour was the most boring movie I've ever seen and the rest of it was the sickest movie I've ever seen. And you can't see it until you are 18."

CONT

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

Hmm. Thus is an obsession born. That was Sunday. Came MONDAY, at school, that damn movie was all anybody was talking about. The discussion started in history class, moved on to science class, and then out to the PE field. It was like this "community terror" that kids wanted to relive(if they saw it on Saturday) or hear about (if they did not.)

About a year later, I was in a bookstore and out on a table were stacks of the "new" book Hitchcock/Truffaut. I flipped through the book and the movies it covered from The 39 Steps to Rebecca to Notorious to Rear Window to North by Northwest(all with great big black and white screen frame captures -- even if of color movies) and then...it reached Psycho.

And I looked at those pages and terror filled MY mind. The shower murder photos were too abstract I thought(beyonnd the terrifying spectre of Mother in shadow with the knife) but the ARBOGAST photos? Yea, I WAS too young. In the movie, his slashed face and open mouth happens for a second of screen time. On the PAGE..frozen in time, "locked in" for terror. (And even though I recognized the shot as a PROCESS shot..it wsa still SCARY. The entire atmosphere of the old, gray house interiors. And the frame capture of Mother pinning him down to stab him(again - in the movie, two seconds. On the page: forever.) I closed the book and indeed had the cliche of a couple of sleepless nights over it.

It was great. Great for a mere MOVIE to have that effect. And in a BOOK form yet.

So ...your mum and millions other got their 1960 movie experience. A trail of us in later years got our "Psycho" experience in different ways...

PS. I finally got to see Psycho way before I was 18.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 8 days ago

'"I thought the first half hour was the most boring movie I've ever seen and the rest of it was the sickest movie I've ever seen. And you can't see it until you are 18."

😂

'PS. I finally got to see Psycho way before I was 18.'

Glad about that!

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[–] roger1 (2433) 8 days ago

'"I thought the first half hour was the most boring movie I've ever seen and the rest of it was the sickest movie I've ever seen. And you can't see it until you are 18."

😂

'PS. I finally got to see Psycho way before I was 18.'

Glad about that!

--

Ha. Thank you, thank you.

I like to tell that anecdote because well, here was a parent TRYING to hold the line against that "sick" movie and, of course, only whetting my appetite TO see the film.

But there's stronger irony. The Los Angeles showings of Psycho in TV season 1967-1968 were only a few months apart -- first in November of 1967 and then in February of 1968. November and February were/are "sweeps months" when the biggest events were to be broadcast -- ratings were especially scrutinized in those months.

Well, around the time of the February 1968 LA screening -- I also saw Bonnie and Clyde at the movie theater! THAT one had a very bloody and violent reputation too but -- thanks to "negotiation" - I got to go see it with my father(the designated "adult movie" person) and I remember bracing for the blood but really just being enthralled by the gunbattles -- with one exception: when the old man bank clerk jumped on the getaway car and got shot through the face(an Arbogast moment, yes?) THAT shocked me... but the rest of the movie...I took fine. So somehow my mother felt Bonnie and Clyde was fine, but Psycho was not.

And less than two years later, I "negotiated" to see The Wild Bunch with my father and...again..FAR more violent than Psycho, but I was allowed to see it. And I was REALLY enthralled by that one: the final gunbattle was probably the most exciting thing I'd ever seen to that date, even as it seemed adult and disturbing.

Meanwhile, this was "the olden days" when you couldn't just rent a movie, so I had to wait a couple of years for Psycho to get a TV broadcast again -- but I watched it, and it was not terribly scary at all. And I was much younger than 18. Psycho did ALL of its scaring of me BEFORE I saw it!

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 7 days ago

Interesting, isn't it. Both those movies had so much more onscreen violence than Psycho, but Psycho is the one that caught the public imagination as a true event/rite of passage movie. You don't hear too many discussions centered around 'Where were you when you first saw The Wild Bunch?' 😂

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[–] roger1 (2433) 23 minutes ago

Interesting, isn't it. Both those movies (Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch) had so much more onscreen violence than Psycho, but Psycho is the one that caught the public imagination as a true event/rite of passage movie. You don't hear too many discussions centered around 'Where were you when you first saw The Wild Bunch?

---

True. I know I lean a lot on how "1968 brought the R and X rating and everything changed"...but its TRUE. And in American film, 1966-1968 saw movies like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde even before the R came in. "Virginia Woolf" came with its own "R or X" in America '' "no one under the age of 17 admitted," I think. They just made things official in 1968.

And here's the "big thing": Psycho rather arrived "all by its lonesome" in 1960 to break a bunch of rules, but came 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972....a BUNCH of taboo breaking movies all arrived in a "giant year by year bunch." It was hard to single just ONE out: Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Rosemary's Baby, Midnight Cowboy(in the first full year of the X rating, the Academy made sure to vote the Best Picture award TO an X, which was later downgraded to R), The Wild Bunch(whose overall bloodiness put both Bonnie and Clyde AND Psycho to shame), MASH ("This is what the new freedom of the screen is all about," was the review quote on ads, that was RIGHT -- sex, nudity, graphic blood in the operating room...in a COMEDY) A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, Deliverance(first major American film about male-on-male rape) -- Frenzy(Hitchcock got into the act with sexual violence far surpassing Psycho) , The Exorcist, Chinatown(first major American film about incest.)

There wasn't a whole lot of "standing in line" for ANY of those movies except The Exorcist. At least in my experience. The R and X rated movies couldn't command YOUNG audiences, so the lines weren't long(except for The Exorcist.)

CONT

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[–] roger1 (2433) 19 minutes ago

So no ONE of those movies could capture the zeitgeist like Psycho did in 1960...less The Exorcist, and maybe Rosemary's Baby(which has no shock killings or shock scenes..its a slow burn suspense film about Satan, which was bad enough.)

For me, after those few years of having Psycho forbidden, I rather "self censored" on the R and X movies. I decided that I could not/did not want to try to see MOST of those movies, except the action and Western movies I really wanted to see: Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, Dirty Harry.

Rather, once I passed 18 and hit the college years, I used revival theaters to "get 'em all in." It was in THOSE years that I first saw -- uncut in theaters -- Midnight Cowboy and A Clockwork Orange and some others. But the "forbidden Psycho years" were all over -- I could go see whatever I wanted.

CONT

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[–] roger1 (2433) 9 minutes ago

You don't hear too many discussions centered around 'Where were you when you first saw The Wild Bunch?

--

Ha. Well I have one. With my father, late in the run of The Wild Bunch -- the theater was mostly empty. A night showing, we left onto a dark and near empty city street. It was a big old Palace theater downtown, so the big Panavision images were very impressive in their 1969 grandeur.

Two key things:

ONE: My father was evidently not impressed by the movie and he had us leave pretty much right after the Wild Bunch were all dead. This meant that we MISSED the REAL final scene -- the "happy ending" in which Old Man Edmond O'Brien , rather than killing Robert Ryan, invites him along with the old man's gang of old men: "It's not like it used to be...but it'll do."

It was some years later that I again saw The Wild Bunch and that REAL ending ..which is one of the greatest in movie history, IMHO.

TWO: I can certainly say that -- from its opening slaughter of a town full of innocents caught in the cross fire to the final massively bloody fight to the death -- I felt that I WAS watching something horrific(not like a "regular Western" at all) something brutal(the Wild Bunch used innocent men and WOMEN as human shields), something completely gory(how one of the Bunch is shot in the face and we get a shot OF that face -- all bloody and raw meat -- and Holden shoots him in the brain to mercy kill him.)

I felt like I was borderline seeing something evil when I saw The Wild Bunch. And yet -- with their famous "Let's go" and slow walk to death, followed by the greatest -- AND bloodiest -- gunbattle ever filmed -- I was a fan for life. A weird mix of emotion: something horrific that enthralled me. Kinda like Psycho, I guess.

I also felt that the early "townspeople parade into their doom" crossfire suspense sequence that I was seeing the TRUE heir to Hitchcock in terms of staging action. I still believe that today. DePalma? No. Peckinpah? Yes.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 15 days ago

It's been a while since I saw those others. I really must give them another watch!

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[–] BlackChristmas (388) 8 days ago

I rewatched Psycho II & III last year. Both are great horror movies.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 15 days ago

Arguments rage as to whether Psycho is a horror movie. And if it is, is it a 'slasher'? For me it's a psychological horror/proto-slasher, a forerunner.
--
I'd say it's certainly horror-- or at the very least, a thriller that slowly morphs into a horror film. The moment Marion gets knifed in the shower, you could argue it becomes almost a different film.

But the thriller/horror line is a notoriously precarious one. I once read that the difference between a thriller and a horror film is that a thriller villain can be killed and the protagonist can return to a safe, "normal" world, whereas horror villains are in a sense deathless and horror endings are not so comforting, even with the characters out of immediate danger. I think PSYCHO definitely fits the latter: "Mother" never dies and in fact takes over Norman completely. Even with Marion's disappearance solved and Lila and Sam out of harm's way, the ending of PSYCHO isn't really comforting at all. The last shot is of Marion's car being pulled from the swamp, wherein her body lays moldering in that plastic curtain. That implied image is a chilling one.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 15 days ago

'But the thriller/horror line is a notoriously precarious one. I once read that the difference between a thriller and a horror film is that a thriller villain can be killed and the protagonist can return to a safe, "normal" world, whereas horror villains are in a sense deathless and horror endings are not so comforting, even with the characters out of immediate danger.'

That's an interesting take on the dividing line.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 15 days ago

Definitely interesting! Of course, there are exceptions, like 1970s paranoia thrillers or the ending of Hitchcock's VERTIGO, which leaves the protagonist in a very ambiguous psychological space.

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[–] roger1 (2433) 14 days ago

'But the thriller/horror line is a notoriously precarious one. I once read that the difference between a thriller and a horror film is that a thriller villain can be killed and the protagonist can return to a safe, "normal" world, whereas horror villains are in a sense deathless and horror endings are not so comforting, even with the characters out of immediate danger.'

That's an interesting take on the dividing line.

--

Agreed. I suppose the first Halloween...with its rather "supernatural" villain in Michael Myers(all those bullets and he disappears into the night) sets that kind of tone...he's still out there at the end. Or how about Hitchcock's The Birds? Horror enough in the "farmer with the pecked out eyes"..and still more OVERALL horror in the unresolved ending...those birds just MAY have taken over the world with murderous tyranny...

Hitchcock had four movies with psycho villains. Two of them die at the end: Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt and Bruno in Strangers on a Train. Two of them are alive at the end: Norman Bates in Psycho and Bob Rusk in Frenzy. The world couldn't know that by leaving Norman alive (in a cell) at the end of Psycho, the door was opened to release him into society and sequels 23 years later so I suppose he DID live on as a horror character. I think Bob Rusk is terrifying, but Frenzy held no power as a "franchise classic."

You know on this "is Psycho a horror movie" question. It joins another superthriller -- Jaws - in being "an interesting hybrid."

Psycho is: a crime thriller(the embezzlement), a film noir of sorts, a Gothic drama(thus "old fashioned" in the house and furnishings) and THEN a horror movie, all mixed together. The film also has elements of comedy(black comedy) and tragedy(it is a very sad story at the end..innocent peolpe horribly killed, survivors guilty and haunted, even the killer sympathetic in his end.) AND Psycho is a "monster movie." (Mrs. Bates is the monster.)

CONT

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[–] roger1 (2433) 14 days ago

Jaws is: a suspense thriller, A horror movie(the deaths.) An adventure movie on the high seas. A male buddy movie(with three mismatched and wary "buddies.") A comedy at times. AND Jaws is a "monster movie." (The shark is the monster.)

This hybrid aspect to Psycho and Jaws probably helped give them more "heft at the box office and in our memories." We are feeling different feelings at once -- terror, suspense, sadness...laughter.

I'm not sure if the third superthriller(my least favorite) The Exorcist is quite so much of a hybrid, but I guess so. Its a suspense film AND a supernatural thriller AND a religious film(or at least, as director William Friedkin said, a film about faith) and a tragedy(in what happens to BOTH exorcists.) Not too much comedy, though...which is why some of it gets UNINTENTIONAL laughs today. Some of what Regan does and says is just too outrageous.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 14 days ago

'You know on this "is Psycho a horror movie" question. It joins another superthriller -- Jaws - in being "an interesting hybrid."

[...]

Jaws is: a suspense thriller, A horror movie(the deaths.) An adventure movie on the high seas. A male buddy movie(with three mismatched and wary "buddies.") A comedy at times. AND Jaws is a "monster movie." (The shark is the monster.)'

I've seen more than one person make the argument that Jaws is in effect an underwater slasher movie, even down to the heavy use of the 'killer's' POV, a device so prevalent in gialli and slashers ('slasher-cam', as the horror community likes to call it!).

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 14 days ago

'Definitely interesting! Of course, there are exceptions, like 1970s paranoia thrillers or the ending of Hitchcock's VERTIGO, which leaves the protagonist in a very ambiguous psychological space.'

I'm now trying to think of exceptions that go the other way, out-and-out horror films where the villain is finally killed and the protagonist can return to a safe, normal world without the possibility of it returning. Not easy; every possible example I come up with is more of a horror/thriller hybrid. I'll keep trying...

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) 12 days ago

Maybe the 1931 Dracula? Dude gets staked and the heroes walk free. But then again, there was that epilogue scene (cut due to censorious concerns) where Van Helsing warns the audience "Remember, there ARE such things!" (That is, supernatural threats.)

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 12 days ago

I did actually wonder about Lugosi's Dracula. It's true he never came back as that character (well, not by that name), although Dracula (played by John Carradine) did reappear in later Universal movies. A bit of a grey one that.

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[–] ADBruno1985 (3312) 8 days ago

I agree with you.

Also, yeah, a very generational preference. People who don't like it today don't like it because it's lame and not thrilling. You need to put yourself in the mindset of the day. Anyone who was around for its release and didn't like it, that I've encountered, thought it was "too much" and they just "don't care for those kinds of movies." You won't hear someone from back then saying they don' like it because it's underwhelming.

Fwiw I was born in 1985, I'm just a huge film buff. But I remember when I was around 10 and getting into scary stuff, my parents rented me a VHS copy of this. Watched it with popcorn, and all the lights off. Maybe a candle or two lit. Set the stage, make it spooky. I've loved it ever since, and have it on dvd, along with many other Hitchcock films. Mixed on the sequels. Loved the Bates Motel series even though I initially thought it sounded like a poor idea

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 8 days ago

'You need to put yourself in the mindset of the day. Anyone who was around for its release and didn't like it, that I've encountered, thought it was "too much" and they just "don't care for those kinds of movies." You won't hear someone from back then saying they don' like it because it's underwhelming.'

Absolutely.

'But I remember when I was around 10 and getting into scary stuff, my parents rented me a VHS copy of this.'

Your parents were very cool!

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[–] ADBruno1985 (3312) 7 days ago

They wanted to be sure to expose me to the good stuff. They also showed me Halloween, The Fog, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Birds, and so on.

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10519) 7 days ago

They certainly knew the good stuff.

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