A shower curtain. Blood circling a plug hole. Janet Leigh’s gut wrenching (and likely, gut spilling) scream. And a killer wielding a knife, while wearing his mother’s dress and a grey wig.
Yes, it’s just your average overnight stay at Bates Motel. A place much like the Hotel California The Eagles sang about in 1976 - You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave!
This week, of course, we are talking about the seminal 1960 classic ‘Psycho’, based on the original 1959 novel by Robert Bloch. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and influenced by the idea of the ‘banality of evil’ – a seemingly dull and innocuous killer who is anything but - the film was expected to bomb. Instead, it marked the collapse of the strict Hays Code, and brought about the evolution of what we dub today as the “slasher” film. In short, the film was a huge hit.
From Anthony Perkins’s iconic performance, to the Gus Van Sant 90s remake we won’t be talking about on this show, through to the three time Emmy Nominated series Bates Motel on A&E, Norman Bates and his Oedipus complex have captured the imagination of horror fans the world over for over 60 years.
But did you know that the ‘fictional’ Norman Bates might not be so fictional after all?
Listen in to find out the true horror behind Psycho!
Learn from the best
1 Watch 78/52 (documentary, 2017)
2. READ - Alfred Hitchcock & the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello
3. Watch: Ed Gein: The Real Psycho
Obscure film club
1. The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock 1963 – A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people. Based on the Daphne du Maurier story.
2. Orphan (2009) - A married couple with a rocky past adopt 9-year old, Esther to fill the void created by a recently-stillborn baby. However, Esther is not quite who she seems.
3. Audition (1999) - A widower takes an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife. But when he falls for the sweet and gentle Asami, he soon discovers she is not who she appears to be after all.
4. Secret Window (2004) - Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Because Ed Gein.
