Psycho

Gabby Jeannette
10/27/16

Psycho

After watching Touch of Evil my opinion on black and white movies changed, but not for the better, because it was very hard to follow and just all around not very likable. But after watching Psycho my love of older movies was restored. I thought that Psycho was an amazing movie! I found it interesting and very engaging.

In the beginning of the film, I thought I had the storyline figured out, but 1/2 way through the movie proved me wrong. SPOILER ALERT!!! I thought it was going to be a stereotypical runaway movie with the possibility that the protagonist Marion would get into a few altercations. But in the end, I figured she would get away with it all and live a nice life with Sam. Once Marion got murdered (about forty minutes into the film) I knew that my theory was down the drain.

After that, I was waiting eagerly to see the mother because it appeared that she was Marion's murderer and because she seemed so mean to Norman. I wanted to see how she fit into the equation.

I have mixed emotions about how the movie played out. At the end we found out that the mother was actually just a skeleton and Norman acts as his mother to cope with the loss (it turns out that Norman was jealous of his mother and her lover and had poisoned them ten years prior) and it took over his day to day tendencies. Which means looking back that Norman killed Marion and he was also just yelling to himself about having girls over. That twist made me think back over the entire movie, so I could grasp that there actually was no mother. But I will admit that, that change made the movie ten times better than just the mother being crazy.

In addition to the wonderful storyline the movie itself and edits were also factors on what made the movie so intriguing. For instance, the background music was a great way to set the tone of each scene and event that happened in the movie. When Marion was getting murdered they put in music to make the effect more real to grab the viewer's attention. Also, in one scene Norman brings Marion a snack but as he stands in front of her there is a mirror beside him showing his reflection. Looking back on that moment now it gives of the idea that Norman has two sides to him, he isn’t just a simple hotel worker which viewers later come to see the other side to him. As you can probably tell yourself every aspect of this film was planned out well to make it that much more amazing.

As we were watching the movie my friend mentioned there is a show based off of Norman and the mother’s life called Bates Motel, and now I'm interested in starting that that series on Netflix. Overall Psycho was great movie that I'd recommend to anyone with an interest for a good mysterious movie.