Alfred Hitchcock

The Reputation: Pre-Psycho, there were indications that Hitchcock would turn to full-on horror/thriller as he’d slowly been becoming the master of suspense.

He already had the likes of The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Suspicion, Rope, Strangers On A Train, Dial M For Murder and Rear Window until his belt.

Unlike many of his peers, it was surely just a matter of time…

The Horror Flick: Psycho (1960)

Seizing on Robert Bloch’s novel as a way to regain his thriler crown and shove boundaries, Hitchcock is largely faithful in his adaptation, focusing on Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a young woman who steals $40,000 from one of her employers and ends up at the Bates Motel.

Where, it just so happens that a certain mother-obsessed psychopath (Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates) kills her.

The Signature Move: Crane’s early bath (or should that be shower?) is a trademark Hitchcock note – his female leads often get offed early in proceedings.

And it also continues two recurring motifs – murders that shatter lives and the director himself in a cameo.

The Critical Response: Mixed. The New York Times sniffed that it: "Comes at you with a club in this frankly intended bloodcurdler" and moaned that the "denouement falls quite flat for us.”

Variety was much more positive: “An unusual, good entertainment, indelibly Hitchcock, and on the right kind of box office beam.”

The rest, as the cliché runs, is history: Psycho was a sensation and is now one of the most recognisable, parodied and referenced movies ever made.

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