WOULD YOU DARE DO THIS...
Miami Herald, The (FL) - June 11, 1983
Author: LAURA MISCH Herald Staff Writer
After you see it, you may never take another shower without thinking, if only for the briefest instant, that Norman Bates is on the other side of that plastic curtain with a butcher knife.
You may never take another shower, period.
Alfred Hitchcock’s masterly, gory murder scene in Psycho was scary not only for the sheer horror of it but also because it could really happen. The villain was a human being, not a monster or evil space alien; the situation was possible, if far-fetched.
The original black-and-white footage is used again as the opening scene in Psycho II partly as a tribute to the late master of suspense and partly because it is still as shocking today as it was when it was made 23 years ago. Film schools often show it as a masterpiece of film editing.
For the uninitiated: In the original movie , actress Janet Leigh, playing a woman who has stolen some money from her boss, is on the run. In a driving rainstorm she makes a wrong turn and ends up at the Bates Motel, a lonely-looking place run by a strange young man named Norman Bates, played by Tony Perkins.
After eating dinner with Bates in his office, she goes to her room and takes a shower before bed. As she is soaping up, the audience sees, through the milky shower curtain, the blurred image of the bathroom door slowly opening and a tall figure stepping in.
In a staccato series of 78 separate shots that takes only 45 horrifying seconds on film, the curtain is flung open and the unsuspecting woman is brutally stabbed to death, the blood spiraling down the drain as she thrashes in agony.
Graphic and extremely violent, the scene was a milestone for horror pictures. Yet not one frame of film actually shows the character being stabbed.
"It’s much easier to use the imagination of the audience," Hitchcock once said. "People still want to enjoy the vicarious pleasure of getting away from fear."
The audience leaving the much bloodier Psycho II last week at one area theater was no exception.
"I thought the slasher parts were pretty good," said Marie Dickinson, 20, who enjoys Texas Chain-Saw Massacre and other
spatter flicks. "But I was more scared when they were creeping around the house not knowing who was around the corner and behind the door."
Exactly.
Hitchcock, who died in 1980 after making more than 50 movies , knew that building up the suspense slowly is much more exciting than going for the quick thrill. Psycho II director Richard Franklin borrowed much from the master: The new movie is loaded with startling camera angles, Hitchcock editing techniques and even dialogue taken straight from the first film.
"We were not trying to remake the original," said Hilton Green, who was Hitchcock’s assistant director on Psycho and the producer of the current movie . He said Hitchcock never intended a sequel to be made to the low-budget ($780,000) thriller.
"It was one of the most scary movies ever," Green said. "But I didn’t think so at the time. You lose your perspective when you’re that close to it," he said.
"I take the average man and put him through a bizarre situation," Hitchcock said 11 years ago. "I don’t use private eyes or detectives simply because the audience can’t identify with these people. They identify with the common man and not the professional, and I always like to get my audience involved."
Dr. James Sussex, former chairman of the University of Miami department of psychiatry and former chief of psychiatric services at Jackson Memorial Hospital, has not seen either movie -- but he is familiar with how people deal with fear.
"Seeing a movie like that is exciting," he said. "If you’re watching something weird or bizarre, even if you know that it’s fantasy, it tends to step up your heart rate, dilate your eyes. Your blood starts flowing.
"They can have the combination of fear and anxiety and know they are still safe," he said. "It’s safe terror. It’s even pleasurable. But past a certain point it can cease to be fun."
In 1960, after Psycho was released, a man who had strangled three California women confessed that he had committed the second slaying after taking the victim to see the movie .
"That does happen, in an infinitesimal number of people," Sussex said. "You could have a disturbed or highly suggestible person who can act on impulses triggered that way."
The psychiatrist said it is "not a good idea" to see a lot of violent movies , especially for young people.
"People require more violence as they go along," he said. "The more they see, the more they want to see."
In Psycho II, there is plenty.
Norman Bates, again played by Perkins, has just been released after 22 years in a mental institution, judged cured of his psychosis. He returns to the Bates Motel and gets a job in a nearby diner.
But for Norman, carving a niche in the real world is tough. Trouble starts immediately.
His mother, long dead even during the first Psycho, apparently has returned to drive him crazy -- again. There are more knifings. There is even another shower scene, but this one ends safely.
Eventually, the character reverts to his old self.
"Most psychotics are not violent," Sussex said. "But it is not impossible for it to occur. I’ve read about some real ones that were so bizarre I wondered if they made up. And it would be possible to be free of symptoms for 22 years and then have a psychosis return."
Green said Universal had a psychiatrist on the set of Psycho II as an adviser.
But most moviegoers aren’t concerned with the picture’s psychological validity -- they paid their money to be scared out of their seats.
Andy Hunt, 18, watched most of Psycho II through his fingers. Outside the theater after the movie , he lunged at his friends, pretending to stab them again and again.
They laughed and ran away from him, shrieking in mock terror.
"People are born to be frightened," Hitchcock once said.
There are no plans for a Psycho III.
WOULD YOU DARE DO THIS...
Miami Herald, The (FL) - June 11, 1983
Author: LAURA MISCH Herald Staff Writer
You may never take another shower, period.
Alfred Hitchcock’s masterly, gory murder scene in Psycho was scary not only for the sheer horror of it but also because it could really happen. The villain was a human being, not a monster or evil space alien; the situation was possible, if far-fetched.
The original black-and-white footage is used again as the opening scene in Psycho II partly as a tribute to the late master of suspense and partly because it is still as shocking today as it was when it was made 23 years ago. Film schools often show it as a masterpiece of film editing.
For the uninitiated: In the original movie , actress Janet Leigh, playing a woman who has stolen some money from her boss, is on the run. In a driving rainstorm she makes a wrong turn and ends up at the Bates Motel, a lonely-looking place run by a strange young man named Norman Bates, played by Tony Perkins.
After eating dinner with Bates in his office, she goes to her room and takes a shower before bed. As she is soaping up, the audience sees, through the milky shower curtain, the blurred image of the bathroom door slowly opening and a tall figure stepping in.
In a staccato series of 78 separate shots that takes only 45 horrifying seconds on film, the curtain is flung open and the unsuspecting woman is brutally stabbed to death, the blood spiraling down the drain as she thrashes in agony.
Graphic and extremely violent, the scene was a milestone for horror pictures. Yet not one frame of film actually shows the character being stabbed.
"It’s much easier to use the imagination of the audience," Hitchcock once said. "People still want to enjoy the vicarious pleasure of getting away from fear."
The audience leaving the much bloodier Psycho II last week at one area theater was no exception.
"I thought the slasher parts were pretty good," said Marie Dickinson, 20, who enjoys Texas Chain-Saw Massacre and other
spatter flicks. "But I was more scared when they were creeping around the house not knowing who was around the corner and behind the door."
Exactly.
Hitchcock, who died in 1980 after making more than 50 movies , knew that building up the suspense slowly is much more exciting than going for the quick thrill. Psycho II director Richard Franklin borrowed much from the master: The new movie is loaded with startling camera angles, Hitchcock editing techniques and even dialogue taken straight from the first film.
"We were not trying to remake the original," said Hilton Green, who was Hitchcock’s assistant director on Psycho and the producer of the current movie . He said Hitchcock never intended a sequel to be made to the low-budget ($780,000) thriller.
"It was one of the most scary movies ever," Green said. "But I didn’t think so at the time. You lose your perspective when you’re that close to it," he said.
"I take the average man and put him through a bizarre situation," Hitchcock said 11 years ago. "I don’t use private eyes or detectives simply because the audience can’t identify with these people. They identify with the common man and not the professional, and I always like to get my audience involved."
Dr. James Sussex, former chairman of the University of Miami department of psychiatry and former chief of psychiatric services at Jackson Memorial Hospital, has not seen either movie -- but he is familiar with how people deal with fear.
"Seeing a movie like that is exciting," he said. "If you’re watching something weird or bizarre, even if you know that it’s fantasy, it tends to step up your heart rate, dilate your eyes. Your blood starts flowing.
"They can have the combination of fear and anxiety and know they are still safe," he said. "It’s safe terror. It’s even pleasurable. But past a certain point it can cease to be fun."
In 1960, after Psycho was released, a man who had strangled three California women confessed that he had committed the second slaying after taking the victim to see the movie .
"That does happen, in an infinitesimal number of people," Sussex said. "You could have a disturbed or highly suggestible person who can act on impulses triggered that way."
The psychiatrist said it is "not a good idea" to see a lot of violent movies , especially for young people.
"People require more violence as they go along," he said. "The more they see, the more they want to see."
In Psycho II, there is plenty.
Norman Bates, again played by Perkins, has just been released after 22 years in a mental institution, judged cured of his psychosis. He returns to the Bates Motel and gets a job in a nearby diner.
But for Norman, carving a niche in the real world is tough. Trouble starts immediately.
His mother, long dead even during the first Psycho, apparently has returned to drive him crazy -- again. There are more knifings. There is even another shower scene, but this one ends safely.
Eventually, the character reverts to his old self.
"Most psychotics are not violent," Sussex said. "But it is not impossible for it to occur. I’ve read about some real ones that were so bizarre I wondered if they made up. And it would be possible to be free of symptoms for 22 years and then have a psychosis return."
Green said Universal had a psychiatrist on the set of Psycho II as an adviser.
But most moviegoers aren’t concerned with the picture’s psychological validity -- they paid their money to be scared out of their seats.
Andy Hunt, 18, watched most of Psycho II through his fingers. Outside the theater after the movie , he lunged at his friends, pretending to stab them again and again.
They laughed and ran away from him, shrieking in mock terror.
"People are born to be frightened," Hitchcock once said.
There are no plans for a Psycho III.
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