Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

Part of me feels like I purposely didn’t sit down and watch any Hitchcock because I figured I would enjoy it. I know this makes absolutely no sense but there you have it. Anywho, I decided to just bite the bullet and start with one of his most well known movies. Psycho.

This is a more a feature in older movies, but I really appreciated the care that went into the opening credits. The imagery and the music really worked as that initial set up to amp up my excitement of things to come.

As tends to be the case with me – I had no flipping idea what this movie was about save for a few key point; there was a location called The Bates Motel, a character called Norman Bates, and of course there was the iconic shower stabbing scene.

I found it intriguing that the movie wasn’t at all about who we were made to believe it was about. I was taken by surprise when the iconic scene came a helluva lot earlier than I was expecting, and after it was over I was flummoxed thinking about where the hell the story would go from there, which made the twists and turns all the more invigorating (my jaw literally dropped at that twist!).

I had two favourite things about his movie. Firstly the amazing use of sound throughout to rev tension and suspense, and secondly – Norman Bates. He was well cast (Anthony Perkins), endearing and just so sweet! (He reminded me of Grant Gustin’s The Flash) And though I haven’t watched the series, I could see that Freddie Highmore was the perfect fit for modern day Norman Bates in The Bates Motel.

To round off, I’ll say what I always say about classics; they lay the ground work for a lot of the devices that we now call cliche/obvious in modern film and television – but when you see it done in its original element it’s absolutely fantastic.