By Sam Tucker
For those who follow my articles closely, I’m doing a little switcheroo on the format. See if you can spot the difference! (Or, if this is your first time reading one of my pieces …hello! They aren’t usually like this.)
The Independent Picture House is starting the spooky season with one of the OG thrillers of all time: Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, playing on Oct. 6, 8, 10 and 11. It’s part of IPH’s The Anticipation of Fear series of essential Hitchcock films. While any of these screenings would be fantastic to see, the Sunday one will feature a talkback with series co-curator Sam Shapiro, who taught film courses on Hitchcock at UNC Charlotte for 30 years. He will have much more to say about it than I ever will, so I am taking a different approach, from the “millennial” point of view.
For those who haven’t seen PSYCHO … well, I’m not going to spoil it. However, a conversation I had over the weekend with my friend Ryan made me think about my own experience with the film. When I told him I was writing about PSYCHO, he gave a sort of “oh … OK” response, arguing that it has been absorbed so thoroughly through pop-culture osmosis that there isn’t much left to say. He also fairly pointed out that since its release in 1960, the tropes it originated have been codified across not only movies but all of media, referenced in everything from modern video games to Simpsons episodes. He did agree that it was a masterwork from a master, but unfortunately, our conversation was cut short when our run club started.
This got my wheels turning, and I started to wonder about my own experiences with the movie. Sure, I have seen the countless parodies and the “Leo snapping at the screen”references, not to mention the Mel Brooks satire HIGH ANXIETY, which highlighted and almost ruined it. Still, I hold a sort of reverence for this movie.
Like many movies in black and white, this one I distinctly remember watching with my mom in our living room in Kansas City, probably sometime in middle school or early high school. She was quick to point out (minor spoiler) that the opening scene, which showed a postcoitus Janet Leigh in her bra (the shame!), made the conservative moviegoer’s head spin around a la THE EXORCIST. She offered plenty of examples from her experience of seeing it as a younger woman and described how each twist was deeply unnerving at the time.
While it may seem overly familiar compared to the newer “postmodern” horror movement (with shining examples like BACKROOMS, OBSESSION and the newly released RESIDENT EVIL all being extremely successful this year), PSYCHO was a fresh take on the thriller genre when released. Adultery, incest, gender identity — subjects that barely raise an eyebrow when seen on the silver screen now were extraordinarily progressive at the time. Some would argue that Hitchcock’s brilliance lies in how much he left up to the moviegoer’s imagination, which also allowed him to carefully dodge the Hays Code, which PSYCHO ultimately helped dismantle. (If you don’t know about the Hays Code, that’s for a longer discussion another day.) Add in his one-of-a-kind cinematography and direction, and you’re left with scenes, like the man falling down the stairs, that still amaze in this modern era.
I’ll end with a quick anecdote that more modern audiences will understand. I saw SCARY MOVIE (no, the first one) about 10 times before ever seeing the original SCREAM, the film SCARY MOVIE took most of its comedic stabs (get it?) at. I didn’t watch SCREAM until last year, and I was shocked at how similar the two movies truly were. The “scares” had been mocked so thoroughly that it was hard to take them seriously anymore.
Lucky for us, Psycho’s inarguable qualities make it rise above the pop-culture barricades that have been built around it, and I, for one, can’t wait to finally see it on the big screen.
So this October, head over to IPH, turn your phone off and enjoy a nice beverage while being complicit in enjoying something that may have caused riots more than 60 years ago!