Psycho [Guest Writer] (5 stars)

Hello everyone. I figured I would do my first review for this website with one of my absolute favourite thrillers of all time: Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

Hitchcock is known as one of the kings of thriller movies. His brilliant set-ups and character writing bring about excellent stories that pull in audiences in any age. The capabilities of shocking viewers with plot twists as well as using "gimmicks" (for lack of a better term) to ensure interest and full theatres is something not seen these days.

For those who have not seen this movie, the "gimmick" of the film when originally released in theatres was the rule enforced by Hitchcock that audience members would not be admitted after the film began. This was to ensure that people did not come in late and have the first twist of the movie spoiled...
And no, I won't be spoiling it here either. I believe in people experiencing this film in that same manner to get the full effect of it.

Janet Leigh plays Marion Crane, one of the protagonists in the film. She is a very "normal" character, easily portraying a likeable character that's easily to sympathise with. She works for a real estate agent and is given the task of taking $40,000 in cash to the bank to be held for saftey over the weekend. Rather than doing this, she makes a very impulsive decision to leave town with the money in order to use it to marry her lover, Sam Loomis, played by John Gavin. After a few tense scenes she finds herself having to stop at the Bates Motel during the middle of a rainstorm, unable to go any further due to lack of visibility. From here we are introduced to Norman Bates, played brilliantly by Anthony Perkins. He lives at a house on the hill behind the motel with his mother, a sickly but very strongly-opinioned woman that controls Norman's life whenever possible. From there the films spirals into a thrilling mystery of murder and cover-ups that will leave audiences stunned and shocked by the end.

This is truly a unique movie, with Anthony Perkins performance creating one of my favourite characters of all time, portraying Norman as an akward, stuttery man that leaves you with the feeling that something is just not right about him...