What is psycho about

As night falls and a torrential rain obscures the road ahead of her, Marion turns off the main highway. Exhausted from the long drive and the stress of her criminal act, she decides to spend the night at the desolate Bates Motel. The motel is run by Norman Bates, a peculiar young man dominated by his invalid mother. After Norman fixes her a light dinner, Marion goes back to her room for a shower. Sign In. Edit Psycho Jump to: Summaries 6 Synopsis 1.

The synopsis below may give away important plot points. Getting Started Contributor Zone ». Edit page. Top Gap. See more gaps ». Did you know Edit. Hitchcock later said, "Thirty-three percent of the effect of Psycho was due to the music. Goofs When Lila approaches Mother in the fruit cellar, Mrs.

Bates is seated in a four-legged chair. After Lila touches the corpse, it slowly spins around as if it's sitting on a swiveling chair. The effect was achieved by a prop man lying on his back rotating a camera head with wheels underneath Mother. Quotes [last lines] Norma Bates : [voiceover in police custody, as Norman is thinking] It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. The scream is not present in at least some release prints. Connections Edited into Psycho II User reviews 1.

Top review. Anthony's Norman. Getting into Hitchcock's Psycho, 57 years after its original release is like assisting to a masterclass of sorts. We can now identify what made this little lurid tale into a classic. Hitchcock himself, naturally, but now we know the first director's cut was a major disappointment and that Alma Reville - Hitch's wife - took over, re edited and the results have been praised, applauded and studied ever since. Janet Leigh's Marion Crane created a movie landmark with her shower scene.

Bernard Herrmann and his strings created an extra character that we recognize as soon as it reappears under any disguise but, what shook me the most now in is Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. His performance has evolved with the passing of time and its effect has remain as chilling, as moving, as funny and as real as it was in If you look at the film, shot by shot with Berrnard Herrmann's strings - it's pretty fantastic.

The problem and it is a monumental problem, we wait for Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins, if the casting of Anne Heche was really bad - not a hint of Janet Leigh's humanity, the casting of Vince Vaughn was incomprehensible. Not just not credible for a moment but annoying, very annoying. Anthony Perkins brought something profoundly personal to Norman Bates and as a consequence we connected with his sickness.

We felt for him. Okay, sorry, I didn't mean to go there but I felt compelled to because I saw again Psycho ad Psycho at 24 hours from each other and realized that the main flaw of the versions is the absence of Anthony Perkins. FAQ On the road now in California, she pulls over at night to sleep but is awakened the following morning by a California Highway Patrolman; he can tell something is wrong because of her furtive, anxious behavior.

The officer, however, lets her go. Upon arriving in Bakersfield, Marion pulls into a used car dealership to hastily exchange her car a Ford Mainline , for another a Ford Custom Driving up US 99 during the rainy night, she imagines conversations in her mind of her boss and the client discussing the stolen money, and becomes increasingly nervous.

After accidentally taking a wrong turn, she drives up to the Bates Motel, a remote lodge that has recently lost business due to a diversion realignment of the main highway. The youthful proprietor Norman Bates, nervous but friendly, invites her to a light dinner. Marion, alone in her cabin, overhears a heated argument between Norman and his mother about inviting her to the house. He ends up persuading her to have dinner with him in the motel parlor.

Norman talks about his daily life and his hobby, taxidermy and discloses that his mother Norma is mentally ill, but he becomes agitated when Marion suggests his mother be institutionalized. During their conversation, Marion decides to return to Phoenix and return the stolen money. Upon returning to her cabin, Norman, looking through a hole he had made in the parlor wall long ago, sees her undress, and returns to his house behind the motel. Marion subtracts the amount of money she spent from the stolen money, then tears up the paper and flushes it down the toilet.

The burden now lifted from her conscience, she takes a relaxing shower. While showering, a shadowy figure of an elderly woman quietly enters the bathroom, shoves back the shower curtain, and proceeds to stab her repeatedly to death with a large kitchen knife. The figure then leaves the cabin with the shower still running with Marion laying on the floor dead. Norman comes into the cabin and "discovers" Marion's dead body. Convinced that his mother had committed the crime, he wraps the body in the shower curtain and cleans up the bathroom.

He puts Marion's wrapped body in the trunk of her car, along with all her possessions and, unknowingly, the money, and sinks it in a nearby swamp. A week later, Marion's sister Lila arrives in Fairvale to confront Sam Loomis about Marion's whereabouts in his hardware store. Arbogast eventually finds the Bates Motel.

Norman's evasiveness and stammering arouse his suspicions; when Norman mentions that Marion had met his mother, Arbogast demands to speak to her but Norman refuses. He doesn't. Then a detective, Abrogast, shows up. He's working for the client whose money Marion stole. But he believes Lila and Sam when they say they don't know where Marion is. He agrees to keep in touch with them. Abrogast tracks Marion to the Bates motel.

He interrogates Norman, and wants to talk to Norman's mother, but Norman won't let him. Abrogast calls Lila and Sam and tells them of his progress, and says he's going to go back to the Motel and try to interview Norman. So back he goes, into the house, up the stairs, and yep, that same woman with the knife appears and stabs him to death. Second protagonist: dead. The movie is running out of protagonists. Lila and Sam are freaked out when Abrogast doesn't call back. They go to the Sheriff, who talks to Norman on the phone, but doesn't think anything is wrong.

He also tells them that Norman's mother has been dead ten years; she murdered her boyfriend and then poisoned herself. Whoever it is, after Norman gets the phone call, he goes to his mother, picks her up, and takes her to the fruit cellar, to avoid anyone finding her. Mama Bates is none too happy: she's berating Norman the whole times. Lila and Sam go out to the Bates Motel themselves, posing as man and wife.

Lila is determined to talk to Norman's mother. Sam distracts Norman, and Lila goes into the house. However, Sam makes Norman suspicious, so Norman clubs him in the head, and rushes back home.

His arrival causes Lila to hide in the fruit cellar, where she discovers Mrs. Bates—or rather, Mrs. Bates' corpse.