Number 13 of My Top 31 Horror Movies : A secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer’s client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. : PSYCHO the grand daddy of all Hitchcock movies… how can you not be overcome with terror at Bernard Herrmann’s intrusive, iconic stringed score, gasp with wonder at the beauty of Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane but most of all shudder with genuine fear when the curtain is pulled back on Norman Bates personality disorder : as far as my favorite scenes in Psycho go there are just too many to mention, but obviously the shower scene & it’s aftermath are the most memorable, with Anthony Perkins in terrifying form, the effectiveness of John L. Russell’s black-and-white photography leaves you speechless at times with the opening shots of Marion lying of the bed in the hotel room, the atmospheric road trip and our first glimpse of the Bates Motel being fine examples, all of which are breathtaking, one of my favorite moments in the film is the scene when Arbogast gets stabbed on the stairs, the camera work of him falling backwards and then getting attacked again is something else, Martin Balsam who plays the private detective is superb : Psycho was shot at Revue Studios with a budget of around $800,000 and was released in 1960 becoming a box office smash for Alfred Hitchcock and receiving Four Oscar Nominations, with it’s star Janet Leigh winning a Golden Globe for her performance (trivia: the official theatrical trailer for the movie back in 1960 was over six minutes long) : if Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest didn’t cement Hitchcock’s filmmaking legacy then Psycho certainly did, giving us an early taste of the slasher movie with two great performances and a haunting Herrmann score ★★★★★