Dial ‘H’for Hitchcock

While reviewing the film”Psycho” American media warned its leaders  “if you are a faint hearted person do not watch this movie”.  For this Hitchcock remarked that there is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.  He further said “I always make the audience suffer as much as possible” and also said film your murders like love scenes and film your love scenes like murders.  I am a typed director and if I made Cinderella the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the couch.  Such of the reputation of Alfred Hitchcock, the director.

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was an English man.  His first film “The lodger” made in 1927 was a runaway success.  He never looked back after that.  In 1940 he migrated to Hollywood and Hitchcock era started. 

Hitchcock produced and directed the film “Psycho” in 1960.  Psycho was an American psychological horror film.  Marian Crane the secretary in a firm steals 40000$ and escaped in her car.  She took up a lodge in a motel.  The film centres around on the encounter between the secretary Marian Crane and the mentally disturbed Norman Bates, owner of the motel.  As she prepares to take the shower, a shadowy female figure suddenly appears and stabs her to death with a knife.  Norman Bates discovers the murder and cleans up the crime scene and put the body and the money in the trunk of her car and sinks the car in the swamps near the motel. 

An investigator Abrogast meets Laila, the sister of Mariana and informs her about the theft of the money.  The investigator eventually comes to the motel and Norman’s behavior arouses his suspicion.  The investigator informs Laila about what he has discovered.  A female shadowy figures suddenly appears and murders him.  When Laila did not hear anything after that she and Sam, her fiancé comes to the Motel.  Then Norman takes his unwilling aged mother and hides her in the fruits cellar. 

While Sam was talking to Norman Laila goes around the house and when looking in the fruit cellar she finds Norman’s mother and discovers that she is a mummified corpse.  She screams.  Norman immediately comes to the scene with a knife in his hand and in his mother’s clothes and wig and tries to kill Laila but at that time Sam stops him.

At the court house a psychiatrist explains that Norman had murdered his mother and her lover 10 years ago out of jealousy because he wanted mother’s affection all for himself and began to treat his mother’s corpse as if she were alive.  He recreates his mother in his own mind as an alternate personality often talking to himself in her voice.  The psychiatrist informs the court that his “Mother” personality has taken permanent hold of him. 

Hitchcock alone could create such a gruesome murder scenes and make the audience feel as if they were witnessing real murder and tries hard to stop the strong urge to scream.  If one wants this extraordinary experience one must watch “Psycho” i.e., if one is not a faint hearted person.