Mineshaft Gap

I can only imagine how powerful a film Psycho must be if you came into it cold. Due to cultural osmosis, we all know that Marion Crane dies half an hour in, and that Norman Bates is the killer. It’s such an open secret that I don’t even feel hypocritical writing that down. We all know.

And that’s sad, since it strips the first half of the film of any of the tension it builds so well. As we sit there waiting for the shower scene, the great misdirection that Hitchcock is using falls by the wayside. This film is the ultimate red herring, and yet it will never work again.

I envy my girlfriend, in a weird way, since she saw the film so young she didn’t know the twists. Of course, since she was six it probably scarred her for life, but it was a sacrifice to the cinema.

That’s a joke… I think.

Anyway, one more note on Anthony Perkins. What an underrated career this guy had, and what a waste that it wasn’t more. I mean he was brilliant in Psycho and Orson Welles’ The Trail. What have you ever done with your life?