Il Etait Une Fois La Revolution GORE (Le Guide Du Cinema Extreme)

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A splatter film or gore film is a subgenre of horror film that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, through the use of special effects, tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the theatricality of its mutilation. The term "splatter cinema" was coined by George A. Romero to describe his film Dawn of the Dead, though Dawn of the Dead is generally considered by critics to have higher aspirations, such as social commentary, than to be simply exploitative for its own sake.^[1]
The combination of graphic violence and sexually suggestive imagery in some films has been labeled "torture porn" or "gorno" (a portmanteau of "gore" and "porno").^[2] By contrast, films such as Braindead, and to some extent Dawn of the Dead, both of which feature over-the-top gore, can be construed as comedic, and fall into the category of splatstick.

Poster art for Blood Feast, considered the first splatter film

Characteristics

Splatter films, according to film critic Michael Arnzen, "self-consciously revel in the special effects of gore as an artform."^[3] Where typical horror films deal with such fears as that of the unknown, the supernatural and the dark, the impetus for fear in a splatter film comes from physical destruction of the body and the pain accompanying it. There is also an emphasis on visuals, style and technique, including hyperactive camerawork. Where most horror films have a tendency to re-establish the social and moral order with good triumphing over evil, splatter films thrive on a lack of plot and order. Arnzen argues that "the spectacle of violence replaces any pretentions to narrative structure, because gore is the only part of the film that is reliably consistent."^[3] These films also feature fragmented narratives and direction, including "manic montages full of subject camera movement...cross-cuttings from hunted to hunter, and ominous juxtapositions and contrasts."^[3]

History

Origins

The splatter film has its aesthetic roots in French Grand Guignol theatre, which endeavored to stage realistic scenes of blood and carnage for its patrons. In 1908, Grand Guignol made its first appearance in England, although the gore was downplayed in favor of a more Gothic tone, owing to the greater censorship of the arts in Great Britain.^[1]
The first appearance of gore—the realistic mutilation of the human body—in cinema can be traced to D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), which features numerous Guignol-esque touches, including two onscreen decapitations, and a scene in which a spear is slowly driven through a soldier's naked abdomen as blood wells from the wound. Several of Griffith's subsequent films, and those of his contemporary Cecil B. DeMille, featured similarly realistic carnage.

Modern era

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the public was reintroduced to splatter themes and motifs by groundbreaking films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and the output of Hammer Film Productions (an artistic outgrowth of the English Grand Guignol style) such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Horror of Dracula (1958). Perhaps the most explicitly violent film of this era was Nobuo Nakagawa's Jigoku (1960), which included numerous scenes of flaying and dismemberment in its depiction of the Buddhist underworld.
Splatter came into its own as a distinct subgenre of horror in the early 1960s with the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis in the United States. Eager to maintain a profitable niche, Lewis turned to something that mainstream cinema still rarely featured: scenes of visceral, explicit gore. In 1963, he directed Blood Feast, widely considered the first splatter film.^[4] In the 15 years following its release, Blood Feast took in an estimated $7 million. It was made for an estimated $24,500.^[5] Blood Feast was followed by two more gore films by Herschell Gordon Lewis, Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) and Color Me Blood Red (1965).
The popularity of the splatter film in the 1970s was met with strong reactions in the US and the UK; Roger Ebert in the U.S. and Member of Parliament Graham Bright in the U.K. led the charge to censor splatter films on home video with the film critic going after I Spit on Your Grave while the politician sponsored the Video Recordings Act, a system of censorship and certification for home video in the UK.^[6] This resulted in the outright banning of many splatter films, which were deemed "video nasties" in the British press.
Some splatter directors have gone on to produce mainstream hits. Peter Jackson started his career in New Zealand by directing the splatter movies Bad Taste (1987) and Braindead (1992). These films featured such over-the-top gore that it became a comedic device. These comedic gore films have been dubbed "splatstick", defined as physical comedy that involves evisceration. Splatstick seems to be more common in Japan, with the examples of "Robogeisha", "Tokyo Gore Police" and "Machine Girl" ^[1]
Splatter films have influenced cinema in certain ways. For example, the popular 1999 film The Blair Witch Project is similar to the 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.^[7] The story in Cannibal Holocaust is told through footage from a group of people making a documentary about a portion of the Amazon which is said to be populated by cannibals. This "mockumentary" format was later used in Blair Witch.

The 1980 mockumentary Cannibal Holocaust influenced The Blair Witch Project

Resurgence

In the 2000s – particularly between 2003-2009 – a body of films were produced that combined elements of the splatter genre and the slasher film.^[8]
These films were dubbed “torture porn” by critics and detractors, most notably by David Edelstein^[9] who is thought to have coined the term.^[8] Like their splatter forerunners, “torture porn” films reputedly place emphasis on depictions of violence, nudity, torture, mutilation and sadism. Also like splatter films, the extent to which torture porn lived up to its sensational reputation has been disputed.^[10]
Filmmaker Eli Roth's Hostel (2005), released in January 2006, was the first to be called "torture porn" by critic David Edelstein, but the classification has since been applied to Saw (2004) and its sequels (though its creators disagree with the classification),^[11] The Devil's Rejects (2005), Wolf Creek (2005), and the earlier films Baise-moi (2000) and Ichi the Killer (2001).^[9][12][13] A difference between this group of films and earlier splatter films is that they are often mainstream Hollywood films that receive a wide release and have comparatively high production values.^[12]
The torture porn subgenre has proven to be very profitable: Saw, made for $1.2 million, grossed over $100 million worldwide, while Hostel, which cost less than $5 million to produce, grossed over $80 million.^[14] Lionsgate, the studio behind the films, made considerable gains in its stock price from the box office showing.^[15] The financial success led the way for the release of similar films: Turistas in 2006, Hostel: Part II, Borderland, and Captivity, starring Elisha Cuthbert and Pruitt Taylor Vince, in 2007.^[14][16] Indeed, in 2009 the Saw series became the most profitable horror film franchise of all-time.^[17]
Despite these financial successes, “torture porn” is perceived as a pejorative label by many press critics, filmmakers and fans.^[8] “Torture porn’s” pejorative connotations were anchored by high-profile salacious advertising campaigns; billboards and posters used in the marketing of Hostel: Part II^[18] and Captivity drew criticism for their graphic imagery, causing them to be taken down in many locations.^[19] Director Eli Roth sought to defend the subgenre, claiming that critics’ uses of “torture porn” "genuinely says more about the critic's limited understanding of what horror movies can do than about the film itself",^[20] and that "they're out of touch."^[21] Horror author Stephen King defended Hostel: Part II and torture porn stating, "sure it makes you uncomfortable, but good art should make you uncomfortable."^[22] Influential director George A. Romero stated, "I don't get the torture porn films [...] they're lacking metaphor."^[23]
The success of torture porn, and its boom during the mid to late 2000s, led to a cross over into genres other than horror. This became evident with the release of many crime thrillers, particularly the 2007 film I Know Who Killed Me starring Lindsay Lohan, and the 2008 film Untraceable, starring Diane Lane and Billy Burke.^[24] The British film WΔZ, starring Stellan Skarsgård and Selma Blair,^[25] and its US counterpart Scar, starring Angela Bettis and Ben Cotton continued to facilitate this hybrid form of torture porn, which was also to a lesser degree, evident in films such as Rendition (2007) starring Jake Gyllenhaal, and Unthinkable (2010) starring Samuel L. Jackson.^[26]
In the mid-2000s, torture porn was given a major boost within the horror industry by a new wave of French films—commonly referred to as the New French Extremity—which became internationally known for their extremely brutal nature: Martyrs (2008), directed by Pascal Laugier,^[27] Frontier(s) (2007), directed by Xavier Gens,^[28] and Inside (2007), directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury.^[14][29] Rapper Eminem explored the genre in his music video for the single "3 a.m." that year.^[30] Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's Antichrist, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, was labeled torture porn by critics when it premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival due to scenes of extreme violence, graphic sex, and genital self-mutilation.^[31][32]
By 2009, the box office draw of torture porn films had mostly been replaced in the U.S. by the profitable trend of remaking or rebooting earlier horror films from decades past with the modernization of such notable titles as: Dawn of the Dead (2004), The Amityville Horror (2005), House of Wax (2005), Black Christmas (2006), Halloween (2007), My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009), Friday the 13th (2009), The Wolfman (2010), The Crazies (2010) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).^[33] A number of these remakes, such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Funny Games (2008), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), The Last House on the Left (2009), and I Spit on Your Grave (2010) were referred to as “torture porn” in press reviews.^{[34][35][36][37][38]}
At the close of the decade, The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2010) and A Serbian Film (2010) were among the most notable torture porn releases: although not as financially successful as Saw or Hostel,^[39] The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) and A Serbian Film gained attention in the press for their graphic depictions of forced fecal consumption and necrophilia,^[40][41] and both films were censored in order to attain release in the UK.^[42][43] Other torture porn films such as Grotesque and The Bunny Game were banned outright by the BBFC.^[44][45]
Subsequently, torture porn has increasingly become a DVD-oriented subgenre. For example, Hostel Part III (2011) was released direct-to-DVD, unlike the previous films in the series. The film received less negative attention in the press as a result of its lower-profile release.^[8] Other recent torture porn films include Would You Rather (2012), Shiver (2012) and The Collection (2012). Although fewer high-profile cinematic torture porn films are being released, these films indicate that the subgenre has not died out entirely (as some journalists have proposed).^[46]
Some scholars have published analyses of torture porn films. For example, a book chronicling the torture porn phenomenon and the surrounding controversy - Steve Jones' Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw^[8] - was published in 2013.


Above Extracts Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatter_film

More Info (about the mag): http://shop.mad-movies.com/fr/produit/809/mad_movies_h_s_nd23 - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Movies

Bijou Phillips in Eli Roth's 2007 film Hostel: Part II, portraying a woman being tortured.

Slasher Movies

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A slasher film is a subgenre of horror film, and at times thriller, typically involving a mysterious, generally psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims usually in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife, a machete, an axe, or a chainsaw. Although the term "slasher" may be used as a generic term for any horror movie involving graphic acts of murder, the slasher as a genre has its own set of characteristics which set it apart from related genres like the splatter film.

Development

Origins and influences

Forerunners

Possibly the earliest slasher-type film is Thirteen Women (1932), which tells the story of an old college sorority whose former members are set against one another by a vengeful peer, seeking penance for the prejudice they bestowed on her because of her mixed race heritage.
The Leopard Man (1943), produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur, is one of the first American films to portray a psychotic serial killer whose identity remains a mystery until the very end. Another film influential to the subgenre is Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960).^[1] The film's plot centers around a man who kills women while using a portable movie camera to record their dying expressions. The film was immensely controversial when first released; critics called it misogynistic (as would critics condemn the slasher films during its golden age). Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), released three months after Peeping Tom, is often seen as an important forerunner to the genre. Even though the villain's body count is only two, the film's "whodunit" plot structure, knife-wielding and mentally disturbed killer, twist ending and 'stalking' camera technique proved influential on films to come.^[1] Another early pioneer of the subgenre is director Francis Ford Coppola's controversial 1963 film Dementia 13, which was rushed into production following Psycho's success at the box office.^[2]

The "splatter film"

Main article: Splatter film

Herschell Gordon Lewis, the self-proclaimed "godfather of gore",^[3] created the splatter film in 1963 with the release of Blood Feast. Blood Feast differed from its genre contemporaries in that it featured a character stalking and mutilating a series of beautiful women as well as featuring a previously unseen level of blood and gore. Lewis went on to use this successful "gore movie" formula in later movies such as Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), Color Me Blood Red (1965), The Gruesome Twosome (1967), and The Wizard of Gore (1970).
It wasn't until 1971 when Hammer Film Productions released Hands of the Ripper that we get to see a combination of sorts of Gothic horror and slasher film surrounding the lore or Jack the Ripper starring Eric Porter as Dr. John Pritchard and leading lady Angharad Rees as the daughter of the Ripper.

The Italian "giallo"

A significant influence on the slasher subgenre was the Italian giallo film genre.^[4][5] These films typically featured mysterious killers, driving soundtracks and unusually explicit violence. Mario Bava is considered the progenitor of the genre, and his 1963 film The Girl Who Knew Too Much is considered the first giallo film. Bava continued with this style throughout his career, crafting numerous films such as Blood and Black Lace and the hugely influential Twitch of the Death Nerve. Bava proved highly influential on Italian horror cinema and ushered in a new wave of Italian directors, including most notably Dario Argento, as well as prompting the release of numerous giallo films in the early 1970s.
Writing in 2000, Tim Lucas wrote that Bava is "the acknowledged smoking gun behind the 'body count' movie phenomenon of the 1980s, which continues to dominate the horror genre two decades later with such films as Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and their respective sequels."^[6] Friday the 13th Part 2, the sequel to the popular slasher film Friday the 13th, contains virtually shot-for-shot remakes of scenes from Twitch of the Death Nerve.^[7][8]

The "exploitation film"

The 1970s were arguably the Golden Age for exploitation films, films which tended to be low budget affairs specializing in suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, freaks, gore, the bizarre, destruction, rebellion and/or mayhem. While such films have existed since the earliest days of moviemaking, they were popularized in the 1960s with the general relaxing of cinematic taboos in the United States and Europe. Additionally, low budget filmmakers used sensational elements to attract audiences away from television.^{[citation needed]} Slasher films are often considered exploitation films because of their use of often low budgets, nudity, gore and shock techniques.^[9] Arguably the most controversial of all exploitation films was Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972). The film was produced by Sean S. Cunningham, who later went on to direct the popular Friday the 13th (1980).
Particularly important to the development of the slasher subgenre was Tobe Hooper's 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which featured a mysterious masked killer known as Leatherface, building on the slasher villain formula.

Early slashers

Black Christmas (1974) is widely considered the first proper slasher film. Directed by Bob Clark (later the director of A Christmas Story), Black Christmas was one of the earliest films to present some of the characteristics that the slasher subgenre would come to be known for: a mysterious stalker, a set of adolescent or young adult victims, a secluded location with little or no adult supervision, point-of-view camera shots representing the "killer's perspective", a jolting score and graphic depictions of violence and murder. Other films considered early slashers include Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974), Savage Weekend (1976), and Alice, Sweet Alice (1976).
It was not until the huge box office success of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980), both of which spawned numerous sequels and remakes and countless imitators, that the slasher genre began to gain widespread popularity.
Halloween, though not the first film of its kind, was the first with a masked killing machine, and also the first film to introduce the concept of the killer being a seemingly indestructible evil force. Through its success, Halloween is often considered the film responsible for the proliferation of the slasher trend, popularizing many of what later became key elements in the genre. A long succession of slasher films were produced, though Halloween actually has far less graphic violence than the later films that defined the slasher genre. Friday the 13th was the first slasher film with an abundance of graphic violence to achieve mainstream popularity, and was also the first to couple this type of murderer character with the sequential murder countdown.

The slasher film in its prime

Following a trend set by Black Christmas, Silent Night, Bloody Night, Alice Sweet Alice, Halloween, and Friday the 13th (as well as To All a Goodnight, a slasher film with a Christmas setting released in January 1980 and preceding Friday the 13th by four months), many films of the era used special days or holidays as a motif. Titles released the same year as Friday the 13th were New Year's Evil, Delusion (also known as The House Where Death Lives), Prom Night and Christmas Evil, and 1981 saw the release of My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday to Me, and Graduation Day. Humongous (1982) opened with a Labor Day weekend setting. Toward the end of the cycle, a twist on the genre was seen in April Fool's Day (1986). Blood Rage (1987) used a Thanksgiving weekend setting.
A few films picked up Friday the 13th's "youth camp in the woods" setting, like The Burning (1981), Madman (1982), Sleepaway Camp (1983) and Cheerleader Camp (1988). Other films highlighted high school or college settings: Terror Train (1980), Hell Night, Final Exam, Night School, the serio-comic Student Bodies (all 1981), The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982), The House on Sorority Row (1983) and The Initiation, Splatter University and Girls Nite Out (all 1984). The "hospital" setting was used at least four times in the 1980s with Visiting Hours, Alone in the Dark, Hospital Massacre and Halloween II.
Other lesser-known films during the genre's heyday include He Knows You're Alone (1980), Just Before Dawn, Bloody Moon and Nightmare (all 1981), Blood Song (1982) and Mortuary (1983). Later entries include The Mutilator (1985), Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986), Stage Fright (1987) and Intruder (1989). Obscure entries are Night Warning (1982) and Curtains and Death Screams (both 1983).
Despite a strict formula developing within the genre, audience interest was maintained by developing new, increasingly "novel" ways for victims to be killed, as well as increasingly graphic and realistic special effects. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Child's Play (1988) added supernatural twists to the slasher formula, as well as comedic elements as the series progressed.
Earlier films, such as Psycho (1960) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), were revived and given a series of increasingly gory sequels in attempts to compete with other series. The genre arguably peaked in 1983, a year in which, according to the book Crystal Lake Memories, nearly 60% of all box-office takings were for slasher movies. Even feminists took a satirical stab at the subgenre with The Slumber Party Massacre (1982).

The slasher villain as anti-hero

The larger part of slasher villains are portrayed as mentally deranged and/or physically deformed individuals who were traumatized, in many instances at an early age. Long-running series in the genre tended to focus more and more on the returning villain than on surviving victims, effectively transforming characters once viewed as sick psychopaths into sympathetic antiheroes for some. Notables include: Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Ghostface, Chucky, Pinhead, The Fisherman and Leatherface some of whom have become among the more recognizable 20th century American popular culture horror symbols.

Decline and direct-to-video

The profitability of the slasher genre began to dwindle, and controversy over the subject matter would eventually persuade some studios to stop producing and distributing slasher films. Sequels to the most popular slasher series would continue to be released in theaters or direct-to-video throughout the early to mid-1990s. However, few gained the success of the genre's earlier productions, and even entries in the established Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street sagas became less frequent.

Influence outside the United States

Notable non-US slashers are Cut from Australia, Cold Prey from Norway, Gutterballs from Canada, Anatomy from Germany, Dead in 3 Days (In 3 Tagen bist du tot) and its sequel from Austria and the French titles Haute Tension and Them.

Revival

In the 1990s, the horror genre was almost dead. Audiences and critics were getting very tired of the same, typical teen slasher films. The slasher genre resurfaced into the mainstream in the mid 1990s, after being deconstructed in Wes Craven's Scream (1996), which was a quasi-satire of Halloween which had a similar effect on the movie industry. The film was both a critical and commercial success, and attracted a new generation to the genre. A self-aware satire of the slasher genre, whereby the characters did not make all the usual "mistakes" (i.e. saying "I'll be right back"), critics lauded Scream for its clever storyline and three-dimensional characters, with more of a focus on suspense than gore. The script carried its own learned analysis of slasher films, and was directed by Wes Craven, who directed A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Followed by three successful sequels, all starring Neve Campbell as main character Sidney Prescott, an attractive, intelligent and resourceful young woman whose characterization both mocks and typifies the "final girl" stereotype.
Scream kicked off a new slasher cycle that still followed the basic conventions of the 1980s films, but managed to draw in a more demographically varied audience with improved production values, reduced levels of on-screen gore, increased self-referential humor, more character development and better-known actors and actresses (often from popular television shows). This trend continued for the duration of the 1990s with films such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, Valentine, The Faculty, Final Destination, Cherry Falls and Jason X among others.
In 1998, the Halloween series was revived, playing off the success of the Scream series as well. The new film, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, was conceived as a direct sequel to 1981's Halloween II, and would lead to one further sequel, Halloween: Resurrection, before the 2007 reboot of the series altogether.
In 2003, two of the largest slasher series, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, were combined by New Line Cinema in the film Freddy vs. Jason.
Scream's influence on the genre is still evident today, and examples of recent slasher films are Hatchet and its sequel, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, The Pumpkin Karver, Hellbent, Slash, Holla, MTV's My Super Psycho Sweet 16, Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet, Grizzly Park, April Fool's Day, The Legend of Bloody Jack, Trick 'r Treat, Killer Movie, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, the Wrong Turn series and many more.
The Scream series was relaunched in 2011 with Scream 4, featuring a killer recreating the Woodsboro murders, therefore attempting to remake the original film. The film itself is not a reboot, though, featuring the surviving characters and acting as a sequel, but instead satirizes the ideas and conventions of remakes of horror films and reboots of film series.


Above Extracts Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slasher_film

More Info: http://www.pocketessentials.com/film/1903047277slashermovies/index.php

Slasher SuperStars Info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_Krueger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Voorhees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Myers_(Halloween)

Psico (Remake 1998)

Info About Psycho's Remake:

Psycho is a 1998 American mystery horror thriller film produced and directed by Gus Van Sant for Universal Pictures, a remake of the 1960 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Both films are adapted from Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name, which was in turn inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein.
Although this version is in color, features a different cast, and has been set in a contemporary timeframe, it is closer to a shot-for-shot remake than most remakes, often copying Hitchcock's camera movements and editing, and Joseph Stefano's script is mostly carried over. Bernard Herrmann's musical score is reused as well, though with a new arrangement by Danny Elfman and recorded in stereo. Some changes are introduced to account for advances in technology since the original film and to make the content more explicit. Murder sequences are also intercut with surreal dream images. The film was both a commercial and critical failure in comparison to its 1960 counterpart, which was successful in both fields.

Plot

Marion Crane steals $400,000 from her employer to get her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, out of debt, and flees Phoenix, Arizona by car. While en route to Sam's California home, she parks along the road to sleep. A highway patrol officer awakens her and, suspicious of her agitated state, begins to follow her. When she trades her car for another one at a dealership, he notes the new vehicle's details. Marion returns to the road but, rather than drive in a heavy storm, decides to spend the night at the Bates Motel.
Owner Norman Bates tells Marion he rarely has customers because of a new interstate nearby and mentions he lives with his mother Norma in the house overlooking the motel. He invites Marion to have supper with him. She overhears Norman arguing with his mother about letting Marion in the house, and during the meal, she angers him by suggesting he institutionalize his mother. He admits he would like to do so, but does not want to abandon her. Later that night, while Marion is changing, Norman secretly watches her from a peephole in his office and masturbates before heading back to the house.
Marion resolves to return to Phoenix to return the money. After calculating how she can repay the money she has spent, Marion dumps her notes down the toilet and begins to shower. An unidentified female figure presumed to be Norman's mother enters the bathroom and stabs Marion to death. Later, finding the corpse, Norman is horrified. He cleans the bathroom and places Marion's body, wrapped in the shower curtain, and all her possessions — including the money — in the trunk of her car and sinks it in a nearby swamp.
Sam is contacted by both Marion's sister, Lila, and private detective Milton Arbogast, who has been hired by Marion's employer to find her and recover the money. Arbogast traces Marion to the motel and questions Norman, who unconvincingly lies that Marion stayed for one night and left the following morning. He refuses to let Arbogast talk to his mother, claiming she is ill. Arbogast calls Lila to update her and tells her he will contact her again in an hour after he questions Norman's mother.
Arbogast enters Norman's house and at the top of the stairs is attacked and murdered by the Mother figure. When Arbogast does not call Lila, she and Sam contact the local police. Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers is perplexed to hear that Arbogast saw a woman in a window, as Norman's mother died ten years ago. Norman confronts his mother and urges her to hide in the cellar. She rejects the idea and orders him out of her room, but against her will Norman carries her to the cellar.
Posing as a married couple, Sam and Lila check into the motel and search Marion's room, where they find a scrap of paper in the toilet with "$400,000" written on it. While Sam distracts Norman, Lila sneaks into the house to search for his mother. Sam suggests to Norman that he killed Marion for the money so he could buy a new motel. Realizing Lila is not around, Norman knocks Sam unconscious with a golf club and rushes to the house. Lila sees him and hides in the cellar where she discovers the mummified body of Norman's mother. Wearing his mother's clothes and a wig and carrying a knife, Norman enters and tries to attack Lila, but she is rescued by Sam.
After Norman's arrest, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Fred Richmond tells Sam and Lila that Norman's dead mother is living in Norman's psyche as an alternate personality. After the death of Norman's father, his mother found a lover. Norman went over the edge with jealousy and murdered both of them. He stole her corpse and preserved the body. When he is Mother, he acts, talks, and dresses as she would. Norman imagined his mother would be as jealous of a woman to whom he might be attracted just as he was of his mother's lover, and so Mother kills any woman for whom Norman has feelings; when Norman regains consciousness, he believes that his mother has committed the crime, and covers up for her. Richmond concludes that the Mother personality has now taken complete control of Norman's mind, erasing his existence.
In the final scene, Norman sits in a cell, thinking in Mother's voice. In a voice-over, Mother explains that she plans to prove to the authorities she is incapable of violence by refusing to swat a fly that has landed on her hand. Marion's car is shown being recovered from the swamp, and is followed by the ending credits.

Cast

• Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, the proprietor of the Bates Motel.
• Julianne Moore as Lila Crane, Marion's neurotic and concerned sister.
• Anne Heche as Marion Crane, a young woman who steals $400,000 in cash to start a new life with her boyfriend.
• Viggo Mortensen as Sam Loomis, Marion's boyfriend. His relationship with Marion is under stress due to his looming debts.
• William H. Macy as Milton Arbogast, a private detective hired to find Marion after she vanishes.
• Robert Forster as Dr. Simon Richmond, a psychiatrist.
• Philip Baker Hall as Sheriff Al Chambers, the local sheriff who knows Norman.
• Anne Haney as Eliza Chambers, his wife.
• Rance Howard as George Lowery, Marion's boss.
• Chad Everett as Tom Cassidy, the client from whom Marion steals the money.
• Rita Wilson as Caroline, Marion's co-worker at the real estate office.
• James Remar as a highway patrolman
• James LeGros as Charlie, a used car dealer.
• Mike "Flea" Balzary as Bob Summerfield, Sam's assistant at the hardware store.

Vaughn and Moore starred together in the 1997 film The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Director Gus Van Sant, emulating Hitchcock's practice of making cameo appearances in his films, appears as "Man talking to man in cowboy hat" at the same point in his film when Hitchcock made his appearance in the original. According to the DVD commentary track that featured Van Sant, Vaughn, and Heche, Van Sant's character is being scolded by Hitchcock in the scene. The voice of Norma Bates was provided by Rose Marie, who is uncredited.^[3]

Production

The audio commentary track that accompanies the DVD release of the film, and the making-of documentary (Psycho Path) that the DVD includes, provide numerous details about where the film strived to remain faithful to the original, and where it diverged. Some changes are pervasive: as the film opens, it is made clear that it is set in the late 1990s, so minor changes are made throughout the dialogue to reflect the new timeframe. For example, all the references to money are updated (how much Marion Crane steals, how much a car costs, how much a hotel room costs), as are references to terms from the original script (e.g., "aspic") that would seem anachronistic in the new setting. According to Van Sant, in the original the only fully fleshed out character was Norman Bates; the other major characters were more iconic, purposely written and portrayed to advance the plot; Van Sant relied upon his main cast more to flesh out and make consistent their character's motivations and worked with them to determine to what degree their characters were similar to the originals.
According to the commentary by Van Sant, Vaughn, and Heche, some actors, such as Macy, chose to stay true to the original, while others, such as Vaughn and Moore, interpreted the dialogue and scenes from the original film differently; Moore's version of Lila Crane, for example, was much more aggressive than the one portrayed by Vera Miles, and there are differences in Marion Crane's evolving attitudes about the money she stole. The cinematography and the cinematic techniques were consistent between the two films in many of the film's most memorable scenes, including the shower scene, scenes of the mother, scenes of the swamp, and the scene of Arbogast on the staircase, but other scenes changed significantly, particularly the climax, and the Dr. Simon monologue at the end, which was much shorter. Van Sant's comments from the commentary track attributes many of the updates to the need to make the film more accessible to a new audience.

Release

Reception

This version of Psycho received generally negative reviews; it was awarded two Golden Raspberry Awards, for Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Director for Gus Van Sant, while Anne Heche was nominated for Worst Actress. Camille Paglia commented that the only reason to watch it was "to see Anne Heche being assassinated", but that "it should have been a much more important work and event than it was."^[5]
A number of critics and writers viewed Van Sant's version more as an actual experiment in shot-for-shot remakes. Many people refer to this film as a duplicate of the 1960 film rather than a remake. Film critic Roger Ebert, who gave the film one-and-a-half stars, wrote that the film "demonstrates that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless; genius apparently resides between or beneath the shots, or in chemistry that cannot be timed or counted."^[6] Screenwriter Joseph Stefano, who wrote the original script, thought that although she spoke the same lines, Anne Heche portrays Marion Crane as an entirely different character.^[7] Even Van Sant admitted that it was an experiment that proved that no one can really copy a film exactly the same way as the original.^[8]
Janet Maslin gave the film a positive review, calling it an "artful, good-looking remake (a modest term, but it beats plagiarism) that shrewdly revitalizes the aspects of the real Psycho (1960) that it follows most faithfully but seldom diverges seriously or successfully from one of the cinema's most brilliant blueprints"; she noted that the "absence of anything like Anthony Perkins's sensational performance with that vitally birdlike presence and sneaky way with a double-entendre ("A boy's best friend is his mother") is the new film's greatest weakness."^[9]
Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide classified the film as a "BOMB", compared to the four-out-of-four stars he gave the original. He describes it as a "Slow, stilted, completely pointless scene-for-scene remake of the Hitchcock classic (with a few awkward new touches to taint its claim as an exact replica.)" He ultimately calls it "an insult, rather than a tribute, to a landmark film."^[10]

Soundtrack

Main article: Psycho (1998 soundtrack)

The film's soundtrack, Psycho: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture, included Danny Elfman's re-recordings of some of Bernard Herrmann's score for the original film, along with a collection of songs in genres from country to drum and bass, connected mainly by titles containing "psycho" or other death or insanity-related words. Many of the songs were recorded specifically for the soundtrack, and included a sampling of Bernard Herrmann's score composed by Danny Elfman. The soundtrack also includes the track "Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie, which can be heard during the film when Marion trades in her old car for a new one.


Above Extracts Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1998_film)

More Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155975/

Psycho 1960 & Psycho 1998 Comparision

Psico (Edição Comemorativa 2 Discos)

Info About (Probably) The Best Hitchcock Movie:

Psycho is a 1960 American suspense horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Janet Leigh. The screenplay is by Joseph Stefano, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch loosely inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein.^[1]
The film centers on the encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Leigh), who ends up at a secluded motel after embezzling money from her employer, and the motel's disturbed owner-manager, Norman Bates (Perkins), and its aftermath.^[2] When originally made, the film was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film North by Northwest, having been filmed on a low budget, with a television crew and in black and white. Psycho initially received mixed reviews, but outstanding box office returns prompted reconsideration which led to overwhelming critical acclaim and four Academy Award nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Leigh and Best Director for Hitchcock.
It is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films^[3] and praised as a work of cinematic art by international film critics and film scholars. Ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films.^[4] After Hitchcock's death in 1980, Universal Studios began producing follow-ups: three sequels, a remake, a television movie spin-off, and a TV series.
In 1992, the US Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

Marion Crane and her boyfriend meet for a secret romantic rendezvous during lunch hour at a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. They then talk about how they can barely afford to get married. Upon Marion's return to work at a realtor's office, a client comes in with $40,000 in cash to purchase a house for his daughter. The money is entrusted to Marion, who decides to steal it and skip town.
On the road, she pulls over to sleep and is awaken by a policeman who can tell something is wrong. The policeman lets her go, but upon arriving in another town, Marion pulls into a used car dealership and hastily exchanges her car for another one. Driving during a rainy night, Marion pulls up to the Bates Motel, a remote lodging that has recently lost business due to a diversion of the main highway. The proprietor, youthful but nervous Norman Bates, invites her to a light dinner in the parlor. Norman discloses that his mother is mentally ill, but he becomes irate and bristles when Marion suggests that she should be institutionalized. The conversation induces Marion to decide to return to Phoenix and return the stolen money. Marion later takes a shower in her room, during which a shadowy figure comes and stabs her to death. Norman bursts into the bathroom and discovers Marion's dead body. He wraps the body in the shower curtain and cleans up the bathroom. He puts Marion's body in the trunk of her car and sinks it in a nearby swamp.
In Phoenix, Marion's sister Lila and boyfriend Sam Loomis are concerned about her disappearance. A detective named Arbogast confirms Marion is suspected of having stolen $40,000 from her employer. Arbogast eventually finds the Bates Motel, where Norman's evasiveness and stammering arouse his suspicions. Arbogast later enters the Bates' residence, looking for Norman's mother. A figure emerges from her room and murders Arbogast.
Fearing something has happened to Arbogast, Sam and Lila go to the town of Fairvale and talk with the local sheriff. He is puzzled by the detective's claim that he was planning to talk to Norman's mother, stating that Mrs. Bates died years ago, along with her lover, in a murder-suicide. Norman, seen from above, carries his mother down to the cellar of their house as she verbally protests the arrangement.
Sam and Lila rent a room at the Bates Motel and search the cabin that Marion stayed in. Lila finds a scrap of paper with "$40,000" written on it while Sam notes that the bathtub has no shower curtain. Sam distracts Norman while Lila sneaks into the house, looking for Mrs. Bates. Norman subdues Sam and chases Lila. Seeing Norman approaching, Lila hides in the cellar and discovers Mrs. Bates sitting in a rocking chair. The chair rotates to reveal a desiccated corpse, the preserved body of Mrs. Bates. A figure enters the basement, wearing a dress and wig while wielding a large knife, revealing Norman to be the murderer all along. Sam enters and saves Lila.
After Norman's arrest, a psychiatrist who interviewed Norman reveals that Norman had murdered his mother and her lover years ago, and later developed a split personality to erase the crime from his memory. At times, he is able to function as Norman, but other times the mother personality completely dominates him. Norman is now locked into his mother's identity permanently. Mrs. Bates, in a voice-over, talks about how harmless she is, and how it was really Norman, not her, who committed the murders. The final scene shows Marion's car being recovered from the swamp.

Cast

• Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates
• Janet Leigh as Marion Crane
• Vera Miles as Lila Crane (Marion's sister)
• John Gavin as Sam Loomis (Marion's boyfriend)
• Martin Balsam as Milton Arbogast (private detective)
• John McIntire as Al Chambers (police sheriff)
• Simon Oakland as Dr. Fred Richmond (police psychologist)
• Frank Albertson as Tom Cassidy (the client with $40,000)
• Pat Hitchcock as Caroline (Marion's co-worker)
• Vaughn Taylor as George Lowery (Marion's boss)
• Lurene Tuttle as Mrs. Chambers (Al Chambers wife)
• John Anderson as California Charlie (car dealer)
• Mort Mills as Highway Patrol Officer
• Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, and Paul Jasmin (uncredited) as voice of Norma Bates (Norman's mother)
• Ted Knight (uncredited) as a policeman guarding Norman Bates

The success of Psycho jump-started Perkins' career, but he soon began to suffer from typecasting.^[5] However, when Perkins was asked whether he would have still taken the role knowing that he would be typecast afterwards, he replied with a definite "yes".^[6]
Until her death, Leigh continued to receive strange and sometimes threatening calls, letters, and even tapes detailing what they would like to do to Marion Crane. One letter was so "grotesque" that she passed it along to the FBI, two of whose agents visited Leigh and told her the culprits had been located and that she should notify the FBI if she received any more letters of that type.^[7]
Norman's mother was voiced by Virginia Gregg, Paul Jasmin, and Jeanette Nolan, who also provided some screams for Lila's discovery of the mother's corpse. The three voices were thoroughly mixed, except for the last speech, which is all Gregg's.^[8]
Anne Dore was chosen by Hitchcock to double for Perkins in the shower sequence in Psycho, since he did not want any of Perkins's physicality to betray his identity at that point in the film. Dore wore the mother's costume and did all the stabbing actions.

Production

The shower scene

The shadowy mother figure from the famous shower scene.

The murder of Janet Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene and one of the best-known in all of cinema. As such, it spawned numerous myths and legends. It was shot from December 17 to December 23, 1959, and features 77 different camera angles.^[58] The scene "runs 3 minutes and includes 50 cuts."^[59] Most of the shots are extreme close-ups, except for medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder. The combination of the close shots with their short duration makes the sequence feel more subjective than it would have been if the images were presented alone or in a wider angle, an example of the technique Hitchcock described as "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience".^[60]

In order to capture the straight-on shot of the shower head, the camera had to be equipped with a long lens. The inner holes on the shower head were blocked and the camera placed a sufficient distance away so that the water, while appearing to be aimed directly at the lens, actually went around and past it.^[61]
The soundtrack of screeching violins, violas and cellos was an original all-strings piece by composer Bernard Herrmann titled "The Murder". Hitchcock originally intended to have no music for the sequence (and all motel scenes),^[62] but Herrmann insisted he try his composition. Afterward, Hitchcock agreed it vastly intensified the scene, and nearly doubled Herrmann's salary.^[63][64][65] The blood in the scene is reputed to have been Bosco chocolate syrup,^[66] which shows up better on black-and-white film, and has more realistic density than stage blood.^[1] The sound of the knife entering flesh was created by plunging a knife into a casaba melon.^[67][68]
There are varying accounts whether Leigh was in the shower the entire time or a body double was used for some parts of the murder sequence and its aftermath. In an interview with Roger Ebert and in the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Leigh stated she was in the scene the entire time and Hitchcock only used a stand-in for the sequence in which Norman wraps Marion's body in a shower curtain and places it in the trunk of her car.^[69] The 2010 book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower by Robert Graysmith contradicts this, identifying Marli Renfro as Leigh's body double for some of the shower scene's shots.^[70]
A popular myth emerged that in order for Leigh's scream in the shower to sound realistic ice-cold water was used. Leigh denied this on numerous occasions, saying the crew was very accommodating supplying hot water throughout the week-long shoot.^[71] All of the screams are Leigh's.^[8]
Another concerns Saul Bass, the graphic designer who created many of the title sequences of Hitchcock's films and storyboarded some of Psycho's scenes, claiming he had directed the shower scene. This was refuted by several figures associated with the film, including Leigh, who stated: "absolutely not! I have emphatically said this in any interview I've ever given. I've said it to his face in front of other people... I was in that shower for seven days, and, believe me, Alfred Hitchcock was right next to his camera for every one of those seventy-odd shots."^[72] Hilton Green, the assistant director, also refutes Bass' claim: "There is not a shot in that movie that I didn't roll the camera for. And I can tell you I never rolled the camera for Mr. Bass."^[72] Roger Ebert, a longtime admirer of Hitchcock's work, summarily dismissed the rumor, stating, "It seems unlikely that a perfectionist with an ego like Hitchcock's would let someone else direct such a scene."^[73]
However, commentators such as Stephen Rebello and Bill Krohn have argued in favor of Bass' contribution to the scene in his capacity as visual consultant and storyboard artist.^[74] Along with designing the opening credits, Bass is termed "Pictorial Consultant" in the credits. When interviewing Hitchcock in 1967, François Truffaut asked about the extent of Bass' contribution, to which Hitchcock replied that in addition to the titles, Bass had provided storyboards for the Arbogast murder (which he claimed to have rejected), but made no mention of Bass providing storyboards for the shower scene.^[75] According to Bill Krohn's Hitchcock At Work, Bass' first claim to have directed the scene was in 1970, when he provided a magazine with 48 drawings used as storyboards as proof of his contribution.^[76]
Krohn's analysis of the production of Psycho in his book Hitchcock at Work, while refuting Bass' claims for directing the scene, notes that these storyboards did introduce key aspects of the final scene—most notably, the fact that the killer appears as a silhouette, and details such as the close-ups of the slashing knife, Leigh's desperate outstretched arm, the shower curtain being torn down, and the transition from the hole of the drainage pipe to Marion Crane's dead eyes. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of the iris titles that Bass created for Vertigo.^[76]
Krohn's research also notes that Hitchcock shot the scene with two cameras: one a BNC Mitchell, the other a handheld camera called an Éclair which Orson Welles had used in Touch of Evil (1958). In order to create an ideal montage for the greatest emotional impact on the audience, Hitchcock shot a lot of footage of this scene which he trimmed down in the editing room. He even brought a Moviola on the set to gauge the footage required. The final sequence, which his editor George Tomasini worked on with Hitchcock's advice, however did not go far beyond the basic structural elements set up by Bass' storyboards.^[76]
According to Donald Spoto in The Dark Side of Genius, Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, spotted a blooper in one of the last screenings of Psycho before its official release: after Marion was supposedly dead, one could see her blink. According to Patricia Hitchcock, talking in Laurent Bouzereau's "making of" documentary, Alma spotted that Leigh's character appeared to take a breath. In either case, the postmortem activity was edited out and was never seen by audiences.^[16] Although Marion's eyes should be dilated after her death, the contact lenses necessary for this effect would have required six weeks of acclimatization to wear them, so Hitchcock decided to forgo them.^[77]
It is often claimed that, despite its graphic nature, the "shower scene" never once shows a knife puncturing flesh.^[78][79][80] However, a frame by frame analysis of the sequence shows one shot in which the knife appears to penetrate Leigh's abdomen, but the effect may have been created by lighting and reverse motion.^[81] Leigh herself was so affected by this scene when she saw it, that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open.^[82] She never realized until she first watched the film "how vulnerable and defenseless one is".^[16]
Leigh and Hitchcock fully discussed what the scene meant:

Marion had decided to go back to Phoenix, come clean, and take the consequence, so when she stepped into the bathtub it was as if she were stepping into the baptismal waters. The spray beating down on her was purifying the corruption from her mind, purging the evil from her soul. She was like a virgin again, tranquil, at peace.^[72]

Film theorist Robin Wood also discusses how the shower washes "away her guilt". He comments upon the "alienation effect" of killing off the "apparent center of the film" with which spectators had identified.^[83]
In April 2013, the scene was voted the best bathroom scene of any film in history, with scenes from Trainspotting and There's Something About Mary coming second and third.^[84]

Soundtrack

Score

Hitchcock insisted that Bernard Herrmann write the score for Psycho despite the composer's refusal to accept a reduced fee for the film's lower budget.^[85] The resulting score, according to Christopher Palmer in The Composer in Hollywood (1990) is "perhaps Herrmann's most spectacular Hitchcock achievement."^[86] Hitchcock was pleased with the tension and drama the score added to the film,^[87] later remarking "33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music."^[88] The singular contribution of Herrmann's score may be inferred from the film's credit roll, where the composer's name precedes only the director's own, a distinction unprecedented in the annals of commercial cinematic music.
Herrmann used the lowered music budget to his advantage by writing for a string orchestra rather than a full symphonic ensemble,^[85] contrary to Hitchcock's request for a jazz score.^[89] He thought of the single tone color of the all-string soundtrack as a way of reflecting the black-and-white cinematography of the film.^[90] Hollywood composer Fred Steiner, in an analysis of the score to Psycho, points out that string instruments gave Herrmann access to a wider range in tone, dynamics, and instrumental special effects than any other single instrumental group would have.^[91]
The main title music, a tense, hurtling piece, sets the tone of impending violence, and returns three times on the soundtrack.^[92][93] Though nothing shocking occurs during the first 15–20 minutes of the film, the title music remains in the audience's mind, lending tension to these early scenes.^[92] Herrmann also maintains tension through the slower moments in the film through the use of ostinato.^[88]
There were rumors that Herrmann had used electronic means, including amplified bird screeches to achieve the shocking effect of the music in the shower scene. The effect was achieved, however, only with violins in a "screeching, stabbing sound-motion of extraordinary viciousness."^[94] The only electronic amplification employed was in the placing of the microphones close to the instruments, to get a harsher sound.^[94] Besides the emotional impact, the shower scene cue ties the soundtrack to birds.^[94] The association of the shower scene music with birds also telegraphs to the audience that it is Norman, the stuffed-bird collector, who is the murderer rather than his mother.^[94]
Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith writes that the music for the shower scene is "probably the most famous (and most imitated) cue in film music,"^[90] but Hitchcock was originally opposed to having music in this scene.^[94] When Herrmann played the shower scene cue for Hitchcock, the director approved its use in the film. Herrmann reminded Hitchcock of his instructions not to score this scene, to which Hitchcock replied, "Improper suggestion, my boy, improper suggestion."^[95] This was one of two important disagreements Hitchcock had with Herrmann, in which Herrmann ignored Hitchcock's instructions. The second one, over the score for Torn Curtain (1966), resulted in the end of their professional collaboration.^[96] A survey conducted by PRS for Music, in 2009, showed that the British public consider the score from 'the shower scene' to be the scariest theme from any film.^[97]
To honor the 50th anniversary of Psycho, in July 2010, the San Francisco Symphony^[98] obtained a print of the film with the soundtrack removed, and projected it on a large screen in Davies Symphony Hall while the orchestra performed the score live. This was previously mounted by the Seattle Symphony in October 2009 as well, performing at the Benaroya Hall for two consecutive evenings. These performances are part of John Goberman's offering of films with great music performed by live orchestras: A Symphonic Night at the Movies, These special events range from "Alexander Nevsky" to "Singin in the Rain" to "Hitchcock!".

Controversy

Psycho is a prime example of the type of film that appeared in the United States during the 1960s after the erosion of the Production Code. It was unprecedented in its depiction of sexuality and violence, right from the opening scene in which Sam and Marion are shown as lovers sharing the same bed, with Marion in a bra.^[101] In the Production Code standards of that time, unmarried couples shown in the same bed would be taboo.^[102]
According to the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, the censors in charge of enforcing the Production Code wrangled with Hitchcock because some of them insisted they could see one of Leigh's breasts. Hitchcock held onto the print for several days, left it untouched, and resubmitted it for approval. Each of the censors reversed their positions: those who had previously seen the breast now did not, and those who had not, now did. They passed the film after the director removed one shot that showed the buttocks of Leigh's stand-in.^[103] The board was also upset by the racy opening, so Hitchcock said that if they let him keep the shower scene he would re-shoot the opening with them on the set. Since they did not show up for the re-shoot, the opening stayed.^[103]
Another cause of concern for the censors was that Marion was shown flushing a toilet, with its contents (torn-up note paper) fully visible. No flushing toilet had appeared in mainstream film and television in the U.S. at that time.^{[104][105][106]}
Internationally, Hitchcock was forced to make minor changes to the film, mostly to the shower scene. In Britain and New Zealand the shot of Norman washing blood from his hands was objected to and in Singapore, though the shower scene was left untouched, the murder of Arbogast and a shot of Mother's corpse were removed.^[107]
The most controversial move was Hitchcock's "no late admission" policy for the film, which was unusual for the time. It was not entirely original as Clouzot had done the same in France for Les Diaboliques.^[108] Hitchcock thought that if people entered the theater late and never saw the star actress Janet Leigh, they would feel cheated.^[30] At first theater owners opposed the idea, claiming that they would lose business. However, after the first day, the owners enjoyed long lines of people waiting to see the film.^[30]

Promotion

Hitchcock did most of the promotion on his own, forbidding Leigh and Perkins to make the usual television, radio, and print interviews for fear of their revealing the plot.^[109] Even critics were not given private screenings but rather had to see the film with the general public, which, despite possibly affecting their reviews,^[107] certainly preserved the secret.
The film's original trailer features a jovial Hitchcock taking the viewer on a tour of the set, and almost giving away plot details before stopping himself. It is "tracked" with Bernard Herrmann's Psycho theme, but also jovial music from Hitchcock's comedy The Trouble with Harry; most of Hitchcock's dialogue is post-synchronized. The trailer was made after completion of the film, and since Janet Leigh was no longer available for filming, Hitchcock had Vera Miles don a blonde wig and scream loudly as he pulled the shower curtain back in the bathroom sequence of the preview. Since the title, "Psycho," instantly covers most of the screen, the switch went unnoticed by audiences for years. However, a freeze-frame analysis clearly reveals that it is Vera Miles and not Janet Leigh in the shower during the trailer.^[30]
The film was so successful that it was reissued to theaters in 1965. A year later, CBS purchased the television rights for $450,000. CBS planned to televise the film on September 23, 1966, but three days earlier, Valerie Percy, daughter of Illinois senate candidate Charles H. Percy, was murdered. As her parents slept mere feet away, she was stabbed a dozen times with a double-edged knife. In light of the murder, CBS agreed to postpone the screening, but as a result of the Apollo pad fire of January 27, 1967, the network washed its hands of Psycho,^[110] and shortly afterward Paramount included the film in its first syndicated package of post-1950 movies, "Portfolio I". WABC-TV in New York City was the first station in the country to air Psycho (with some scenes significantly edited), on its late-night movie series, The Best of Broadway, on June 24, 1967.^[111] Following another successful theatrical reissue in 1969, the film finally made its way to general television airing in one of Universal's syndicated programming packages for local stations in 1970. Psycho was aired for twenty years in this format, then leased to cable for two years before returning to syndication as part of the "List of a Lifetime" package.^[110]

Reception

Initial reviews of the film were thoroughly mixed.^[124] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job." Crowther called the "slow buildups to sudden shocks" reliably melodramatic but contested Hitchcock's psychological points, reminiscent of Krafft-Ebing's studies, as less effective. While the film did not conclude satisfactorily for the critic, he commended the cast's performances as "fair".^[125] British critic C. A. Lejeune was so offended that she not only walked out before the end but permanently resigned her post as film critic for The Observer.^[126] Other negative reviews stated, "a blot on an honorable career", "plainly a gimmick movie", and "merely one of those television shows padded out to two hours."^[124][127] Positive reviews stated, "Anthony Perkins' performance is the best of his career... Janet Leigh has never been better", "played out beautifully", and "first American movie since Touch of Evil to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films."^[124][128] A good example of the mix is the New York Herald Tribune's review, which stated, "...rather difficult to be amused at the forms insanity may take... keeps your attention like a snake-charmer."^[124]
The public loved the film, with lines stretching outside of theatres as people had to wait for the next showing. It broke box-office records in Japan and the rest of Asia, France, Britain, South America, the United States and Canada, and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period.^[124] It was the most profitable black-and-white sound film ever made, and Hitchcock personally realized well in excess of $15 million. He then swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA, making him the third largest shareholder in MCA Inc. and his own boss at Universal, in theory. But that didn't stop them from interfering with him badly.^[129][130] Psycho was, by a large margin, the most profitable film of Hitchcock's career, earning over $12 million for the studio on release, and $15 million by the end of the year. Hitchcock's second most profitable was Family Plot ($7,541,000), and third place was a tie between Torn Curtain (1966) and Frenzy (1972), each earning $6,500,000.
In the United Kingdom, the film shattered attendance records at the London Plaza Cinema, but nearly all British critics panned it, questioning Hitchcock's taste and judgment. Reasons cited for this were the critics' late screenings, forcing them to rush their reviews, their dislike of the gimmicky promotion, and Hitchcock's expatriate status.^[131] Perhaps thanks to the public's response and Hitchcock's efforts at promoting it, the critics did a re-review, and the film was praised. TIME switched its opinion from "Hitchcock bears down too heavily in this one" to "superlative" and "masterly", and Bosley Crowther put it on his Top Ten list of 1960.^[131]
Psycho was initially criticized for making other filmmakers more willing to show gore; three years later, Blood Feast, considered to be the first "splatter film", was released.^[132] Psycho's success financially and critically had others trying to ride its coattails. Inspired by Psycho, Hammer Film Productions launched a series of mystery thrillers including The Nanny^[133] (1965) starring Bette Davis and William Castle's Homicidal (1961) was followed by a slew of more than 13 other splatter films.^[132]


Above Extracts Taken From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film)

More Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054215/ - http://www.filmsite.org/psyc.html