Which proves how many decades I am behind popular culture :saevilw: I was amazed to find that it wasn't a bloody horror flick as I had always been led to believe, but more of an eerie thriller. :saevilw: There isn't even much blood and only two murders occur in the whole film, most of the action in both sequences being left up to the imagination. Dare I say it, but it would probably pass for family-friendly in our degenerate times. At worst, the rating would be PG. Sorry to say, the supposed twist that Norman was his mother the whole time and had a split personality thing going on was not a surprise at all to me. I saw it coming as early as his "mother" as a character was introduced. The last few minutes of the movie weren't too my liking, either (besides the very last few seconds). It's annoying to me when a movie contains an unnecessary tack-on scene that explains the entire plot from A-Z. They could have cut that down a lot. Overall, I was impressed. Hitchcock accomplished a lot, while keeping everything so simple. The story was complex and cleverly constructed. Precisely one character was standout as completely unforgettable- the murderous, yet, pitiable Norman Bates. Lastly, the very last scene where Norman is held in a cell and his voice over is actually his mother's voice (since the "mother" side of his split personality was dominant and completely took him over), induced a shudder from me and was a powerful note upon which to end the movie. EDIT: I just found out that there were 3 sequels. Wow. I might have to take a look at those as well.
I don't think I've actually watched that movie the whole way through in my entire life. The last decent movie I saw was Blue Ruin. Revenge thriller that was pretty violent but had a decent and interesting story line to it. Also my wife and I watched a documentary called Rich Hill. It follows three boys raised in poverty for about a year of their lives. Pretty straight forward but very interesting as well. Can't imagine I'd watch any of the Psycho sequels. I'm not really into the horror films at all.