So I think the thing that you don't necessarily get from podcasting with Emily is that she's quite tall.Well, she looks very tall in this, this shot, of course.Yeah.Can you hear me?I could hear you almost too well.
Good evening and welcome to progressively horrified.The show where we hold horror to standards it absolutely never.
Good evening and welcome to Progressively Horrified, the podcast where you old whore to progressive standards it never agreed to.Tonight we're talking about a little known classic small film.It's reported to have some influence on horror movies.
It's a little something called Psycho.
Jeremy, I'm sorry.I think it's pronounced psycho.Psycho.There we go.
Psycho.Yeah.Yeah.It's a period piece from what I can tell.
By the P at the beginning.
So we've got a little bit of a different team than usual.We're rolling in those Halloween extra guests, but we are less 1B this week.So first of all, I am Jeremy Whitley, and let me introduce you to this particular panel of cinephiles and Cenobites.
First, the cinnamon roll of Cenobites, my co-host, Emily Martin.Emily, how are you tonight?
Coming at you live straight from Portland, Oregon, which is how the locals say it. And, uh, I'm, I am alive, feeling, you know, not as psycho as, uh, maybe, maybe not as psychos.
It would make the podcast way spookier if you weren't, um, just saying.
Think about it in the game later.Yeah.
And, uh, amongst our, our guests, such diverse elements as first, welcome back comics editor and friend of the podcast, Tfue, near T at Veneman.And how are you?
I'm great.I think the last time I was on this podcast, I was pregnant and now I have a toddler.Congratulations.So.So, yeah, no, it's great to be back.Happy to be here and looking forward to chatting with you all.
I have heard legend of this toddler, the internet's favorite toddler.So returning guest, Poetrator and all around Renaissance man, Michael Tanner.Michael, welcome.Thank you for having me on.
And finally, friend of the podcast, our frequent guest who lives in the big house behind the podcast, comics writer and editor, Joe Corallo.Joe, welcome back.Joe, is that true?
It's good to be welcomed.And sure, what isn't true, really?Yeah, sure.Yeah.Don't, as long as there's no follow-up questions to that, I think we're good.
So I don't even know how much we actually need to recap Psycho because I feel like it's a it's a tale as old as time at this point.So it is directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
I do think this is the first Hitchcock movie that we've talked about on here, which is seems highly unlikely at two hundred and What, like 204, 205 episodes now?Wild.And it is written by Joseph Stefano and Robert Block.
It stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Galvin.I'm sorry, John Gavin.I'm messing up names all over the place today.John Gavin, Martin Balsam, and the amazing John McIntyre playing the local sheriff here.
Real, like, great, great character actor, John McIntyre. So before we dive fully into talking about the plot, what is everybody's experience with, with psycho here?And how are you coming into it, watching it this time?
So a little story back when I was a child, my dad, he ran a mail order, kind of magic. and lock business that inherited from my grandfather, some magic supplies and padlocks and whatnot that magicians would use for escape tricks.
One time he did a trade with a guy for a laser disc player, which included literally like 40 laser discs. And one of those laserdiscs was Psycho.So at a very young age, there were like five or six laserdiscs in heavy rotation.
Flash Gordon, Cheech and Chong Up in Smoke, Cheech and Chong The Next Movie, The Great Waldo Pepper.I'm sorry, laserdiscs?Laserdiscs.Wait, everyone knows what a laserdisc is, right?
I do.Does everyone else?I think, yes.
Yeah, there's a movie on there.
It's like a record, but a DVD at the same time.
Exactly.And Psycho was one of those laser discs.But oddly enough, because they would skip like records.I never really saw the early part of the movie, which is the big thing, the big buildup.
So it kind of would skip through most of the movie up until a little bit past the shower scene. So I mostly have seen growing up from the after the shower scene on.
So watching the early parts of this movie, I think for the first time maybe 15 years ago was the first time I watched the whole thing all the way through.
And that's my background as Psycho.
I think for me, I'd seen the movie a bunch of times because it's a very, I mean, it's an AMC classic for when we had cable.
Today, I watched it while in a car, uh, which was really weird during the first part of the movie because I looked down and, you know, the, uh, homegirl like driving through. thinking about stuff.
And then I was like, yeah, I probably I'm going to have a really cool, like dissociated memory of driving through Oregon and thinking about all the money I sold.So that's I didn't I didn't steal any money as far as I know.Not $40,000.Not $40,000.
Exactly.No.The unthinkable sum of $40,000.Yeah.God, I. Yeah.This trip cost $40,000.
I saw Psycho probably for the first time in high school.And then I went to film school and watched it a lot.I watched a lot of Hitchcock in film school.If you get around to doing any other Hitchcock films, I'd love to come back.
But I hadn't seen it in years now since I was in high, since I was in college. And it was really interesting to watch it from the perspective of watching it for the first time being old enough that Norman Bates seems really young.
which really changes the tenor of the movie in a lot of ways.
He is giving some Danger Twink kind of energy.Norman Bates is there giving, I think he's, what he's giving is more of a baby girl kind of thing, as opposed to Danger Twink.But Joe?
Yeah, no, I, when I was in, middle school in sixth grade, my parents would start renting VHS tapes and things like that from the local library.
The first three rated R movies that I was allowed to see because my mom had seen them were, they were movies that I wanted to see that she was like, okay, I saw these, so, were Halloween, Alien, and Psycho.
So I had seen, so yeah, I would have been like, you know, like 12, probably when I first saw Psycho and, you know, had seen it a lot since then.
you know and then over the years and you know understanding film better going back and understanding the impact of of psycho you know it's it's hard i think now to get the whole bit that like movies didn't have that twist in the middle where they kill off you know the person you think you're following halfway like that just wasn't a thing
like how revolutionary it was, how I believe it's the second slasher, considered slasher, because the first would have been Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, which is also an incredible film.
Just the legacy of this film, watching it again after seeing some of the other incredible films some of the other people were in, as much as I absolutely love Psycho, I think Anthony Perkins' greatest role is probably in The Trial.
I absolutely adore that movie.I think it was two years after this, Orson Welles.And then I believe two years before this movie was Touch of Evil, which Janet Leigh is in.
So to see these like two incredible actors having one of like the greatest scenes ever, like when they're sitting down in the parlor, It just blows my mind every time.I could just go on YouTube and find that clip and watch that over and over.
It's so fascinating.And then also then going on and being like, it's a franchise, which is weird.
Because Psycho 2, which maybe you guys will eventually talk about on the show, and definitely happy for that if you do, because it is way better than it has any right to be.
Absolutely.It is one of those rare legacy sequels that holds up.Like obviously it's not going to be as good as the original, but damn is it good.
It is, it's crazy how good that movie is.
And then it's also like, three is fine, and so is four to a point, I think four kind of picks up towards the end, but it's also tragic how during four, Anthony Perkins found out he had AIDS, and you know, that whole thing.
There's so much to the legacy of, you know, Anthony Perkins tied to this, so much to the legacy of Hitchcock,
The fact that this movie came out for like under a million dollars and made over like 50 times its budget, it's just something that doesn't happen that often.There's a reason this movie is constantly on top 100 films of all time lists.
And if it doesn't make those lists, it's always like an honorable mention.Even like Vera Miles is also just incredible in this.And she's also in another one of like the greatest movies of all time, The Searchers.
If people listening to this aren't familiar with Westerns that much, John Wayne plays the bad guy.So it's OK.Check it out.And then John Gavin the same year, I think, was Julius Caesar in Spartacus. Yeah, Kubrick film and all that.
It is top tier talent all across.This is a movie worth analyzing, you know, ad nauseum.This is a movie worth checking out.All those little scenes, all those little details, all those little acting deeds. Everyone is just absolutely on their A game.
It's so many of the shots are just haunting to this day, like the taxidermied, you know, birds in the parlor and how it's situated where in that scene, you know, I could just go back over and over and watch it where they film it.
So Aunty Perkins is like, looks like he's kind of towering over Janet Leigh.And then in her seat, she's always kind of
you know, crouch down a little bit and always looks like diminutive and it like keeps exacerbating as it goes and she gets kind of more like sunk in and more frightened.We're going to keep going.I'll stop there.But yes, it's very good.
I was going to say, it's an interesting thing to me because I feel like I watched Psycho for the first time when I was in high school and there was a drama class and there was a girl I liked in drama class who was also into cool movies so we ended up grabbing a lot of
Stuff that was maybe like, we didn't really know what we were getting into.
So, you know, I feel like psycho made less of an impact on me because we not knowing what we were getting into, we did back to back, uh, this and clockwork orange, uh, which clockwork orange. Oh my.
It's a high-impact movie, especially in which you don't know what you're getting into.You're a, you know, 15-year-old and you're just like, I just want to hang out with this girl and watch a cool movie.
Yeah, it's a weird one for that situation.But like going back and then watching Psycho, you know, I've seen it for class a few times and I've seen it casually.Uh, it's a very like, it's a very smart film.There's very little like wasted space in it.
You know, everything, everything that happens other than that cop really comes back.You think the cop is going to be a bigger thing and he's, he's not, but everything else is very like economically done here.You know, it's just sort of like.
done in a way that I think I would have loved to have seen this movie not knowing anything about it, not knowing about the shower scene or anything like that.
I can't imagine what that would be like, because I've talked to people who, you know, saw it when it was still earlier on and, you know,
you didn't know that like this this woman was about to be murdered as far as you know she's the psycho in this story you know going through all this stuff so i can't i can't imagine what that must have been like especially for you know as you learn more about the the actors and stuff in it you know that anthony perkins was basically you know he's a hunky leading man at this point he's not like a creepy character actor and like that would have just thrown people for a loop i feel like you wouldn't have known that was coming um and it's it's
I mean, he's incredible in it.You know, everybody is is good, but it is a movie that like you, that part could be played very big and he doesn't.He resists.
In a way that like watching it now, you're like, man, he's just like pulling back the whole time.
I feel like that's one of those things that Hitchcock was phenomenal at, was casting people against type in ways that really move the story and keep people guessing about what's going to happen.
I feel like the same thing is true for Vertigo, certainly, and definitely others. For sure.
It's incredibly brave, I think, for somebody like Anthony Perkins, who was a queer man sort of living in Hollywood, trying to keep working, to take parts that took him away from being a handsome lady man to being a creep that people might then start wondering about him.
It would be very easy for somebody like that to be like, God, no, I'll pass on that.But he really rises to it.
you know, their handling of some of the elements of mental health are not maybe the best, and there is a full-blown... There is a full-blown... Well, I mean, they are... I feel like for its time, it's kind of trying.
Like, you know, that 15-minute scene at the end where they are like,
going out of their way to explain to you that like yes he killed her but not him it's not his fault really it's this you know it's this damage that's been done to him by these you know things over time well they also make it a point at the end where when he's monologuing like it's as though as mother it's not as yeah yeah
You know, as as Norman and, you know, I'll try not to do this too often, but like Psycho 2 really goes into that and in a lot of depth, because that's really a story about society not allowing.
people back in after they have been sort of, you know, it's been decided that they are, you know, not mentally fit or this and that or that they just can't be trusted anymore.
So, like, it is a series that that comes back to that and, like, grapples with it.Like Vera Miles, like, as you know, Lila is like the like kind of a villain in
in Psycho 2 because she's like no you killed my sister like I'll never forgive you and like it does it in a way where it's like that's bad she is bad for being like that like so so it is a series that does like take that kind of stuff and and you know a couple of decades later like delves into it in an even like maybe like more progressive way than the initial film you know
Yeah, I mean, you think about films around the same time that have these villains that are, you know, disturbed and no one gives a shit when they die.Nobody gives a shit.
Like, you know, when they have the chance to, like, have a backstory or have a reason for them, like any sort of chance to be.
anything empathic with the audience, you know, it's usually incredibly dismissive already, you know, and, and the character is like, he is evil because he's fucked up.And in this case, it was not so much a judgment call.
It was just like, this guy has got these issues that we don't have a, I mean, at the time they didn't, I mean, it was still like multiple personality disorder or whatever.We still didn't have a, uh, like DID, dissociative identity disorder.
So, you know, I think for the time it certainly made an effort.
It's also think about where, uh, sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, I was also going to say, I think one of the things, too, is that it makes an effort to do, and again, doesn't do it as gracefully as it could, definitely doesn't use sensitive language on the topic, but also makes it clear that what Norman is doing is not the same as cross-dressing and that cross-dressers are not crazy, which I think is, you know, is definitely something that I appreciate about it.
Yeah, no one's using, I mean, they use that T term, transvestite, as a pejorative by the cops do, and that is definitely called out. By the, by the psychologist who, I mean, he is a very like horror movie psychologist.
Like he's, you know, he's a character.He's not a doctor in, in terms of like how he comports himself.Cause he has a routine.He's telling us about this character.
The real story is a psychologist.
I was going to say, we're not too far from audience perspective, just in the language of filmmaking, we're not too far from the Hays Code being in full force.
So the fact that this movie is coming out, when it did, presenting a somewhat sympathetic killer that gets a, for its time, psychological explanation
that leads you to some sympathy and he does not die at the end, he is arrested, that's got to be also pretty jarring for the audience.And I think that speaks to the legacy of that movie today.
That's part of why that movie had such an impact, is it was so different from what the audiences of that time would have been used to seeing, especially with the outcome.
especially with protagonist murdered halfway through, a protagonist who is not a protagonist in terms of what you would normally see in a movie.She's a film noir femme fatale kind of.
So it also, unfortunately, I think, created the trope of victims needing to deserve their deaths in slashers. She is a thief.
Morally, especially at the time, she's carrying on, although they're both single, so I don't know why they're having to sneak around as much as they are.
I think it's because Dude's divorce isn't final.
That does create the, on some level, in a conservative puritanical view, the victim has to deserve it, which unfortunately carries on through horror to this day.
But on top of that, though, what they do, I apologize.They make it a point that she was. just turning a new leaf.She's like, I'm going to go back.I'm going to return the money.I'm going to explain myself.Then she gets killed.
And they do the whole thing, like, because when she's in white in the beginning, then she puts on, you know, the black lingerie.
When she goes to steal the money, she takes off the black lingerie when she decides that she is going to do the right thing.So it makes it tragic because she is cut down after she makes the decision to return the money and suffer the consequences.
So like there's this like element to it.I'm not dismissing your point.I think there's a lot of people who would just take that and like run with it.And that's the takeaway.But like the movie and this is often the case, right?
Like the movie where it might originate something, people take a more simplified or two dimensional view of it and kind of run with it.
And part of that tragedy is that even the people going after her want to forgive her.Yeah.It's totally sad.If she gives the money back, all will be forgiven.It's going to be fine.
Yeah, we learn that there are zero consequences to her actions, basically, that she would have gone back and everything would have been okay if she'd just given the money back.
And so it makes it, you know, it makes it very ironic that she gets killed.
Yeah, it's definitely like a tragedy of errors for her and also for an audience who's expecting a resolution to this story because we're invested in the story. And I don't think she is necessarily played as a villain.She is played as misunderstood.
You know, she played is played as complex.She is definitely not the kind of slasher villain that smokes and swears.And, you know, like I'm thinking of the character, like some of the characters in Black Christmas.
who are, you know, even though a lot of those characters are a lot more sympathetic than other Final Girls and movies, you know, these characters are gritty.Where she is not gritty, she's just trying out something because she's desperate.
And she's also, we're seeing her deal with a lot of bullshit, you know?And so I think that she has the beginning scene where she's talking to her coworker and her coworker's like, oh, I'm taking tranquilizers because I'm unhappy.And she's, yeah.
And so like, I feel like there's a context there that is a lot more sympathetic than like, here's the loose woman who's like, you know, doing the crimes.So, you know, I think that,
wherever it has a place in like puppets in a slasher narrative, I think it's a lot more nuanced than those following films, you know what I mean?
One of the things that's really interesting to me, looking at this movie,
knowing what we know about Alfred Hitchcock now and how much of just sort of a son of a bitch he was to his actors, especially women, that this movie has sort of almost like a nuanced feminism to the beginning of it, that like this client that she's stealing the money from, if anybody was ever asking to have money stolen from him, it's this guy.
Like, cause he just like, he harasses her and she's trying to talk to her boss and he's like, sugar, you just go ahead and do whatever, you know, uh, you know, I'll tell your boss, you know, you can do this, that, and the other.
And, uh, she is just sort of like dealing with it, but this guy is being a total asshole.And the film is very much like, it doesn't say anything about it, but the way that he's presented is very like, Oh God, this fucking guy.
And, uh, you know, she's, she's sort of dealing with that.There's, there's some of that throughout.
And you would get a little bit of that from the, the car dealers and stuff like that too, that like, yeah, like she's, she's doing something wrong, but like these, these people are not projected as being, and you know, good people and all of the people who are.
doing, you know, who are being shitty to women in this movie either like are getting some sort of comeuppance or like the movie at least recognizes their shittiness.
Yeah, especially during the, uh, the, the Texans, uh, voiceover at one point where he, he was like, she was flirting with me.It's like, oh, this, this fucking guy, this fucking guy.
Yeah.I mean, like the fact of the matter is that he, he insists on them taking the cash.They basically beg him not to leave the cash there.And.
He's so insistent that he has to leave the cash with them, which is like, you know, he's really just, you know, I think like he's, you know, who does that, first of all, when I don't know how much $40,000 was worth. at the time.
It's an ungodly amount of money.Yeah.You know, it's you're you're talking about he's buying a house full price with cash.But it does like all of these encounters that we see Marion have, like she just keeps getting.
boxed in tighter and tighter and tighter.And you can see, like, that, you know, how much she's feeling trapped by the life she's in.
Yeah, which they name as a trap there in that brilliant scene with her and Norman.
Do we want to do a recap or are we just going to say, I mean, I think we should do a recap because frankly, like I found out when I watched this the other day that my husband had never seen it and didn't know, but it was like he knew, he knew about the shower scene, but he didn't know anything else.
So there are definitely people out there who aren't going to necessarily know the story.
Yeah, I wrote up a bit of a recap, so we'll try and sort of blaze through this a little bit.
It starts off with this sort of classic case of girl loves boy, but boy has an ex-wife and alimony and can't give her the life she wants, so isn't going to marry her.
So she feels sort of trapped in this, between this relationship and the fact that she has a, you know, a job that she. doesn't seem to care that much for, kind of wants to leave, but has to keep.
So she decides to embezzle money from this creepy client.This, this Texan guy we're talking about, he's trying to pay for a house in cash on a Friday and he's harassing her up and down the whole time.
She decides to take the money instead of going to the bank and go on the run with it.She is presumably going to go to her boyfriend.Her name, by the way, is Marion.He is Sam, Sam Loomis.
Anyway, Mary and Karine the same, lose names that will come up again at various points in horror.So only when she's running away, things get complicated.
She gets tired and has to sleep in her car and then has a creepy encounter with a police officer who starts following her.
And she's, I mean, she is acting incredibly suspicious and then decides to go trade in the car she's driving and buy a new one using cash to supplement the difference between the two. being incredibly obvious about her criminality.
She then drives on in this car, runs into a terrible storm, and has to pull over because she is lost.She's off the highway now at this point, and she goes to this cozy little motel that is out of the way because it's where the highway used to go.
The highway doesn't go this way anymore.It goes over there now. This is called the Bates Hotel.She is the only one there.She's told there are 12 rooms, 12 vacancies.
She has the nerve to be kind of polite and eat a sandwich from the innkeeper slash son of the hotel owner, Norman Bates.
So Norman's mom decides to make a beeline down from the house behind the inn and stab her right in the shower, right in the shower several times. Poor Norman discovers that Marion is dead in the shower and has to dump her in the car in the swamp.
He's very good at this, despite his obvious worry at this point.
He feels guilty.It's very subtle.
Obviously he's sad about it, but you know.So we pick up with Marion's sister, Lila is trying to track her down and is going to visit Sam, but she has been tailed by a PI named Arbogast who is
Chugging it down to try and see which of them knew what about Marius's appearance.Neither of them claimed to know anything other than, you know, what everybody else knows.She left.
She was seen by her employer on the street at one point shortly thereafter.And after claiming to go home, cause she was not feeling well.
Um, Real quick.Arba, who, I want to know more about Arbogast cause he sounds like a wizard.Like, I don't know whose name. Anymore gets named like Arbogast.Like, I don't know where that name comes from.
Well, his first name is Milton, so I assume he's just like, you have a cool last name and you just go with it.
Yeah.Well, if my name was Milton, I'd probably go for my last name, especially if it's like Arbogast.Anyway.
Yeah, so Arbogast, not getting anything from either of them, decides to sort of track through where Merion would have driven, stops by a bunch of hotels, gets nothing, and eventually ends up at this little hotel on the side of the road called the Bates Motel.
He could have been in and out of there and never been any of the wiser, except for Norman is very bad at lying. It was very bad several times at lying.
They did fumble the bag so bad.Well, he fumbled the persuasion check.
Yeah, he fails so many persuasion checks just back to back.Yeah.And Argus wants to talk to his mom, who he knows met Marion at some point, because he says that, you know, Marion fooled him, but didn't fool his mom.And so what kind of girl she was?
And he's like, oh, you can't meet my mom.She's sick.She's old.Go away.Fuck off.And so he decides Arbogast decides he's going to go update Lila and Sam.And then you had a pay phone tells them basically, well, there's some weird going on here.
I'm going to go back and see what's going on.Decides to break and enter into the base's home and sneaks up to go see the mother.Well, Norman, well, he thinks Norman is otherwise occupied, but the moms.
Malcom is charging out of a side room, stabs him right in the stairs, and he goes backwards down the stairs, and then she jumps on him and stabs him several more times.
Just like an invalid mother would do.
Very spry for an old woman who just sits in a rocking chair most of the days, just storing up that energy.
Yeah, it's like, you know, he's lying or something.
We haven't seen him do that yet. Lying?Yeah, I know.It comes out of nowhere.
It's like he's making something up.
So he's certainly lying about that better than he's lying about everything else.Yeah.
Well, I mean, seemingly he's not completely aware that he's lying about some of these things.
Yeah, he's lying.He just doesn't know what's actually happening.
That's a very that's a very good point, because he's actually inaccurate.Yeah.He might just be really confused because he's like, I did see.Did I see what happened?Who did what?You know.
So much of what's happening here is Marion is not a thief.She's just someone who's stolen and Norman's not a killer.He's someone who's killed, which is why they're both very uncomfortable with what they're doing.
And they do have a really good juxtaposition with each other, you know, through the movie, because like Marion gives up because in part, she's like, this is not who I am.
Like, I put on these clothes because I was going to try being someone I'm not, and it's not working.And I think the movie, like, handles that really well.
Ironically, Norman is the one who sort of convinces her that she should go back and, you know, give the money back and try and sort things out.Even though it's not entirely, like, he doesn't know that she has the money.
In fact, like, the money goes into the, everybody's sure that Norman has stolen the money. But the money goes into the trunk with Mary and without him even knowing, and then that goes into the swamp.
Speaking of which, Arbogast now goes into the swamp along with his vehicle, very deep swamp.
I had trouble swallowing the first car, which I think is probably because of all the other enormous 50s cars that are in there.
It's a very good Hitchcock-y bit where that first, that first card doesn't quite go down and then it's like, Oh no.Oh wait.Okay.It's fine.Sam goes to the hotel and can't find Loomis and nobody's answering.
So he decides he's gonna, he and the sister are going to go talk to the sheriff.This is where we, we get to meet the sheriff who is, he's wonderful.
Sheriff Al Chambers, John McIntyre, who just basically, he could have said the word hooey every other word and it would have sounded like Would have sounded about the same.
He makes this whole, he makes the plot of the movie sound like it's ridiculous.And by the end of this conversation, you're like, maybe that's not what happened.I don't know.
So he, among other things, they find out that, uh, Norman's mom is dead and has been for five years.And if, you know, Norman's mom is dead, who is that sitting up there in the rocking chair and in the attic?
So they decide they're going to go figure this out themselves.And Sam- Can I interrupt real quick?
Yeah, sure. I think it's important to say that Norman's mother being dead was the only murder-suicide that the county had ever seen.
Norman's mother had gotten involved with a man and one of them, I think she purportedly killed him and then killed herself.
That was that was the story that the sheriff was telling.We're told this story three times.Right.
It's different every time, because when we first when Norman tells it at the beginning, he says that his his dad ran out on his mom.And then this other guy convinced her to build this hotel out here and what turned out to be a bad location.
And then he ran off. And then she's just so torn up over this, that that's why she's, you know, invalid.She doesn't go anywhere.You know, she's just, that's why he has to stay here with her.Cause she's just been through so much.
And then the sheriff's wife says, Oh no, you know, we find out that this is the only murder suicide that's ever happened here.That the mom was so, the mom caught this guy cheating.And then.
poisoned him and poisoned herself and left poor Norman all alone.They had to help Norman with the funeral and all this stuff.And later on, we'll get a slightly different version of this because they go back and decide to sneak around the hotel.
They rent a room as a married couple.Sam decides to keep Norman busy.
Presumably he's I always assume with this scene that like he's every time I see it I'm like he's just gonna go in there and chit-chat with him about the weather and he's like weird How you murdered this girl, huh?Norman?What's going on with that?
Did you steal a lot of money Norman?Did you need $40,000 for a new hotel Norman?
He's so bad at it.One other thing I want to interject is that before this we see Norman carry his mother with much protestation on his mother's part down to the root cellar to hide her.
Yes.So we do see a mother.
The other thing that I think is important here to mention in the recap is that we have a lot of these overdubs of things going on with other characters, and it's unclear whether those things are imagined or actually happening.
So Marion, as she's running away, she hears all of these things happen. that are, uh, regarding her escape, essentially her, her, uh, her theft and everything, and the people trying to figure out where she is.
We're not sure if that's her imagining that and how that would go down, especially regarding Texas Pete or whatever his name is, who's throwing money everywhere, you know?Yes, Jeremy did a little Yosemite Sam dance, you know?
But yeah, so then like the, the fact that,
the voice of the mother is not all, like, we don't know, we have a weird context where we, you know, we assume that we have no other reason other than the fact that Marion has been hearing, quote unquote, hearing what's been happening in elsewhere in the film.
So we already have like a hint that there's some sort of breakdown of the realism.
Yeah, I would say that's an excellent point is we do get the establishment of voiceovers existing in the larger context of the movie, not just in terms of Norman and with Marian.I always took it as her imagining conversations.
And I would say this would be my one critique of the movie, would be that Marian hears Mother's voice.
and I think that is actually a misstep that it should just be Marian hears shouting coming from the house but it's presented as she hears a two-way conversation that's very discernible and she knows like when Norman comes down she's like oh I'm sorry I got you in trouble I feel like it would be stronger if it was just
vague yelling noises where it could be assumed at that point that their mother is yelling at Norman because the reveal is that it's just Norman yelling at himself in two different voices.
Well, she probably heard Norman's voice.You know, we don't know if she heard the mom's side.
I would say it's implied that we do because we can hear the mom's voice clear and Marion is reacting.
But that wouldn't work in this movie.At the time, the audience, you have to have the twist at the end.If you didn't do that, it makes it too easy to start guessing.
Why would you guess that that is even a twist at the end if you hear the two different voices?I think that was more of a practical sort of decision.
Yeah, I think it was definitely a deliberate decision that I think, you know, I see that logic.I mean, but I can see how it can be misleading as well.
I mean, I think that the intent was that, but you know, in terms of misleading within the intent of the film.So yeah, so we do hear and see, question mark, the mom, but I mean, and at the time there's no precedent for this, you know?
People are already confused at this point.
Yeah.So at this point, Sam is doing a very bad job of distracting Norman.And meanwhile, we have going to the mansion or the house, I guess it's not a mansion, a house to try and track down the mom.
She goes upstairs and there's no sign of her anywhere.Just a lot of Normans.I guess it's important to mention that Norman's into taxidermy at this point.He is a lot of stuffed animals, mostly like stuffing birds.He's not a big fan of. Beef.
We're not talking about plushies.
Yeah.So she is about to leave when Norman figures out that he's being distracted because Sam is very bad at it.And so he runs upstairs thinking he's going to catch Lila there.And Lila sort of dodges into the lower stairwell towards the basement and
In doing so sees, you know, what looks like there's, there's somebody down there.So she goes down to the basement and finds Norman's mother rocking in the chair turned away from her.
And she goes to try to question her about what has happened to her sister and turns her around and mother dearest is very dead.She is somewhat preserved, but not terribly well.I guess he was still learning at that point.
Well, he said he's not very good at animals with skin and fur.Like, he's very clear about the fact that that's not his skill set.
Yeah.Which is great, I guess, of foreshadowing in that case, you know, because, like, I didn't even think of that. When I saw the model, I remember that he was a taxidermy guy, and then they mentioned that he was taking care of as well as possible.
But at that point, you have no reason to even track that comment.
And so Lila screams, Norman runs in to stab her.But Sam is finally also here after getting hit in the head by Norman.He grabs Norman dressed as the mother.His wig falls off and his dress falls off.
And it's just Norman and his normal clothes underneath.And he collapses and passes out.And we move, we jump forward to a point where some amount of time later, Norman has been detained and interviewed a long time by a psychologist.
They know now that Marion is dead and that Norman, in fact, killed multiple other people.There's at least two other women that have gone missing in the area that they think
He is also killed, but the important distinction is that it isn't Norman that has done it, but Norman has developed this multiple personality where it is him and his mother, both.He is both people because Norman, his mom didn't commit suicide.
He murdered her because she, the two of them had been together alone for quite a while after his dad had left.And then when this new guy came to town, Norman decided he did not like that.And, uh, killed both of them.
And as a they go into a lot of detail, but to some amount, because he is so torn up over what he's done to his mother, he continues to have her live on as a personality within his own hand.
But also he imagines that his mother is as jealous of people that he likes as he was of her beau.So the mom has been killing anybody that Norman is at all interested in, including Marion. Now, the mother's personality is completely won over.
Norman is no longer in there.And we get a sort of long monologue from the mother personality as we watch Norman thinking these things.And then Norman gives a frankly chilling smile at the end of this as the mother
sort of lays out exactly how much she's really a murderer.Yeah.It's not almost none of this is actually Norman.It's all the mother.
And he has the stare.Yeah.
That's the genre defining stare that we have now.I just turned for it.And I can't remember even though I do horror podcasts.But yeah, that house, though, I mean, I can see why you would call it a mansion, because it is incredibly elaborate.
You know, Victorian kind of thing.
Yeah.But lots of carpet.Classic Victorian.Yeah.Yeah.So cool in the middle of nowhere.It looks like it was once very elegant.Yeah.I don't know if any of you have read it, but if you've read We've Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.No.
So the narrating character in that is a young girl named Maricat.And Norman has the whole situation with living alone in this house with his mother has very Maricat vibes.That's cool.I had not clocked that story.
Oh, it's wonderful.It is creepy and wonderful.That's awesome.I mean, considering the comparison.Put a pin in that for the recommendations.For sure.
You know, also, I think we have to talk at least touch on how iconic the score is.How?
Yeah.When you hear the the intro, when you hear the strings in the scene in the shower, like people have used that so many times and whenever it shows up, everyone knows exactly where it's from.And it's very hard to do.
And everyone knows exactly what it's like, why it's being used.Like it's always being used, you know, at that very quickly repeating sting is being used to like, there's a violence going on here.
But the whole, you know, the entire theme, you know, when you hear the full theme is absolutely gorgeous piece of music that the rest of it doesn't get played enough.
And I mean, the score is what defines this movie from being a, you know, a noir movie to or like a drama, you know, in terms of the beginning and how it's set up.Like you're always aware that something upsetting is going on, right?
Especially with how nuanced the acting is and the, these, uh, interactions with these characters.Yeah.
It's, it's a very different, like, I know I'm not talking about the, the re re re, you know, cause I don't know where that comes, like why it's been decided that that is the sound that happens in life when someone's being stabbed.
But, you know, I think this is this, it's this movie and you know, Like, I mean, it's a fantastic choice.
Uh, I love like the, you know, you can't deny the, the stabbing sound, the stabbing strings, but like the full theme is like the strings in this, like when it plays over the opening is so.
dramatic they're so Hitchcock in this way that like Hitchcock puts things in the background he loves to put like sounds that really like make you uncomfortable and this this music is so fast and so like it feels scary
And to the point that, like, it's so good that Buster sampled that for Give Me Some More, which is a weird thing to throw in there.But, like, you don't see many, like, classic film soundtracks get sampled for, you know, hip hop tracks and stuff.
It's really incredible.And it's crazy, too, because when you look at, I mean, Hitchcock's filmography, what was it, the movie he did like the year before this was North by Northwest, which is like a big, like, you know, country hopping.
kind of movie that's like big action set pieces.And then you get this like little, like very small story.
But I think it's important to mention that Bernard Herrmann did the scores for both of those movies and also did the score for Vertigo.You know, I think like some of the music that we associate with Hitchcock that is the most iconic is all Herrmann.
And, you know, definitely, definitely requires a shout out.
Yeah.It's interesting to think about how close in time this is to North by Northwest because I North by Northwest, not to be a hater, but North by Northwest is like one of the original like popcorn movies.It is. There is very little to it.
It's just fun.Like if you think too hard about it, it gets worse rather than better because it's like, it's like, it's just an action movie and it's like, it would be over in a minute if, if Cary Grant just changed his clothes at some point.
But like, he doesn't, there's several scenes of this where you're just like, what is happening here when you started thinking about it?But the, the point of it is, is not to think about it.It's just to go with it.
Well, I think this really cements that, um, you know, there are people out there, you know, like you, and then there's people out there like, like me who could literally just spend days watching Cary Grant drink and talk to people.
Like, it doesn't even really have to be a movie.It's just, it's a wonderful time.
Yeah.I mean, I'm not to hate.I mean, I could watch Cary Grant, but there's, uh, there's very little to North by Northwest.
Yeah, it's not as intimate as this film, but I mean, I think that, again, like the soundtrack is really important. character of the movie, which changes everything, um, and gives us that sense of urgency.
And from the get-go with this movie called Psycho, you know, you're like, that at least, as you're watching this, this film, that at least you can pick up on, like, there's something going on.This is going to go places, you know?
And again, that's, it's defined reality as we know it.The sound of knife is that. Even Brandi Shay and I, I mean, other than Shay, you get the strings.
It really helped define a subgenre of horror.You know, I know I mentioned, you know, Peeping Tom, but that wasn't a gigantic blockbuster success that was Psycho just a few months later.And it still took
almost two decades before Slasher was like a really ingrained sub-genre within horror, right?Yeah.You know, you had Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you know, Black Christmas, like some other stuff, but like, it took a while.Yeah.
And then blew up, and it blew up so big, it got the studios to go, we gotta bring Psycho back.
Yeah, yeah.So did anyone catch Alfred Hitchcock in the beginning, this cameo?
Yeah, with his, uh, with old cowboy hat.
Yeah.At first I thought it was Texas Pete.What is the name of that character?Please remind me guys.Cause I, all I remember is like, I just call him, I'm just calling him Texas Pete.
He doesn't need to be anything other than Texas Pete for our purposes.
Cool.Cool.Yeah.First I was confused.It's Texas Pete and Alfred Hitchcock is not Texas Pete.He's Alfred Hitchcock.He's like, hold on.The joke's coming.He's like point raised Petrocoff or some shit.Like this isn't anything.It wasn't.It really wasn't.
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I will say there's plenty to dislike about Alfred Hitchcock as a person.There are lots of people who have had stories over the years and a lot of that is very well backed up by other people.
It is hard to deny the frequency with which he was making movies that redefined film.
I mean, we're talking about between 51 and 60, like we have Strangers on a Train, I Confess, Stylin' for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Wrong Man, Suspicion, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and then Psycho.
Like, just in 10 years, he put out all those movies.And it's just like, yeah,
And he put out a bunch of silent movies.I mean, he he was able to jump from the silent era into, you know, the talkie era and and really blow up and make a big name for himself, you know, after the fact, which was kind of rare.
I mean, he had Fritz Lang did it.A few other people did it to some great success, but. not that many people at all.I guess Todd Browning, like to to some extent.
But I think people still look at his silent films a bit more and like Dracula and a couple of other things.
But it's sort of wild in Hitchcock's case that he remade some of his movies, like movies that were smaller and made in Britain, like The Man Who Knew Too Much.There's you know, there's two versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much.I think there's
And they're wildly different.It's crazy, man.It's a very rare thing, I think, to have somebody remaking their own movies from the other side of the ocean.
Yeah.So is this movie feminist?I'm going to say for the time it kind of is.
For one, it is just because we have like a complex female protagonist who we sympathize with, who is I mean, yeah, she is motivated by a man, but she is making her own decisions about that.
Oh, yeah. I can't believe two female protagonists.
Yeah, that's true.That's true.Her sister survives, and her sister's also a very important driving force of the plot.She is not just coming along.She and Sam work together, but she is the one doing the investigating while Sam is doing the distracting.
The bad distracting.He's terrible at it.
Fascinating to me that every time a protagonist dies in this movie, we get a worse protagonist.
Well, Lila's cool.We like Lila.
Lila's the only one who's competent at anything.
Well, Marion was competent, but she was just caught
Marian was absolutely not competent when she gets stopped by that cop.She is 100% not competent.It's actually one of the things my husband said when we were watching this, because again, it was his first time seeing it.
He was just like, everyone in this is so bad at what they're doing.
It's a lot like life, really.Yeah.
Zero experts in this.She's also lying and stealing.I feel like her incompetence is forgivable because her incompetence is that it being objectionable.She's just not very good at being a bad person.
She's not a thief.She's not like, this is her first time, as far as we know, as the audience ever doing anything remotely like this.And Sam is also completely out of his element.He's like, ah, hey, look, I was dating your sister.I don't know.
I'll try to distract. This guy, I guess that's what you do.How do you distract a person?Like, I mean, I'm not an expert at it.I don't know how well I would do in a high-stakes distraction situation.
I mean, I don't think you go into their office and repeatedly accuse them of stealing $40,000.Like, I don't think that's the way you go.
Yeah, you want to really just, like, engage them in something that they really can't.
Talk about the weather, ask them some questions about my first read.
Tell me about these creepy birds.Tell me about your hobbies.Like tell me about... It is an approach.
It is an approach though.There are those people who think like, all right, I'm just going to cut right to it.I'm going to get him to confess.I'm going to like, I'm sizing this guy out.
I'm a, Sam comes off in this movie as like a macho kind of guy being like, oh, this Norman guy.I bet if I, I bet I can like nail him and get him to just kind of like, you know, crack.
Like he's clearly like thinking he's gonna get Norman to crack and it doesn't work out.And then he's like, he's in too deep already with that sort of strategy.
And it's like, ooh, but, but yeah, I mean, it's also, there is easily another version of this script where they're like, Well, Lila would never go with Sam.
Like she would be sitting at the phone being like, Sam, let me, let me know when you find my sister.And she's got a box of tissues.That's not this movie.And like, it easily could have been this movie in other people's hands.
Lila tries to go with him the first time and he's like, ah, nah, you stay here.So somebody has got to be here in case Arbogast, you know, comes back.I do want to say Arbogast is the only one in here is a professional at anything they're doing.
and he just has the unfortunate case of not being afraid of old women but also just like he's pretty sure that like they've stolen the money or that they've somehow know about the money.He is not looking for a murderer.
She goes up there.He goes up there with, uh, Norma is being so fucking sus and he's like, Oh, I got this in the bag.Like if you go in there and you're like, Hey, are you lying?And basically Norma's like, yep.
And then, so he doesn't even think that he's dealing with that shit, you know, and he sees Norman abrogast is like looking at Norman thinking like this guy's weighs like 90 pounds.What?Like I can just, you know, I don't have any issue.
It's him and an old lady, whatever, you know, but you know, like everyone else, he is, uh, he's psyched.That's the verb now.Well, I'm glad we're all going with it.
Yeah, there's not too much, I guess, to say about race and social justice in this movie.Not a lot of people who aren't white in this film.
No, I mean, you really don't get that to like the fourth movie, I think, is when you could even start discussing race, maybe.But yeah, the other one, yeah, it really doesn't come up in the movie.
A lot of pallid dudes with dark hair and pallid women with light hair.You know, I mean, this is.
Yeah.But like in this instance, it also plays into into some of the themes of this idea of like, you know, you would typically like, you know, I'm trying to word this carefully, but the idea of it being like.
Oh, well, we think we're this, you know, quiet town with, you know, nice, wholesome white people and nothing bad happens here.And that's kind of why you can get like some of these people being like, oh, well, you know what?
She didn't mean to steal the money or like we can talk to her.We could just get them.We're a wholesome, you know.
We're just like everyone knows everyone in this family, in this town.It's basically family.
You know, there's this like, you know, that you can kind of read into it a little bit and kind of take some of this away of like it kind of like, you know, I'm not saying the movie is better for that.
I'm just saying like there is something you can kind of squint and get from that.
I mean, there's a couple of things.The fact that this is a very, very intimate story.Yeah.
You know, I mean, you could definitely play it however now and, you know, you could have played it however then, you know, if it weren't for the, you know, the racism of the. Everyone.
I mean, all of the like, you know, production and Hollywood and everything.
But I mean, this is this is set in largely in Phoenix, Arizona, a place definitely not noted for any sort of racism.
So, yeah, not my Phoenix.
Well. There are many phoenixes in all of our hearts, you know, so we cannot deny the phoenix.
It's weird to think, and then some of this feels so remote, but it is set between Phoenix, Arizona and Fairvale, California.So like, I don't know, I guess this chunk of this is taking in place and like the grapevine and stuff.I don't know.
So that's where she's pulled over.She's pulled over sleeping in the grapevine, I think.
She is pulled over sleeping in the grapevine.There was a sign she did go towards Bakersfield, which is a red flag number one in terms of like just your fate and safety.
I mean, I don't think she knew that, you know, she's like, oh, yeah, like we didn't have we corn didn't exist.Candy corn existed.Corn didn't exist.So we didn't know how terrible Bakersfield was. But I'm talking about the bands.Yeah.
The corn on his candy corn.I like Bakersfield.I'm sorry.I don't I don't actually I haven't actually been to Bakersfield.I've been near.
Bakersfield can be sketchy as fuck, but there are some amazing, amazing, fun places in Bakersfield.It is well worth a weekend trip.
Though what I know about Bakersfield is that Korn is from there, and Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was filmed there in order to evoke a sort of dystopian city in Iran.So, but also, the fucking audience is from there.
Yeah, by the Iranian director who, you know, who grew up in Iran and was like, this is the closest thing I can find.
But no, like what I'm trying to say with this is that there's a lot of places that are that size still on the grapevine that are fucking terrifying and that are, you know, someone's old farmhouse and a motel made out of sticks.
And, uh, you know, I've been to a couple of them, so, you know, but I'm, I survived as far as I know.
Or as we can tell. Yeah, so what do we feel like this movie has to say about class?I mean, it ties into sort of what we're talking about there to some extent.
Yeah, I mean, class, it ties it into class a little bit with like white privilege, things like that.Like there's there's a reason someone like Marion is being given the
the treatment of like, oh, well, we'll hire a private investigator and we'll, we'll square this whole thing up.We don't need to get the police involved.
And like, so you, you do have like those sort of elements and, and how she's kind of treated, how she's able to, you know, like how they treat the guy for giving them cash and, and, and kind of go like, well, we'll hold on to it.
He'll write us a check.We'll, we'll figure it out.Like there, there, there are definitely these elements of class sort of throughout.And I wouldn't say it's like, you know, negative, like, you know, it is putting a lens on it.
It's maybe making you think critically about some of it.It's not necessarily saying a lot in a very like straightforward
Like you as the audience member, this is very surface level, this is what you need to take from it sort of way, but the elements are there for sure.
I feel like it's a little bit more straightforward because of how Texas Pete is flapping his money around.Like, you know, this dude is, they're treating this guy like he's crazy.Yeah.You know, they're treating him like this guy.
They're treating him like he's eccentric, not crazy.
Okay, yeah.They're treating him like they need to use baby gloves on him. in a particular way, right?Like you have to call him, you have to, you have to like go drinking with him.
Like the boss is definitely not a guy that's like, let's go drinking or whatever and screw around.But he is definitely wants to stay on the good side of this guy.So he's like, all right, I'll go drinking.
You know, like, please stop flirting with my secretary.
And also like the whole reason that we're in this situation in the first place is that Marion can't marry Sam because he can't provide her the life that he feels like she needs because of his class situation.
So, you know, it is implied that she, I mean, the fact that she steals the money no matter what, you know, I think that there's some, some sexism there as well, and being a woman trying to like move forward.
But I definitely think that clash is a big part of it, you know, may not seem as, as different, but especially with Texas Pete, the canon Robert Hitchcock character, Texas Pete.
you know, throwing $40,000, which is like Dr. Evil being like $1 million, you know, at the time.Anyway, but yeah, I think, I think that the class is definitely suggested.
And also like the, the, the, and I should say more than suggested, it's definitely discussed.And the, the fact that Norman Bates is sort of in this situation because the highway is elsewhere, you know.
You go ahead.And the assumption by a lot of the characters that this is about money is a big factor of it, which, no, Norman's just a killer.He doesn't even know about the money.
But the fact that that is the, that's the going concern for Sam, that's the going concern of, you know, Texas Pete, is the focus around money when that really is not the motivation for the martyrs.
Yeah, but there is, I think there's also a degree to which, like, because, you know, because Norman is basically stuck where he is because of money issues, you know, and the fact that from what we know,
for his, his, his mother's boyfriend at the time was the one who convinced them to buy this place.They sunk all of their money into it.And then the highway moved.You got a very, you know, very small town America sort of situation going on on there.
And, you know, like Norman even talks about the fact that taxidermy doesn't cost him any money and it's a very cheap happy.
And I think that some of the characters who are coming from the cities on either side of him underestimate him because they think of him as sort of a yokel.
Yeah.Yeah.Because why else would he be there, you know?And I mean, if he had the ability to leave, he probably would be not be the same.At least he would definitely not be the same kind of dangerous.
But I mean, he he may not have been dangerous because he wouldn't be stealing in this situation.
Well, and I think there is.Yeah.Go ahead.Sorry.
Oh, I was just going to say, at least that's what the narrative would have us believe.
You know, in the context.
Yeah, I was, I was just going to say, you know, there's also sort of this assumption on the part of the other characters that for him to have bought this property in this place, he may not be as smart as they are and as savvy at investing their money as they are, you know, so, so he's, he's basically stuck in this place.
And money and property seems to be a big theme here.
Yes. Because he also, when Avergast shows up, he says that he's been to a bunch of hotels.So immediately Norman's like, oh, do you want to buy this one?Because he thinks that he's, he's getting property.And you know, Texas Pete is his property thing.
You know, there's no place that they, that Marion and Sam can go that is private other than a, what he calls a cheap hotel, which, you know, it doesn't look like a cheap hotel, but you know, that's, that's what they.
frame it as, I mean, I hope it's air conditions.It's in Phoenix.So no wonder she's walking around.It's just not, the underwear thing is not to titillate the audience.It's because it's the only way that someone can exist in Arizona.
That's actually, I mean, I know it's not the case.Yeah.So yeah, I don't think it, the class thing doesn't seem like, I agree that it doesn't like show up. It's not like an outspoken message, but everything in the plot resolves around class.
Absolutely.Yeah.I think you nailed a lot of that.
Well, here's the here's a question for you.How do we feel like this movie or does this movie deal with anything in the way of LGBTQ plus themes?
I feel like Norman is an extremely queer-coded character, even if he is depicted as being attracted to women.And that had nothing to do with him dressing up as his mother.
The character comes across as a queer-coded character from the minute you meet him. He just comes across as being, compared to the other men in this film, the other men are all very macho and he's not.
And there's a really distinct difference between him and the other men that we see.
Absolutely.I was going to say when we were talking about Sam's interrogation technique, at the start of their scene when he goes to find Norman in the office, that scene reads as a cruising scene.Like the sort of casual nature of Sam going in there.
I think he's even like lighting a cigarette.It's all very like If you know, you know.Yeah.
And then so it's very jarring the next time we cut back to them and it's Sam like fumbling, trying to like kind of roughly question when the opening of that scene is them sort of like standing very casually in the doorway.
It reads as a cruising scene.And then it's an abrupt change when like Sam is like, tell me, tell me about those murders.
Yeah. Yeah, even how Marion reacts to to Norman and their scenes together, she it doesn't feel like, you know, she's reacting to a very straight male kind of character.
You know, she seems a bit more that, you know, she just her demeanor, how she responds to everything.
Yeah.The way she interacts with them kind of goes in between of like, an adult interacting with a child, or a woman acting with a man who she does not view as a threat.Someone that, this is not someone who's going to threaten me.
And that was one of the things that really struck me, having watched this many times when I was much younger and watching it now, is how young Norman seems.
He is a very young character and it changes sort of the way that I perceived his relationship with his mother.
Like this isn't like a guy who, you know, who, who is like aging and never had a chance, you know, and never, never found love or something.This is somebody who is still, you know, of an age where he might be looking for some kind of romance.
But I also think like when.
he is like when he's spying on Marion in the room like there never feels like there's any sexual chemistry between them at all and there doesn't feel like like he's watching her but it doesn't feel sexual on his side even though we get the sense that he's attracted to her.
It feels more like a camera gaze than his gaze, honestly.And when you say that he's clear-coated, I feel like it's more that the fact that he is othered in this case.Like he is different in a very significant way.What that difference is.
you know, is not really defined in the movie.In other movies, it may be very much like a clear dog whistle.In this case, it's just, he's an unusual guy.
But in that way, it's definitely that kind of horror movie queer coding, which is crowbar separation from the cross-dressing.
And, you know, I think another movie, you know, the fact that this movie made a distinction between sexualized cross-dressing, transgender presentation, and what he was doing for like a movie from 1960 was, I mean, I didn't even remember that, but like, it's so, it's very significant.
Because, you know, a lot of other movies, again, like The Cops in that movie, were using it as, essentially using it as a slur.Because like, oh, he's one of those weirdo, you know, it's like the Eddie Izzard.Yeah.
The Eddie Izzard was like, oh, no, no, no, it was an executive.Oh, he was not an executive.That's the problem.
But I don't think that this character was supposed to be, despite being reportedly inspired by Ed Gein, I don't think this character was supposed to be,
doing anything sexual or, you know, like overtly, yeah, like weird pervert sex fantasy kind of stuff.Other movies have established language for that and this is not at all in this movie.
No, with anything he comes across as kind of ace.
Like he's watching her, not because he's interested in seeing her underwear, but more like he's just curious about what she's doing, you know, or that he feels like this is something he should be doing because he's a dude and, you know, and he's like, maybe am I, am I attracted to this person?
But it feels like he, like he's spying on her, but it feels weirdly not for you when he's doing it.
Yeah.Yeah.He doesn't look like he's upset or obsessing or fetishizing.He's just like, okay, I guess I'll put that picture back.And it's unreadable, which I think is part of why his performance is so incredible.
I think throughout Norman, there's a lot of moments when he's really hard to read in a way that is really incredible.Like I said earlier, he could have played this very differently.It could have been a lot of yelling and screaming.It's not.
In the rare cases that he does get visibly upset, it's like, oh no, we've hit a mark here because he was fine up to this point.So I don't know.It's very interesting to me that it could have been very different.
Well, even in the beginning when, I mean, I've seen, I know the movie, it was, again, it was hard for me to divorce myself from the spoiler, you know, from the twist that I know so intimately.
When he first showed up, I was trying really hard to be objective and it still was like, yeah, like you couldn't get a read off of this guy because he seems outwardly friendly.
Like other movies would be a lot more overstated about like, this guy's weird. But he is, he is not too friendly.He is not too weird.He is just like, he seems so just like, he seems fine.You know?He's very unassuming.Yeah.
He's a little awkward, but yeah. A little awkward, but it comes off in like a sheltered kind of way.Like he's a homeschool kid.
I was going to say, he feels like a 12-year-old who knows that like when you see a pretty girl, you're supposed to tell her she looks nice.And that's about as far as he's gotten.
Usually our last question here is, how do we feel like this movie dealt with mental illness and mental health?And then considering the movie and the title of the movie, it's maybe a bit on the nose, this question. Yeah, four stars, no notes.
Well, I mean, I do think again, like we alluded to earlier, like, you know, you're kind of grading on a curve or a movie that came out 64 years ago at a time where a lot of like a lot of the language we use and even like just diagnoses and things.
Yeah.And what what is a diagnosis and what is actually not diagnosable.I mean, you know, all these sort of things.
So I think, you know, again, it's like I kind of it's almost like a wash because the the the positives kind of like it's not that they negate the negatives, but it's kind of like, well, I mean, also keeping things in mind, like they don't kill them.
They actually are trying to rehabilitate them.They're not like and that there is like some effort at that, but yeah, I mean.
Yeah, I think that for the time, we always say for the time, and I'm not like it's an excuse, but I think in terms of, for the time it was progressive, now I feel like it does deserve a gold star.
Maybe at this point, a gold star you tried, but not so much a sarcastic one, but they were doing something to make a definition. rather than just completely dismissing this character as a monster, right?I mean, go ahead.
It gets, it like gets an asterisk.
That's a better way to put it.
But yeah, I think like, I think that when you look at Norman as a character, you're talking about the, you know, that they, they spend a very long time on that last scene.They spend a very long time
making sure that you understand this is something that happened to Norman, and it's not necessarily his fault, and that he doesn't know, like, that the Norman part of him isn't killing people.
That this is this other, this other personality that has developed that he has no control over.You know, and so, like,
It gets close to being like, this is a sickness and it's not, you know, it's not like, you know, it's not, he's not crazy, but like, he's sick.But they didn't really get there.You know, they're still on he's crazy.But it gets real close.
I think it's tough because it's,
It's tough to separate this movie from sort of the legacy of this movie in a lot of ways in that, you know, some of them positive when it comes to filmmaking and things like that, but also this movie sort of establishes that people with multiple personalities are dangerous and to be feared.
Yeah. And that is not a, I mean, something that this movie is trying to, if this had been, you know, I don't know, it's tough to say, because like movies inspired by this movie are handling it worse in the 1980s than the 1990s.Yes.
That's true.But it's the John Cusack movie Identity where like there's a whole murder party going on inside of his head between the personalities.It's just like
Or even like Fight Club, you know, like what Fight Club discusses, like how Fight Club treats it.You know, Fight Club is a little, is maybe a few steps ahead, but still, you know.
I would not, I would say Fight Club compared to Psycho is regressive.It's definitely not handling that well. Yeah.
I am so happy.It has been so long since I've had a straight guy explain Fight Club to me. And like, it's been a while, but like the early 2000s, it was hard to like meet a straight guy who wasn't like, look at that, hold on, I'm gonna pause it.
See Brad Pitt's face flash, look right there.That's like.
Oh my God, yeah.Well, I think Fight Club is another example.It's funny because Fight Club is an example of how a movie can try to make a statement and the entire wrong thing is, you know, it just. slips up so bad.
And I don't think that psycho necessarily does that.And I think with the name psycho, what the movie was trying to do was to suggest that because the psycho was the only word that we had technically.
I mean, in terms of like the modern discussion of and like, I mean, modern, like as in the 60s discussion of of mental health and mental conditions.
I think in a lot of ways, it's like when we talk about Alien and the fact that, like, When alien came out, the word alien was not that common.And because of alien, it is.And I think psycho is, is sort of unfortunately in that same category.
Yeah.But in this case, what they're doing is they're actually adding to that.They're trying to add nuance to the definition of psycho, which is not like, it's not something to be dismissed.
It's something that like, we're still, we still just don't fucking understand.And it is. The fact that we end with Norman having this dialogue with himself is just, it's not like, we don't see him die.We don't see him get so much of a comeuppance.
We just see like, this is tragic.And because he really doesn't understand what he's doing.And there's a lot that can be said with that, but it is so entrenched in a lot of presumptions that have continued through the years.Because like,
You know, even though something is progressive for its time, doesn't mean that it's progressive.And even if something has a progressive intent, doesn't mean that it has a progressive effect, you know?
And I think that that's sort of the tragedy of Psycho is that, you know, it has a lot of things to say, but they're not what is remembered about the movie.
Um, yeah, I mean, in some ways to be comic-y about it, it's, it reminds me of the Watchmen effect of like this thing that is a really good piece of well-made craft comes out and everybody tries to do the same thing and ends up totally misunderstanding it and doing the wrong thing.
Um, yeah, it is what came up.Yeah.It's like a, it's a sort of. storytelling telephone that's going on with intent and, uh, subject matter here.
It makes me think is, is Fight Club really just like the tub thumping of cinema?Like just made to like make fun of a group of people and lampoon them and those people got attached to it.And like, they were like, Oh yeah, we love this.
This is the greatest.Finally a song for us.
Well, I mean, really, I mean, it really is.
I mean, all that stuff is supposed to be somewhat of a critique on toxic masculinity.And those are a lot of the people that would explain the movie to you.
So, yeah, that in the Matrix, man.
God, yeah.Bless you, The Matrix.I'm so sorry that this is what happens to you, but I think we're good.We've come back around.The kids are all right.
Yeah, thankfully the last one was so clear that the other groups didn't like it anymore.
Perfect.So I recommend this movie.
Yeah.Does everybody else, would you say you recommend people watch Psycho?
Yeah, even if you're not a horror fan, which would be weird if you're listening to like what episode 250 something of this podcast and you're still not a horror movie fan.
But yeah, I think definitely watch it and you could get your, you know, sibling or partner or friend who isn't super into horror movies to probably watch this too if they haven't.
I think it's a movie to watch to understand where we came from.I think it's really like if you want to understand how cinema and specifically horror cinema got to where it is today, it's absolutely necessary to watch.I would say like the
killing scenes, the violence in it does not fold up at all.It's kind of comical now.And one of the things that my husband mentioned when we were watching it was that when the shower scene happened, he was like, oh, there's not enough blood.
She's not dead. And he assumed that she wasn't dead because there's very little blood in that scene, which I assume was because of readings issues.But I think it's a really, it's a really important movie.It's a beautifully acted movie.
The performances are phenomenal.It's really, I think it's also a really good one to pair with the other movie that Hitchcock made very, very, very, very recently to this one that also casting against type to really, really well, which is Vertigo.
Gibby Stewart's performance in that is phenomenal. But, you know, so the two of them have a lot in common and both of them are taking, you know, they're taking mental states, specific mental states, and just kind of pushing them to see where they go.
But yeah, I think it's really, you know, it's a really important movie to watch if you want to understand who we are today.
Yeah, I think I'm with you there.It's one of those movies that whether you know it or not, you've seen a lot of it.It's like Shining or like Casablanca or Jaws.Yeah.
All of which we've talked about or both of which both Shining and Jaws we talked about very recently.
that, like, you've seen bits that if you knew they were, you didn't know, you might not have known they were from this movie, but you've seen things that were direct, you know, references to this movie that were definitely influenced by this movie.
You know, there are tropes and things that this movie created that you know well.So, yeah, it's certainly, I think, something everybody should watch if they have interest in cinema at all.And also, like, this 4k transfer that's on amazon is so clean.
Uh, yeah.Oh, yeah, it's really nice Yeah, it's so beautiful Sometimes it's a little it's a little to the point of like, oh that is a set.Uh Because it's so everything is so clear but like it's it's really beautiful, you know, I think sometimes it
I think sometimes it's difficult to appreciate also, like how gorgeous somebody like Janet Leigh is.And like when you're watching old grainy film, but like, you know, looking at the transfer on this, you're like, oh, she's striking.
Like, she's so pretty.A lot of people in this movie are, including Anthony Perkins.He's also a very, very pretty man.I'm not afraid of him.I just think he's cute.And then, oh, no, no, hold on. Yeah.Yeah.
But I, I think it's, um, it's an incredible movie.Like I said, very little in the way of fat, just mostly the police officer doesn't really come to anything.You always think like that is some great tension building.It is.
Those are good scenes.Yeah.
I always think at least Arbogast is going to mention that he talked to that police officer or something along the lines, but he never gets that far.Nope.
That James, uh, Woods looking at police officer.Yeah.That's scared the shit out of me.I was like, he's not that old. Is he related?Shit.I'm haunted by James Woods.
It's James Stone.It's earlier than Wood.Uh, sorry.Oh, okay.So I guess from there, uh, let's see, uh, what will we recommend for people coming off of this movie?
Like what should people go check out either if they like this or something that's, you know, palate cleanser or something you think people should go check out?
I was thinking about the cabinet of Dr. Caligari as sort of like part of the stairway of horror, you know, the steps to horror that discusses subjective reality, if not actual mental illness.
Like, you know, it's hard to have horror discuss subjective reality without coming into, you know, some sort of gross misunderstanding of mental illness, you know, especially if it's old.
But the philosophical and I guess, I mean, this is a real, like what is real and what we consider real comes into play a lot in both these movies.And I think that there's a lot to be said, you know, as how horror has progressed.
And also the movie, SLC Punk, because it's also involves trying to sink a car.Fair.Although I think that movie is more sad than this movie.So be aware, but the journey is beautiful.
That is the second reference to SLC Punk in this episode, because when Michael brought up the Laserdiscs earlier, and I said, there's a movie on there.Sorry.
That was right around the same time in the movie that they tried to sink the car.Anyway.
So, T, what would you recommend people check out?
Well, I already mentioned Vertigo, um, which if you are listening to this podcast and, and haven't seen Vertigo and have the opportunity to, go into it cold.Don't find out anything about it before you see it.
But since I already mentioned that one, the other thing that comes to mind is because again, something my husband said to me while he was watching it for the very first time was about Psycho was, this is just like arsenic and old lace if they're all the same person.
Which it very, very much, again, if you have the opportunity to go into Arsenic and Old Lace Cold, do it.It is not a horror movie.It is absolutely a comedy.It is a morbid comedy.It's great.
Some absolutely brilliant, brilliant dialogue in it and great performances as well.So that would be my rec. Oh, and the Shirley Jackson story.What was that called again?Oh, yeah.We have always lived in the castle.We've always lived in the castle.
By Shirley Jackson.It's a novella.It's pretty short.
Netflix being a movie of that?
There is a movie of it.The movie is okay.
I would definitely read the story before watching the movie because so much of the story depends on it being told in first-person narration by the specific character who tells it, that it just doesn't work as well as a movie.Yeah.
But it's fantastic, fantastic.
Awesome.Joe, did you have a recommendation?
Yeah, I, uh, I know I rattled off some, some movies earlier, like, you know, Psycho II, um, Peeping Tom, but to, to kind of recommend something in a completely different direction.
For some people may not know, although if you're listening to a horror podcast, you probably do, you know, Anthony Perkins' son, Oz Perkins, is not just an actor, but a horror movie director, um, just put out Long Legs.
I didn't know he was, oh.
Yeah, and you know, I would specifically recommend The Black Coat's Daughter.I really enjoyed that movie.
It's intense, like, go into it knowing that you're going to watch a very intense and brutal movie, but I highly recommend The Black Coat's Daughter.
Fantastic.And what about you, Michael?I will keep it related, but somewhat different.I recommend you go check out Bates Motel.No, not the AMC series.The pilot starring Bud Corge as Norman Bates that presented the Bates Motel.
as a fantasy island type scenario where different guests would come and stay at the motel for periods and Norman would help them with their problems or murder them.It's very sort of up in the air.It was only a pilot.
You used to be able to find it on YouTube.I don't know if it's still there.That's amazing.If you are an industrious sort, go check out the Bates Motel pilot.
Yeah, that sounds incredible. Also, was it a musical?
No, I don't think it was a musical.I'm combining two different failed pilots.
Norman Bates is like Dracula now.He's basically like a movie monster now.You have Dracula, you have the creature, you have Frankenstein monster, and you have Norman Bates.He's not a vampire.Doesn't have to be.
He doesn't need any of that supernatural shit.He's just resourceful.
Yeah.That's the other thing though, is, you know, as long as they kept it like honest.
I feel like it just feels like 2020 is horror.It's like, who needs supernatural when we've all got mental illness?Like, you know, very.That's a byline if I haven't heard earlier.
Yeah, that's a great title.Yeah.
Yeah.So for me, I wanted to, um, I wanted to recommend, uh, another Hitchcock movie.There's a little, I mean, there's a lot of good Hitchcock movies, but I am personally a big fan and rewatched recently, uh, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Really incredible.It's from, you know, that same period we're talking about where so many of like the the best Hitchcock stuff came out.And it is much less, I guess, horror focused and much more like suspense focused.
You know, there aren't a lot of there's not as many stabbings.There's not a bunch of giant birds flying at you.But it is really it's really intense and has, again, another just like all star cast. And I love a good, I love a good James Stewart.
You throw him in something, you're like, you're just about guaranteed a good time.And of course, Doris Day is amazing.
And I love a good like having having the all the intensity and build up and everything in a movie like this lead up to a musical number is just, you know, it's really fantastic.So, yeah, definitely.
If you haven't seen it, check out The Man Who Knew Too Much. All right, I think that about does it for us tonight.We're just about wrapped up and starting to wrap up our spooky season here.
So let's let everybody know where people can find you online and find out more about your work, starting with Tea.
So, um, most of where I hang out these days is on Blue Sky.I am teaberryblue on the regular Blue Sky social.So you can find me there.Also, um, I have a website at teaberryblue.com.
That's tea like the drink, berry like the fruit, blue like the letter.I mean, blue like the color.I don't know why I said letter.And, um,
Yeah, not working on anything that is announceable at the moment, so you can just follow me on Blue Sky and hear hilarious stories about my toddler. Excellent.
Fantastic.And Michael, what about you?You know, I am also in theory, I'm blue sky, but I never use it.You can find me.I think I'm just Mike Tanner, um, bluesky.com backslash.You know how blue sky works.
I used to do that joke with Twitter because everyone knew how to work.But, um, uh, you could find my latest graphic novel, absolute zeros book one camp launch pad.That's on. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, all the regular finer bookstores.
It is a rip roaring middle grade.Fantastic.And Joe, what about you?
You can find me.I'm also on Blue Sky and Twitter is the same.It's at Joe Corallo, J-O-E-C-O-R-A-L-L-O and on Instagram at CoralloJoe.
My Archie one-shot, Kardak the Mystic, has already been out like a couple of weeks since this came out, but it's a one-shot.It's not like connected to any strong continuity of something going on at the moment.
So it doesn't matter that it's been out for maybe a couple of months.You can pick it up.You can order it on Archie's website.And also I am editing the Green Hornet Miss Fury series over at Dynamite.That's going to be out in November, I think, 27th.
So so yeah, you might even still have a chance to preorder it or make sure. Pick it up, because it's going to be a lot of pulpy fun.
Fantastic.And what about you, Emily?
Oh, it's Megamoth.net.Sorry, I was... I spit.Megamoth.net for all your megamoth needs.There's also Megamoth on Patreon, which is where you hear most of the cool stuff.You can also hear about it on Instagram, mega underscore moth.
And on Tumblr, remember Tumblr, I'm also on BlizzCon, megamoth, megamoth, all across the board, M-E-G-A-M-O-T-H.I am still thinking about that comment, who needs a supernatural when you have mental illness?I'd rather deal with vampires than
OCD or, I mean, or capitalism.That's not mental illness, but it causes it.
Isn't OCD just really like a time vampire?Uh, anyway, uh, I am, uh.Elaborate on that.No.Uh, you can find me at jeremywhitley.com.You can find me on blue sky at Jeremy Whitley.You can find me on Tumblr. at jeremywhitley.tumblr.
And I'm still theoretically on Instagram and Twitter at jrome58, but more and more on Blue Sky these days.You can find my still, I mean, the point this comes out, still pretty new graphic novel, Navigating With You.
It's a clear YA graphic novel about falling in love over obscure manga.It's available wherever books are sold.I have a copy.
It's really good.Oh, thank you.You're welcome.
And I guess right now when this is coming out, I have a My Little Pony miniseries coming out.It's called The Storm in Zephyr Heights.It's an intense action story with Generation 5 My Little Pony.So go check that out, I guess.
Also, pre-order Mr. Muffin's men's comic about a corgi in space. Please, it looks so cute and you will not regret it.
Absolutely.That's true.Thank you so much to all of you for joining us tonight.Thank you to our guest, T. Michael Joe.It was great to have you.Thanks so much for talking Psycho with us.
Always great to talk Psycho with y'all.
Or other things, yeah.Not just Psycho, but you know.
Yeah.Well, uh, we got one more, uh, Halloween month episode coming up.We're hitting the last of our big ones that we haven't talked about.So, uh, we'll join us again next week because we talked about the exorcist until then stay horrified.
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