In all honesty, I don’t remember the first time I watched ‘Psycho’
but I know it was after I saw the 1998 remake. I was at a Halloween party, I think
I was 15 or 16, I don’t remember the costume I wore but I know it was not a ‘sexy
looking’ outfit. I went to an all-girls school and all the attendees of the
party were girls so I didn’t have anyone to impress. As this was pre-Facebook
days, I don’t have any photographs from that night. I say it was a party but
really it was just a night of playing a few games and watching a ‘scary’ film
while eating sweets. My memory is hazy so I don’t know what the other film
choice was but I definitely had a hand in picking ‘Psycho’. This was because I
thought it was going to be Hitchcock’s version. I was incredibly disappointed to
find it was Gus Van Sant’s remake. On top of all that, it wasn’t particularly
scary so most of the girls were annoyed and made fun of me for wanting to see
it. It’s not as if I was the one who rented it from Blockbuster.
Growing up in a time when I’d only seen Vince Vaughn is
mediocre comedies, seeing him as Norman Bates, one of the most famous characters
in Hollywood film, seemed out of place and terribly miscast. I wrote in a post
back in 2014 (please excuse my writing back then, I was still finding my style)
that he was cast against type which is exactly that and upon reflection, is
actually out of the box casting choice. He has that horrible disturbing laugh that
fits in with the character’s mindset and you could easily believe, this guy is
unhinged and definitely could be a killer.
Being ‘into film’ in secondary school was a like navigating
a maze. I had to be into the films that everyone else wanted to watch, like ‘8
Mile’, ‘The Notebook’, ‘Honey’, ‘Notting Hill’, while also maintaining my edge
of wanting to watch all genres of films from all eras. I read Empire while they
all read Grazia and Heat. I am guilty of buying the latter on occasion but
mostly, I read film and music magazines. I was and am an avid old movie watcher
and probably only had one or two friends I could talk to about films so seeing
the chance to watch and try and get a group of my peers to watch ‘Psycho’ was a
big moment. I gave the remake a chance but I actually forgot most of it after
the film ended. I asked my parents if we could get a copy of Hitchcock’s
original. I think I had to wait 2 more years before I actually got to watch the
film.
I’d seen other Hitchcock films and asked for a boxset for Christmas one year so I could devour as many as possible. ‘Psycho’ has always been one of those revered films that all the film critics, theorists and filmmakers say to watch only then to twist round a decade later and say its really awful. Usually. My personal experience of the film was as if I was learning how to make films and appreciate the story structure, as I had decided I wanted to go to film school. I was finally able to watch the film I knew so much about, seen clips and scenes from and able to piece together what made this film a masterpiece. Sometimes it takes a few viewings of a film to see how great or bad it is, but ‘Psycho’ is a film, for me, that I could see just how brilliant it was from the first viewing, even mentally removing the remake from my mind to make room for the occasion.