Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is a classic, and for good reason, as the 1960 movie amazed audiences and featured the infamous shower scene. There are a lot of interesting facts to know about Hitchcock, and horror fans are still impressed by this movie as it was revolutionary at the time.
While horror films provide a lot of entertainment on a weekend evening, and people especially enjoy them around Halloween, sometimes the real life inspiration behind a horror film is even worse.
It turns out that Psycho was based on a true story. Let's take a look.
The Story Behind 'Psycho'
Just like there are some fun facts about classic horror film The Exorcist, there's a lot to know about Psycho.
Psycho was based on Robert Bloch's book and according to Chameleontruecrimestories.com, Bloch wrote the book thinking about a killer named Ed Gein. Bloch lived in Wisconsin and Gein was arrested only 50 miles from where he lived, so he took an interest.
Ed Gein is also called "the Butcher of Planfield" and he killed a woman named Bernice, who owned a hardware store. The details of this case are very grim and sad. It turned out that Ed had killed more women, and people realized how dangerous he was.
According to the website, both Ed and Norman Bates from Psycho had a very strange and off connection with their mothers. Ed was taught not to like any other female other than his mother, which is definitely creepy and disturbing.
It turns out that while Bloch was inspired by Ed Gein, he didn't make them seem like the same person on purpose. He found out later that there were a lot of details that Norman and Ed had in common.
According to Mental Floss, Bloch realized “how closely the imaginary character I'd created resembled the real Ed Gein both in overt act and apparent motivation."
It's amazing to hear that while the characters weren't meant to be the same, Norman ended up being a lot like Ed. This is one of those times when truth is stranger than fiction.
Making 'Psycho'
In what might be surprising for horror fans to hear, Alfred Hitchcock felt that Psycho was a comedic movie.
According to The Guardian, Hitchcock talked about his famous movie in a tape that became part of the BBC archives. The director said, "[Psycho] was intended to make people scream and yell and so forth. But no more than screaming and yelling on a switchback railway … so you mustn't go too far because you want them to get off the railway giggling with pleasure."
Hitchcock also said that he doesn't see the movie as part of the same genre that everyone else does. He said, "The content was, I felt, rather amusing and it was a big joke. I was horrified to find some people took it seriously."
People definitely see Psycho as a horror movie and it's often a film that is studied and taken apart because it was just so fresh and exciting. There are endless threads about the film on Reddit, with people sharing that they just watched the movie for the first time ever and they want to hear some thoughts and opinions. When someone asked why the shower scene is so iconic, a fan explained that a shower is seen as a place where people can be both "safe" and "vulnerable" and this scene completely altered that perception.
Joseph Stefano, the screenwriter for Psycho, was interviewed by the Austin Chronicle and talked about his experience. Stefano shared a fascinating tidbit: that Hitchcock didn't think that people should rewrite scripts. Stefano said, "Another interesting thing is that he asked for no rewrites. Not one. He felt that whoever wrote the movies was the writer, and that was their job."
Stefano also said that when they were making the movie, it seemed unheard of to introduce a main character and then kill them off, like they did with Marion. He said, "The notion of murdering the star of the movie, the most famous name in it, was unheard of in those days, so I think that alone upset the audience. No one could believe that. I felt it was the only way to do it. And Hitchcock agreed with me. It was his idea to get a star to play this doomed character. So it worked."
It definitely makes sense that Psycho ended up being inspired by a real killer as it's one of the most interesting and unnerving movies in the horror genre, and there are so many reasons why it's still considered a classic today.
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