How We Make Our Psychos: A Psycho Retrospective
By Rebecca Smith
Artwork by Dy Dawson @xgardensinspace
Psycho. For a great many people, that single word is enough to conjure up Bernard Herrmann’s iconic screech of violins and Janet Leigh’s screaming face as a knife arcs towards her in the shower. Whether or not a person has actually seen Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 psychological thriller won’t spare them – in the more than six decades since its release, Psycho has become a cultural touchstone for America and the horror genre. The pivotal spoilers Hitchcock went to much effort to conceal – if you didn’t know, the conventions of cinemas having start times and no late admissions policies are thanks to Psycho – are now so well entrenched in our collective cultural psyche that I wouldn’t be surprised if newborns’ shrieks these days are actually baby speak for “IT WAS NORMAN!!”
It's perhaps unsurprising that Hitchcock’s Psycho, which was named the greatest movie ever made by Variety in December 2022, is not exactly unexplored territory when it comes to analyses. Whilst the legendary shower scene is one of the most famous movie scenes in history, virtually every shot of this suspenseful masterpiece is familiar to us and, as such, has had interpretation after interpretation, and symbolism after metaphor after allegory, applied to and teased out of it. Fortunately, I’ve still been allowed to write something about Psycho anyway, so do indulge me and read on.
At its twisted roots, Psycho poses the question of how well we truly know other people, and this unsettling thought is where its lasting horror derives from. Lila Crane, Sam Loomis, and Mr Lowrey are all shocked to discover Marion Crane has run off with $40,000 because this isn’t the Marion they thought they knew; likewise, the entirety of Fairvale are shocked to discover Norman Bates has been murdering people while dressed as his mother – who he also murdered – and for years has been looking after her preserved corpse as if she was still alive. This isn’t the Norman they thought they knew, either. As the audience, we’re positioned to be shocked by this reveal about Norman too, as we’ve been encouraged to feel sorry for him as the dutiful, unworldly son of a cruel and possessive mother. Instead, we discover the brutal violence in Psycho is a part of Norman and we were just taken in by Anthony Perkins’ innocent smile – which, of course, was one of the many reasons he was chosen for the role.
In the real world, the people of Plainfield, Wisconsin, probably felt a similar shock in 1957 when it was uncovered that one of their locals had killed and mutilated two women and was living in a house full of stolen human body parts, many of which he’d morbidly fashioned into pieces of furniture. It is widely known that this unassuming local, Ed Gein, was a source of inspiration for Robert Bloch’s original 1959 Psycho novel, of which Hitchcock’s film is an adaptation. After the initial horror of Gein’s crimes, there remained the uncomfortable realisation that something like that could happen right under a community’s nose. A story not a million miles away from Psycho can, and did, happen somewhere it would be least expected to.
In a bold move for its era, then, Psycho explores why its killer kills. Psychoanalysis – the legacy of Sigmund Freud – was popular in America around the time of Psycho’s creation, and both Bloch and Hitchcock incorporated it into their respective works, most obviously through the character of Norman. As well as being one of the most recognisable poster boys for the Oedipus complex, which Bloch actually highlights Norman’s self-awareness of early in the novel, a significant portion of Norman’s dialogue in the Hitchcock film functions as Freudian slips about the horrible truth his unconscious is repressing. The inclusion of psychoanalytic elements in Psycho is an important component in making Norman a complex horror villain rather than one who kills for the sheer evilness of it. We could spend an entire essay debating exactly which mental illnesses Norman is supposed to be suffering from, and it is clear in retrospect that their depiction does not quite hold up to the reality in any case, but the fact that Norman is not well and has been spiralling for some time – while no excuse for murder – means we understand why he is where he is mentally and why he stays in his “private trap” rather than facing reality.
Of course, it is all very good understanding the psychology behind our so-called proto slasher, but Psycho hints towards the external as well as the internal factors that go into making a deranged killer. I am referring here to the place where Norman was allowed to fester: the fictional town of Fairvale, California. In its depiction of the small town, Psycho is critiquing the type of society and community attitude that unwittingly enables someone like Norman. American society in the 1950s was repressed – look what happened when Elvis wiggled onstage – and it is this repression that has disastrous consequences in Psycho.
It is Lila who summarises the issue with Fairvale in Bloch’s novel, in a disappointed observation about Sam: “He had that slow, cautious, conservative small-town outlook.” This outlook, exhibited by both Sam and Sheriff Chambers in their insistence on waiting and not bothering Norman, is perhaps best typified by Mrs Chambers in the Hitchcock film. When Lila and Sam learn Mrs Bates supposedly poisoned herself and her lover in a murder-suicide some ten years past, Mrs Chambers adds, “Norman found them dead together. In bed.” There is a disapproving emphasis on “in bed”, as if this is the most shameful aspect of the incident, which serves to highlight the still dominant conservative Christian outlook on sexuality and marriage prevalent at the time. This societal outlook on sexuality is shown throughout Psycho to be detrimental to its characters: at the beginning of the film, Marion is unhappy she and Sam are unmarried and must meet in hotel rooms for sex; and Norman, of course, has internalised disgust and guilt with his own sexuality to such an extent that, in a misogynistic twist, he projects that disgust and guilt on to any woman he finds attractive, allowing ‘Mother’ to surface and kill her.
In addition to this, Mrs Chambers has two other lines that provide insight into the community Norman grew up in. She mentions she helped Norman choose the dress his mother was buried in, remembering that it was “periwinkle blue”. Then, a few scenes later, she invites Lila and Sam for a meal to make reporting Marion’s disappearance and theft “nicer” for them. Both of these are kind acts, but are they inordinately helpful ones? Neither of these gestures would have illuminated what Norman had done; they were more like putting plasters over gaping wounds. This, it seems, is the Fairvale way: don’t ask, don’t know.
It is true that this effective silence around difficult or taboo subjects was a society-wide issue, but I think we can assume Fairvale, as a small town, was supposed to have its own distinct, concentrated flavour of it. If most people knew of the Bates family who lived like there was nobody else in the world, did no one ever think to query why that was? Did anyone know what Norma Bates was like? Didn’t anybody notice that Norman had lived in near isolation all his life, and wonder what effect that might have on a person? The answers are clearly no, because that was the Bates family’s business. The warning signs were therefore missed or ignored. At this time, and in this kind of place, the structural forces simply didn’t exist to avert crises of mental health, or abuse, or violence before they escalated. Psycho is pointing out the dark side of contemporary, as it then was, American society. The sort of situation that led to Gein. The story of Norman Bates is in part a warning about how pretending something isn’t happening and being unwilling to face reality – and that’s literal reality, in Norman’s case – only causes more harm in the long-term. And, once again, these external factors also do not excuse Norman’s murders. However, they do help explain how he was able to get away with them, unsuspected, for so long.
This is not to say there is one single set of circumstances which would enable the story of Psycho to play out in some way. The whole point of Psycho is that it could happen next door, to anyone, because we might not know someone as completely as we think we do. The story could only critique the world it found itself in at that moment, but the passage of time prompts the question: could Norman Bates exist today? After all, not only have taboos around sexuality and mental health weakened considerably in a general sense over the last six decades, but there have also been huge advancements in the technology used to catch criminals. Giving your bloody crime scene a quick wipe down with some water and a mop might not cut it now. The internet too is encroaching further and further on our lives. It is fast becoming impossible to exist without at least a small online presence – and once you have an online presence, there is something about you there for people to pry into.
Then again, while the internet can be a tool to help people in bad situations, we all know what a double-edged sword it is. Never mind the overtly dark corners of the web, someone as well-established in presenting a false state of affairs to the world as Norman is would surely excel in doing the same thing in the supposedly safer online places. In fact, doing it online would be child’s play in comparison to real life. And, inescapably, security cameras would be a modern-day Norman’s scopophilic dream, there is no denying that. There are also still parts of society that cling harder to the values and social etiquette of the past. Who is to say Fairvale would have kept to the average rate of progress?
Thus, the exact circumstances Psycho painted as aiding Norman’s murders in a small 1950s town might well have been altered in some way in the years since Hitchcock’s untouchable film first hit cinema screens, but the central fear in Psycho about how well we truly know other people remains. In Psycho, the two key characters of Norman and Marion, so often compared as two sides of the same coin, are being dishonest with those around them. Norman is even being dishonest with himself. Today, in our world of chronic oversharing, I’d wager there are still very few people who would – or even could – reveal every part of themselves to other people. Should that really be an aim for anyone? I would argue no, definitely not.
The inevitable consequence of personal privacy is that, in our imperfect world containing messed up people who sometimes do terrible things, there will be a few Normans. Likewise, not everyone can be the Lila who exposes and stops them. We can only exist inside our own heads; we can’t ever truly know the entirety of another person. In the end, the perversion of the familiar, of the people we tell ourselves we know – such as Norman – and the places we think are safe – such as our showers – is what continues to frighten and unnerve us in Psycho.
And Norman’s creepy smile at the end, of course; although that’s my favourite bit.
