Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 68 - The History of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
Abby and Alan explore the real life events that inspired the novel and the famous film Psycho, directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. We also learn about the production of the film, the psychology behind it and the many remakes that came later.
Consider donating to Asian Americans Advancing Justice: Atlanta.
---
Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback.
Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
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Abby and Alan explore the real life events that inspired the novel and the famous film Psycho, directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. We also learn about the production of the film, the psychology behind it and the many remakes that came later.
Consider donating to Asian Americans Advancing Justice: Atlanta.
---
Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback.
Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
lunaticsproject.com
Hear travel stories from everyday people who learned how to travel for (nearly) free
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
[inaudible]
Speaker 2:And welcome to the lunatics radio hour podcast. I'm Abby Brinker. I'm here with Alan Kadin. Hello. And today we are talking about psycho the movie, the book, the remake, the sequel
Speaker 3:I'll admit, before we start all this, I didn't realize that there was anything beyond just the one Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Speaker 2:I am absolutely in the same boat as you. I had no idea. I just didn't even know that it was based on a book that there were sequels and remakes, even starring Anthony Perkins. So Anthony Perkins, the yeah, the actor who plays Norman Bates, Vince Vaughn in the remake. It is Alan. And I have watched quite a few psycho movies today. So we're, it's all fresh in our minds. We're ready to go. There's a lot of fun. It was actually, I think we were surprised by a lot of movies.
Speaker 3:Well, this is the second time we've had to watch psycho for this podcast. That's true. As Norman Bates was a strong contender during the scariest scuffle 2020.
Speaker 2:I really love Norman Bates. I know it's very messed up to say, but he's just so dreamy. You know, he really is so charming.
Speaker 3:Well, when he's played by Anthony Perkins, yes. Not so much when he's played by Vince Vaughn,
Speaker 2:Which is mind blowing that they cast Vince Vaughn to play Norman Bates.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, he just keeps getting typecast, you know, just as like the small business owner, you know, he runs the Bates motel and then he goes on to run, uh, average Joe's gym and Dodge ball.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't know. It just, uh, well, we'll get to it. Well, we'll talk through some of these movies, but first we're going to get into the history of psycho Alfred Hitchcock's psycho from 1960 is very important to the horror genre that we know and love today. We've spoken about how revolutionary a nightmare on Elm street and Halloween were for the slasher genre, but even they owe some of their success to Alfred Hitchcock's psycho psychos use of sex, nudity and violence was unprecedented at the time.
Speaker 3:And they use it quite well. And
Speaker 2:Quite, yeah, I agree. It is no secret that Hitchcock had a fascination with psychology and most people call psycho the world's first psycho analytic thriller. Really? Indeed. We can and probably will do an episode at some point on Alfred Hitchcock, just as a filmmaker and a person, because obviously his, his influence on the horror genre is vast, but psycho is, there's so much to say here just about this one film alone.
Speaker 3:Hey, remember when he made the birds
Speaker 2:And we found out today that there's a sequel to the book.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The bird, the birds to land's end.
Speaker 2:And that there's a, a third or remaking option
Speaker 3:That there's Oh yeah. So there was a bird's remake made in 1987, apparently. So we gotta track that down. Yep. Um, and furthermore, the script is currently being optioned. So it's, it's slated to be remade. And guess who the director is going to be Michael Bay.
Speaker 2:I knew because he told me, you told me earlier
Speaker 3:Things all the time, and then I, I played dump so that you can just say your fun fact, but no, when it's my turn, I, whatever we want,
Speaker 2:Alfred Hitchcock is an icon and Keystone of the history of horror. He was born on August 13th, 1899. And I just love the fact that he was born in the 18 hundreds.
Speaker 3:He was born 1899, eight
Speaker 2:99. So one Alfred Hitchcock's psycho came out in 1960. He was 61 fast math.
Speaker 3:Wow. Yeah. It's so weird to think you're born in the 18 hundreds and not crazy old. Yeah. I mean, now he'd be really old, but he's, he's, he's dead.
Speaker 2:He's dead. Yeah. Sadly. So today's sources.
Speaker 3:I mean, it'd be 122. Yeah. It's pretty
Speaker 2:Quick math. I mean, it's not unheard of
Speaker 3:It is nuts.
Speaker 2:People have lived to be longer than older than that name, name one. Hey, Google. How old is the oldest person? So we just Googled the oldest person currently is 117 years old, a Japanese,
Speaker 3:Well, mankind is supposed to have a hard cap on their age limit at 120 really. I mean, that's out of the Bible.
Speaker 2:Oh really? The Bible. They thought people could live that old back then people were dying so young
Speaker 3:It's because that was the lifespan given to Moses so that he could guide the Israelites well to the promised land. And so he needed an extended lifespan to get through the desert who knew, God, God,
Speaker 2:Well maybe one day I should sit down and catch up on the Bible. Okay. Today's sources understanding psycho, the uncanny by is this just fantasy on YouTube, a bunch of Wikipedia articles and a bunch of murder PDF articles.
Speaker 3:Don't forget to cite the movies. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we watched psycho and psycho. We watched psycho from 1960, the remake from 1998, psycho two from 87, I believe 83 or 87 and 83. And uh, yeah, I think those were the movies that we watched.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We did not watch psycho three.
Speaker 2:No, but it does have, so we're going to
Speaker 3:Actually, how many are there four I believe. Oh
Speaker 2:Yeah. They say usually people say two and three are pretty good for jumps the shark, if you can imagine.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't wanna, I don't wanna start talking about the movies we'll cover off because you're going to yell at me.
Speaker 2:Psycho was released in 1960 a year after North, by Northwest surprisingly North by Northwest was shot in color with a bigger budget. And many people were initially confused by psychos aesthetic choices. Cause of course it's black and white and it was produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay was written by Joseph Stephano based on the book, same name, which came out in 1959 written by Robert block. The movie was independently financed by Hitchcock with a budget just over$800,000. It's still pretty good. So it was released with a studio, but he funded it and produced it totally on his own as an independent person.
Speaker 3:Hmm. I mean, yeah. They still had to build sets for everything.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, it's pretty expensive, very expensive. But the set, the set is quite enduring actually.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They really spared no expense.
Speaker 2:They began filming on November 11th, 1959 and concluded on February 1st, 1960, Alan. You'll appreciate this part. Why filming started every morning and ended each evening 6:00 PM at the latest. So that Hitchcock and his wife could eat at Chasen's, which was a famous Hollywood restaurant that the Hollywood elite would go to Jason, but you really love a, uh, a scheduled, uh, uh, what's the like hard outs, hard outs. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's the best. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Everyone has places to be right. Or just not at work. Right work. Can't be your life, everybody that's right. Especially if your work is psycho.
Speaker 2:I mean, I really enjoy Hitchcock. Like he, he often one of my favorite sayings, one of my favorite sayings
Speaker 3:Or favorite sayings, one
Speaker 2:Thing I, I feel like I quote quite often he has a quote where he says, you know, the length of a film should directly correlate to, you know, the size of someone's bladder. I just feel like he has a very practical approach to filmmaking where like, he's going to go have dinner every night, giving people good work-life balance. And he makes movies that aren't too long and full of themselves. You know? Like he's, he's like an art tour, but he's not like a Kubrick don't get me started on the birds. I don't like it. I know it's okay. You'll also appreciate this Allen. Most of the film was shot using 50 millimeter lenses on 35 millimeter cameras. Yeah. Hitchcock felt that this helped to mimic human vision and bring the audience into the story even more before filming classic Hitchcock move right there before filming Hitchcock sent his assistant to Phoenix to scout locations that were later recreated in the Hollywood studio. Cool. So the, the law, obviously the hotel, the Bates motel, the psycho house as it's come to be coined were recreated based on like scout photos, because it takes place in Arizona. Um, and then recreate it on this Hollywood law. And of course the psycho house still indoors. And in some extent to this day, all right, before we get into the meat of this episode, we're not in the meat, we're into it, but I forgot to say, I forgot to say it earlier. So we've been doing the fat. Okay. Well, before we get further into this episode, I'm not going to, if you have not seen psycho,
Speaker 3:So fair warning, there's going to be some spoilers about psycho. As we talk about psycho,
Speaker 2:There's going to be a lot of spoilers. So you haven't seen psycho. That's a prerequisite for this, this episode. Okay. So pause, pause the tape, posit tape, go back, watch psycho, all of them. Where did we watch it? Peacock Hulu, somewhere in that film adaptation, we have famous performances by Anthony Perkins playing Norman Bates. And Janet Lee is Marion crane
Speaker 3:And William H Macy as the private eye, the gum shoe that's in the remake.
Speaker 2:Those psycho was all just so you know, Alan, everything we're talking about right now is the original. Those psycho was initially met with mixed reviews and went on to be nominated for four Academy awards, including best supporting actress and best director though. They did not win an Academy award. Janet Lee won the golden globe for best supporting actress during filming Perkins and Lee were allowed to improvise and interpret their roles as they'd like, as long as it doesn't involve moving the camera, which is like another, like, I feel like very like Hitchcock thing to do of it's very relatable. It's like, yeah, you can. Yeah, sure. But just like, don't mess with my shot.
Speaker 3:Exactly. It's like I spent a long time making it look just like this don't you dare change your Mark.
Speaker 2:He's like a director. Who's more concerned with, uh, the camera than the performances.
Speaker 3:I mean, clearly he's doing something right.
Speaker 2:Clearly I love him. I love, I mean, I know there's also probably a dark side to him, but yeah. He
Speaker 3:Made the birds.
Speaker 2:So an example of this improv, right. Anthony Perkins had at Norman Bates eat candy corn throughout the movie.
Speaker 3:Oh, that was the actor's choice. That was his choice. Yeah. What was the significance of candy? Corn.
Speaker 2:It tastes good. And it's like a childhood thing probably. Right.
Speaker 3:Maybe he just like brought candy corn does that one day and they're like, we have to roll and he's like, you. And just keeps eating his candy corn. And then the script supervisor's like, well, continuity
Speaker 2:Also during production, Hitchcock created many different iterations of the mother dead skeleton body. And what hide it in Janet Leigh's dressing room. So this is one thing he did this kind of up. I mean, that's pretty funny reportedly. She took it very well and most believed it was done to keep her on edge during filming.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah. You don't want her to comfortable. No, she's got to get through the first 20 minutes of the movie
Speaker 2:Five, what Hitchcock was not involved in any of the sequels or spinoffs that come to follow. So including a remake, three sequels, a TV series and a made for TV spinoff.
Speaker 3:So we saw the original yes. Psycho to correct. And cycle remake 1987, 1998, 1998. Yes. So, Oh, Oh wait. That's what, I'm sorry. That's what I was thinking seven, because that was the TV movie.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. And those which was called
Speaker 3:Bates motel, which is not to be confused with the series of the same name, which came out in 2013. That is right. Yes. And there's also psycho three and four, which have some by-lines right. Yep.
Speaker 2:We also have to call out that the original film was released in 1960, just as the production code, a set of film content guidelines was on the decline. It was extremely bold for the time and its use of sexuality and violence. In many ways. It was the first film of its kind to show what it did, Marianne and a bra, the shower scene, graphic violence, blood, even showing an unmarried couple in the same bed was shocking for the time.
Speaker 3:So while we are watching psycho original, I chimed in my fun little film tidbit that psycho was the first movie to show a toilet on screen. This however turned out to not be true. It was predated twice, twice. Um, most notably in 1957, leave it to Beaver.
Speaker 2:Oh, that background breaking show, leave it to Beaver.
Speaker 3:But it was really predated, um, by a silent film called the crowd from 1928.
Speaker 2:I mean, even still the fact that there's only two things before psycho in 1960, that show a toilet. It's like a little bit
Speaker 3:The hell I'm Googling now. And there's like, well, no psycho is the first to show up flushing. Yeah. But then there's, you know, some guy that just jumps in and says, Oh no, there was that movie from 19 to 30 called going wild. That showed a flushing toilet.
Speaker 2:I mean still the fact that there's like a handful of examples before psycho of toilets in movies is insane. It like, it wasn't a plot point at all before. No. Why would it be? It's crazy to me now. Okay. So it is a plot point in, um, it is a plot point, actually. It is. Yeah. But speaking of plot, let's do a quick overview.
Speaker 3:Okay. So here, here we go. You're going to do it. Yeah. Okay. So Marion their name. Yeah. Yep. Off to a good Marion. Steve steals$4,000, 40,000,$40,000 from her work. What's her job. She works at an office. I don't know. It's a real estate company. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, and then she skips town and not with her boyfriend. She just takes the$40,000 and runs. Cause no one knows why. And then Norman finds her. Norman finds her, but no, she, the rain finds and she gets to rain is too rainy.
Speaker 2:So she pulls over to park for the day. No, she pulls over to park for the night because she can't keep her eyes up. And the next night the rain overtakes her and she ends up at the Bates motel.
Speaker 3:Who's who's telling us you're you are me. And then, and then she's there, she's at the Bates motel and she's hungry. And so Norman offers to make her sandwiches and milk.
Speaker 2:My favorite, my absolute favorite old time movie meal. I am obsessed, always in old movies. They eat sandwiches and milk, especially late at night. And I, I just love it so much.
Speaker 3:So then he murders her and
Speaker 2:No, we don't see him murder her. We see a shadow of an old woman. She gets murdered
Speaker 3:And then the shower yeah. In the shower and then Norman and cleans up the mess. And he's like, mom, you did it. And everyone thinks the mom did it. Right. Yeah. And then he, he dumped her in the swamp, the car in the car, in the swamp.
Speaker 2:We have the moment. Right. Or the car pauses.
Speaker 3:Right. Cause it doesn't sync, but then it does sing. And it's one of those like classic film moments. Yeah. Yeah. And then he comes back and then people show up asking about her. And one of the gum chew, the gum shoe shows up and he like presses Norman for details. And Norman, Norman slips up his, his, his, his alacrity a little bit. And then, uh, he's forced to kill the gumshoe. And then Marian's boyfriend and her sisters show up and then Norman dressed up as the mom tries to kill them. And then we realized that the mom has been dead the whole time and Norman's kind of nuts. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. That's somewhat accurate. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I just read that verbatim from the little caption on the TV guy.
Speaker 2:No you did. Okay. So first let's talk about the shower scene. We already talked about the shower scene. I'm talking about let's analyze the shower scene. Okay. I'm not being dramatic. When I say that psycho shower scene is one of the most infamous scenes in all of cinema.
Speaker 3:I was actually asking you about this earlier, but you still haven't given me an answer. Can you think of a more iconic scene than the psycho shower scene?
Speaker 2:Well, I, I said to you that, and then I will say it again now it's hard for me because my household was so Hitchcock heavy growing up that no, like, I don't know. I can, but I'm sure there is like maybe like a scene from the wizard of Oz or something like that.
Speaker 3:I was thinking the wizard of Oz when we start skipping down the it followed a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah. I think there's probably certainly move. Like, you know, if you weren't somebody whose family was big into Hitchcock or classic, you've probably seen like the wizard of Oz style, but you might not have seen psycho.
Speaker 3:Oh. Or the part in a Terminator too, when he's like, you know, he's she sacrificed himself so that John Connor can live and he's like going in and then the hand gives the thumbs up right before it goes into the molds.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's a pretty good one. That's a really good one. But so I think it depends because I've also never seen Terminator too, right? No, really? Yeah. No. You're, you're messing with me or maybe, maybe you made me watch a Terminator was about one stunned. That's my favorite movie. Yeah. Well, why don't we do
Speaker 3:Was watch your favorite movies like psycho and the birds.
Speaker 2:Oh, you don't even know Alan, how many of your movies we watch? Okay. So Alan and I both film school graduates can vouch for the fact that the shower scene from psycho is still taught in film classes. Like we both confirmed con you know, we both had focuses on it in film school and I don't know, it's, it's iconic in that way. So yes, I would say sure. There's, there's other films that are probably more universally known, but I think regardless within the cinema world, it's, it's a very important scene.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think the only reason why say something like the wizard of Oz jumps at me a bit more is just because it lifts the age restriction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. So the shower scene was filmed between December 17th and 23rd, 1959. It had been postponed by Janet Lee twice, once because she didn't feel well. She had a cold and once because she had her period famously 77 different camera angles were used in the final edit. And the scene lasts for three minutes with 50 cuts. Here's a quote from Hitchcock. As you know, you could not take the camera and just show a nude woman. It had to be done impressionistically so it was done with little pieces of film, the head, the feet, the hand, et cetera. In this scene, there were 78 pieces of film in about 45 seconds. So the style bright feels very poetic and unrealistic in a way. Something we'll talk a little bit more in a minute, but Hitchcock described this as transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience. Oh, so that's what that does. That's what he thought it did. Oh, you'll see. As we talk more about it too, he has a lot of tricks like this, like ways of editing or framing shots that he thinks have some kind of like psychological effects. He's a tricky guy. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think so too.
Speaker 3:Remember in rear window, the twist was that there was no twist.
Speaker 2:I mean, he is a guy he's a big, ah, cycle. Like, you know, he has all this interest in psychology, which you can see in things like vertigo and rear window as well. The blood in the scene was played by Hershey's chocolate syrup. Uh,
Speaker 3:Only in the North American release everywhere else. It wasn't a tele,
Speaker 2:Oh my God, they chose this because it has a good density, especially for the black and white film stock, it shows up, well, there are vastly different reports when it comes to whether Lee, Janet Lee had a body double or not during parts of the scene, different books on the film, state, different things, Lee herself claims that she was in the scene in its entirety. And a double is only used when Bates transfers the body to the trunk of the car. One incorrect fear.
Speaker 3:Oh, Oh, she's too good to be in the shower curtain trunk.
Speaker 2:That's right. Two good two famous one incorrect theory that emerged was that the crew used cold water in an effort to elicit icy screams from Lee. But she denied the saying the crew was very accommodating. So I dunno, what did, what's your take on the shower scene?
Speaker 3:This was just the quintessential scene, uh, when film school is like, and now you all have to learn how to edit. Just take a look at this because it's all about applying things. Um, you, you know, for instance, you know, she's naked in the shower getting murdered by getting stabbed a thousand times yet. You never once see a stab and you never see, um, a, uh, nudity. Like you never see like nipples or anything like that. Yeah. Uh, it's always just like pieces of skin her from behind something like that. Um, and yeah, you never see that you see like the knife swing through the air or like get ready to strike. And it's all about the way that the cuts are put together with the music score and the music cues and that sort of thing. Um, and everything is in you're horrified, even though you never actually saw anything. That's technically scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, psycho is such a delicious mix of horror elements. You know, there's the soundtrack, which is iconic. Yeah. Especially the credits credit song, which I think is called the murderer composed by Bernard Herman. And it's the same shower scene. So I met you here it's, you know, like crazy cellos and string instruments.
Speaker 3:It's very, it's a very uncomfortable sound to hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's, and it also has like some similar, similar, like noise elements. I don't know the right word, but the stabbing noises that are happening, you know, and you also
Speaker 3:Never get a good look at the killer's face, despite the fact that you look right at the killer's face. So props to how it was lit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. One thing,
Speaker 3:I mean, maybe you have more about this, but was it just special lighting? Was it special makeup and everything that obscured the face?
Speaker 2:Everything. So, yeah, it's shadow, it's purposeful shadow and we're going to talk about it, but Hitchcock uses shadows and mirrors very, very specifically in this movie to build the tension. Right. And I think psycho is so impactful a because the script is so good, there's so much, so many intriguing elements. It's creepy and often, and we're going to talk about the psychology behind it and the aesthetic choices of it. But it's, it really is this marriage of very conscious filmmaking. And I feel like he, and I think this is kind of echoed in the fact that his previous film was in color, but I think it was a lot more impactful because it was black and white. Absolutely. And he had the ability to play with shadow and reflections and things so much more with black and white than he would have if it was a color film. Well, uh,
Speaker 3:It's like when they're, when you're trying to learn photography. Yeah. You know, you're supposed to start with black and white simply because color does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. There's just a lot more going on with color. There's so many more variables. Um, and with black and white, it's so much more about the composition and the juxtaposition of just your simple gradient, you know? Uh, and you just, you, I think you have to be a better photographer to pull off black and white and you do have to do them for color. But, um, I mean, we saw this when we get to the 1998 remake, which is nearly a shot for shot remake of the film.
Speaker 2:It's more than that.
Speaker 3:Oh, well, I mean, how, how can it be more
Speaker 2:It's because, so first of all, they use the same exact script, same exact locations. And well, mostly the blocking of the actors, the way the facial expressions, they literally, and we talked about this, they literally studied what the original actors did and then did the same thing. And it comes off as very disingenuous. Right? Like you don't with Vince Vaughn and we'll talk about this more, but like with Vince Vaughn, you're not like, Oh, it's creepy. You're like, Oh, he watched Anthony Perkins play Norman Bates. And he's doing that. Like Anthony Perkins, you watch him. And you're like, Oh, he's of Bates. You watch Vince Vaughn. And you're like, Oh, he's Anthony Perkins or he's trying to be. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But that movie was in color. Yes. And it was not nearly as creepy. No, not at all. Or as just like, I didn't care about anything. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The tone and feel of the film switches very quickly after Marianne is killed most, most film theorists,
Speaker 3:Spoiler, spoiler alert, these things,
Speaker 2:Spoiler alerted the whole episode. We also just talked for 10 minutes about the shower scene, where she's killed. We said she gets murdered the tone and feel of the film switches very quickly after Marianne is murdered. Most film theorists agree that this is a classic case of a red herring Hitchcock sets up Marion as the main character and focus of the film, making her abrupt murder even more disturbing. So the fact that she survived for 45 minutes of the film, which is about a third of the film, is very bizarre for this kind of movie weird, you know, you would never spend 45 minutes on character development to set up a murder victim. It's very out of the norm. And so there's some different theories here.
Speaker 3:You might, but you wouldn't set up to be a murder victim and then have the whole movie switched protagonists. Right. That was just wild.
Speaker 2:And yeah. So there's a few theories. One is a, of course it's this red herring and we build up this connection with her. And when she's taken from us, it's disturbing, right?
Speaker 3:We're in an era of, uh, filmmaking when these things aren't cliche yet one, uh, one really fun bit about just like watching older films that kind of like wrote the book on things is that you are watching these tropes that are now a hundred percent cliche. But back when these films came out, they were, they were brand spanking new. They caught the audience off guard. Um, and in this case they still even broke the normal cliche by taking away someone that was absolutely covered in plot armor. You know, normally your protagonist, if you have spent so much intimate time getting to know them, you know, getting inside their little private moments in their head of like, you know, their wants and dreams of their motive, character motivations, right. And then they get into a dangerous situation. They get out of it because of the protagonist that's pot armor. But no Norman Bates shows up stabby stab. She's done.
Speaker 2:She's done. So yeah, absolutely. It's uh, it's bizarre. Even now it is honestly, it's bizarre. And it's a very long time to set this up. There are so many slasher movies, right. Where they keep certain victims alive for a long period of time, you know? And like, you know, people are killed kind of like throughout, right. Which is similar to what happens in this film. But our relationship as viewers with Marion becomes intimate. Like you said. And so we're solely focused on her. It's not like as a teen slumber party, right. Where people are one by one getting killed. It's not the group. It's everybody. It's you're right. She is the one person that we care about in this,
Speaker 3:I guess just imagine you're watching an alien and then 40 minutes into the film, Ripley dies. Right. And then you're just on the, on the spaceship with the alien as the alien talks to its dead mom. Okay. That's I'd watched that movie a cycle in space, right that down.
Speaker 2:So there's a very heavy influence of Freud in this movie. Okay. Norman Bates, sexual fixation on his mother, AKA the AK, the Oedipus complex.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah. So Oedipus complex of wanting to kill your father and sleep with your mother. Tell us about Oedipus, Rex, the guy. Yeah. You want it? The story of Oedipus Rex,
Speaker 2:Aren't you? The, the Greek expert of the
Speaker 3:Show. Okay. Sure. Oedipus was born and there was a prophecy saying that he was going to kill his father, the King and Mary, his mother, the queen. And so as soon as Oedipus was born, they're like, Oh. No. So they grabbed him by his ankle and they threw them down a Hill. They grabbed him by his ankle. They grabbed him by his ankle and threw him down a Hill. Yeah. I never knew that ankle part before. Yeah. It's his name? Um, I forgot what the edit, the edit part. It's something, it's something foot. His name is something fun. Interesting. And Oedipus, Rex is Oedipus the King. So he survives and he's on his way back to town. And he meets his guy on a horse and he was like, guy, good other way. And we hoard it, like, you, not the horse, the guy in the horse. Uh, I was like, get out, get out of my way. And Oedipus is like, don't, you know who I am? And like in the guy in the horse is like, I dunno who you are. Do you know who I am? He says, no. I said, okay, let's. Let's with each other. And they fight and Oedipus kills this guy because he's, he was kind of being a jerk. Right. The guy in the horse was kind of horses being a jerk. So Oedipus kills him. He didn't want to kill him, but you know, we've just been true. So he gets back, he gets back to town. He, and he like grew up knowing that he was a King or like he came from like Royal blood. But he thought he came from like some, some distant land. Right. Yup. And so he gets back,
Speaker 2:He didn't realize they just threw him down the Hill by his ankle. That's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so he gets back and I forget the exact order of events, but he eventually rises up through the ranks and ends up marrying the widowed queen. Oh, I'm sorry. Back up. So there's a, there's a big hunt for the killer of the King. And Oedipus is like leading this hunt. He was like, Oh, who killed the King? This is crazy little Tino. That was the guy in the horse. Yup. So
Speaker 2:You would think he would maybe ask, you know, what would make the connection?
Speaker 3:You'd think, you'd think so, but it's, it's tough back then. They didn't have internet. So, um, he ends up rising up through the ranks, marrying the queen, which is actually his mother Jocasta is that her might be Jocasta. Then as soon as he finds out that the guy that the guy that he killed was the King, his father, and that he is the killer himself and the, the, the woman that he's stupid is his mom stupid. Uh, he is just so overcome by grief that he takes, uh, some pokers and he gouges out his own eyes.
Speaker 2:This is the second episode. Now you said stupid. It is. I thought you just made that up. Is that a real thing?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's just, yeah, of course. It's a real thing. So thank you, Ellen. For the, for that, I mean, it's, it's mildly inaccurate.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's our slogan here. But all of that to say that there is very strong Oedipus complex issues in this story. So the quick background for those who may have forgotten around Norman's mother Norman's mother and Norman were very close. Right. They lost his dad. So the two of them were very close for a very long time
Speaker 3:And wait to find out what happened to Norman's father when we watched three and four, because they keep bringing back old family members.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so he, so right. He, him and his mom really close cause they lost his dad. And one day his mom takes new lover and Norman feels like he's been shut out. Right? So he murders them. He poisons her T murders them. And then he keeps the body. He will, he goes and gets the body. Or he, I think he gives him a way to cough it. And he just keeps her body and preserves it in the fruit cellar
Speaker 3:Because he's good at taxidermy
Speaker 2:That's right. Preserves it and carries her around, you know, hangs out with her and starts to develop in his head, a voice that represents her. And so what happens when Marianne comes is that Norman is attracted to her and his mother, half of his brain kills. It becomes jealous and kills the girl Oedipus complex. One-on-one really? Yeah. Additionally, the Bates' home is set up on three levels, which some things are meant to represent. Freud's three levels of subconscious, super ego, ego, and ed,
Speaker 3:Which I have to think is nothing but masturbatory, cinema studies majors talking about this movie.
Speaker 2:Could it be though you and I are both film students. I don't love him. Nope. The uncanny or homely, which is a feeling of unease you get when you experienced something familiar, but suddenly it feels unfamiliar. So the idea, right. Of seeing like a teacher outside of school is a really good example for Betty scene with the supermarket. That's got it. So embarrassing within horror, we often see uncanny doubles or doppelgangers, the evil side of someone that we see reflected in a mirror, for example, like black Swan. If you've seen the movie sisters by Brian de Palma, one of my all time, favorite movies, great example of this as well. Even more broadly, we talk about the humanoid shape, right? So we have our most famously our episode on clowns, where we talked about how clowns are so scary because they look so close to a human normal, normal human looks like, but there's something about them that's off. Right. And so almost like the more subtle the awfulness, the creepier it is attack on Titan is another great example of the uncanny Valley.
Speaker 3:Right? Cause the Titans just, they, they have like normal, cute human features sorta, but everything is just twisted a little bit.
Speaker 2:And their mouths are like gaping. Right.
Speaker 3:But it's perfectly normal human teeth, which makes it if they had fangs so much less scary. Yeah. But the fact that they have perfectly normal human choppers
Speaker 2:Choppers. Yeah. It's like the it's like too close for comfort. You know, and most obviously mother acts in psycho as Norman's alter ego and uncanny, double, however, Marianne and Norman are also doubles. So their names actually contain very similar letters, which is believed to be on purpose because, because the character in the novel is called the Mary not Maryanne. So it Hitchcock changed that. And of course, Norman is very close to normal, is it not?
Speaker 3:Uh, it is very close to a normal,
Speaker 2:Another, another cinematography thing is that, um, most of their interactions and Marianne and Norman interact, there's a mirror in the background, reflecting them back to the audience. So here's a quote from the parallax view. Page two 27 Marion's world is the world of contemporary American everyday life. Whereas Norman's world is the nocturnal reverse. The relationship between the two worlds is that of two surfaces of a Mobius strip. If we progress far enough to one surface, all of a sudden we find ourselves on it's reverse. So these two characters and their story arcs are dependent on each other. There are many film critics and scholars that have looked very closely at the nuances of this film and how psychology plays into the actual cinematography and editing. So does that sort of make sense, right? That Marion represents like all she desires is to have like this quote unquote normal life. Right. She wants to marry her boyfriend. She wants to be on the up and up. She wants things to work out for them, even though he's kind of trying to keep her as kind of like a hotel gal, you know, hotel now, like he wants to like hook up with her and he's not really being committing, you know? And then on the other side you have Norman who is very respectful of her at first. Right. He doesn't go into her room when they have dinner, he sets up boundaries right
Speaker 3:On an in-depth look at my hotel gal, please check out our episode on the Bowery hotel
Speaker 2:And right. So Norman, but he, he kind of runs as motel, right. He's kind of like the other side of it. And so there's this duality between the two of them that they're both seeking things at. They're both stuck in some ways, right outside of their own. They have this whole conversation in the back of the hotel office about how they're both in these various cages that she set up this cage for herself because she stole this money, but that she felt trapped before. Right. Because her life wasn't progressing and Norman on the other hand is also in this cage again by his own doing right. Because he did all, he has this mental illness, he did all this stuff that got him into this situation. But that he's also stuck in this cycle of mental cycle with his mother.
Speaker 3:The one thing, I mean, this, this is more of just like a talking point because everything is just done so well. But the one thing that I didn't really that I just, it just kind of took me, it struck me as odd was that she stole money. She's a criminal. Yeah. And she becomes like the murdered innocence in the film.
Speaker 2:Well, does she? I feel like she still has. She gets a lot of, uh, uh, what's the right word. She gets back. She gets to know, she gets a lot of like heartache. I feel like from the PI people are, you know, she says she has set up out, they're looking for her. They don't realize she's murdered right away. They're looking for her to find the money. Right.
Speaker 3:Right. So maybe it's a plot device in order to justify looking for her. Right. I mean, I don't know. I feel like it adds a whole, other of her character complexity.
Speaker 2:No, that's the point that her neither her nor Norman are entirely good nor bad. Oh, you know, she is she's murdered, but she stole a ridiculous amount of money from a guy, but still right. And then on the other side, like Norman has this mental illness in a lot of ways, he's a victim of, and of circumstances and all these things. And he's so charming and cute, but he's also a murderer. Right. So
Speaker 3:Cute in the original. Yeah. Not, not as Vince Vaughn and then a sequel. Yeah. Yes. He's even well and psycho too. He's 20 years older. Yeah. And he's still, for me, that's when boyish Norman Bates comes through even more, I think. And he's just like a really great actor.
Speaker 2:I agree. We should watch more of his movies.
Speaker 3:I hope he's in the Michael Bay. Remake of the bird,
Speaker 2:The birds. Yeah. So again, let's talk a little bit about the cinematography and the editing and how that helps drive home. Some of the points they used, both of those things to make this film that they did. So, one example of this is that until Maryanne is in the car heading for the motel, the film only uses, fades between shots to convey the passage of time. However, in this scene, we see that the filmmakers switched to straight cut. So suddenly, you know, boom, the sky is much darker. Boom. The sky is darker again. And we're not getting cross fades between us to say like, which is a classic film tool to say, time has passed. It's just being like jump cutting. Right? Yep. And at the same time, the camera is coming in closer and closer and closer. And so a lot of people think that they're doing this because Marianne is not aware of the time passing that she's stuck in her own head. Right. In this moment, in this scene, we also experienced her imagining how her boss will react when he finds the money is gone. She's hearing his voice. She's hearing the guy that she stole the money from. She's hearing all of these voices and hearing them talk about her and she's smiling. Yeah. So we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Hang on. We'll get to that in a minute. So she's right. She's frantic, she's distracted. She's caught up as she drives, right? Yeah. The shots, like I said, get closer and closer. The depth of field decreases so that the things around her are more out of focus and more or less aware of her surroundings, the rain becomes heavy. The lighting becomes dramatic. She's very shadowed. So it's a transition from day to night, but it's also a transition from reality to subconscious from Marion's world to Norman's world, right? At the end of this sequence, Marion smiles and looks directly into the camera, which precisely mirrors Norman's famous shot later in the film, right. Where he's in the, uh, holding cell. And he looks into the lens and smiles and shot by shot with those next to each other. Would you can Google very easily is very, very obviously deliberate.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think they did that on purpose. Yeah. And,
Speaker 2:And I think to answer your question, it's exactly what we were just talking about. Right. Like to say, every like also hello, when Norman says we all go a little mad, sometimes the point is that neither of them are good nor evil. They're both they're humans and they have this cycles to them right. Where she goes through this arc. And then he goes through a similar art, you know, in that moment, it's sort of like when she smiles to me, it proves out this like little bit of criminal inside of her, for lack of a better word where she sure she's like, I she's picturing in her head all of the aftermath of her crime and then she smiling about it. Right. Which is exactly what Norma does at the end. You know, it's true. I mean, obviously not to equate like stealing money and murdering people, but well, you know, so again, later on when Norman is in the holding cell, right. He also hears his mother's voice in a voiceover, just as Marianne heard the stern words of her boss that are both talking about them. The parallels really are endless. The client that Marianne takes the money from comes across as fatherly but older. And they also flirt. Then she even talks about how she flirts with them, which many people see as kind of like the, a similar relationship with Norman and his mother later on like a fatherly figure that there's some weird sexual. I gotcha. Yeah. Another parallel. What does Marianne really want? The film starts with a scene between her and her lover, Sam meeting at a hotel on their lunch break to have sex, which again, this scene was groundbreaking at the time. So she tells Sam that she won't keep doing this. She wants a respectable relationship where they have dinner at her house with her sister, the portrait of her mother is looking over them. Right. That she's like he wants to meet in hotels. She wants to have, you know, a quote unquote, more above board type of relationship right later on Norman and Marianne have dinner. Right. She gets to the motel, he says, you hungry, I'll make you some sandwiches and milk. And he brings a sandwich, the tray of sandwiches to her room, but then he won't come inside. He says, Oh, come in the parlor, which many people think is sort of, I don't know what the right word is, but he's, he could have gone if he was into her. Right. He could have gone into this room and tried to make a move. But instead he's, he puts up this boundary of like, no, come let's have dinner together. And a more respect,
Speaker 3:Like, because my mother doesn't want me going in that room. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Um, and so it's kind of like this up response to her desire, right? At the beginning she wants, she paints this picture of, I just want my boyfriend to come to my house for dinner, with my sister. I don't want to just keep having sex in this hotel room. And she meets Norman and he's like, no, I don't want to go into this hotel room with you. I want you to come and have dinner with me in my right. So it's sort of like this weird call and response to our initial desire. First invites her up to his house.
Speaker 3:And it's only after the mother, if you will starts yelling that she's not welcome in the house that he has to go back with his tail, his tail between his legs being like, Hey, sorry. Yeah, let's just
Speaker 2:Right. But he still doesn't go into her room. No, he doesn't. Should've been, you know,
Speaker 3:He offers exactly what she wanted. Yeah. To have a dinner in a house with a family.
Speaker 2:That's right. So Hitchcock uses shadow as well in the film and the opening scene, Venetian blinds fall across Marion and the hotel room mother is only seen in shadow until the end. When we find out that it's actually Norman, including like you were talking about the famous shower scene where she, he sowed doused in shadow, you only see the silhouette, you see the wig. And so you assume it's his mother. Right? Right. And so there's also the theme of birds, birds, not the movie, the birds Norman talks about how much he loves stuffing things. And he's surrounded by his taxidermy birds. Marian's last name is also crane. The motel rooms have tons of photos of birds on the walls. And Norman even tells Marion at one point that he eats like a bird.
Speaker 3:Well, um, one thing to know, uh, is that the birds on the wall in her room yeah. Are just like small little run of the mill birds. Right. And then all the birds stuffed in Norman's office are birds of prey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. That's a great, call-out many also believe that Bates, his mother acts as the original bird because he preserved her for so long. And uh, also obviously considered right. And he has this tax at Emory words, but also consider the way that mother birds take care of their nested babies. Very, uh, intimate birds, birds, psycho, the book was loosely based on the true events of one of the most famous serial killers in modern history. William Page Gacy, ed, ed, Dean.
Speaker 3:Is that his lineage case? No. I'm thinking wage. Macy. Yeah. You're thinking of John Wayne. Gacy. J yeah, because William H Macy was in the cycle remake.
Speaker 2:That's right. So be warned for this next section. I'm not going to go into this too deeply, but just be warned it's a little bit.
Speaker 3:Cause that's what other podcasts do a deep dive into serial killers. And that's not us, that's not us drawing that line in the sand right here,
Speaker 2:Drawing the line in the sand because we don't love those podcasts. We're drawing a line in the sand because they're already doing such a great job, you know? Yeah. That's it. So be warned again, that ed Gaines crimes are horrific and incredibly dark, and we're only going to cover them really briefly. But if you want a more, in-depth look at this monster, I will direct you to episode 174, five and six of last on the left. Oh,
Speaker 3:It's like what, what a little, I don't remember doing those,
Speaker 2:Which is, um, a three-part series on ed Dean. And again, they are really my true crime experts. They are so well-researched and I enjoy their personalities very much. So I will direct you to the last podcast on the left if you want to learn more. But again, this is very, very dark stuff. Okay. First and foremost, psychos writer, Robert block only lived about 40 miles from ed gain. The similarities between gain and baits are undeniable. Most influential, both had overbearing mothers who died. Both had dedicated a secret room in their homes as a shrine to their dead mother. And both also dressed up in the clothes of their deceased mothers. Ed Jean was born on August 27th, 1906. His crimes were committed in his hometown
Speaker 3:Seven years after Alfred
Speaker 2:Hitchcock. That's true. His crimes were committed in his hometown, Plainfield, Wisconsin, though. He is believed to be a serial killer. Geena's only actually convicted with the murder of two women making him technically not a serial killer. What's the cutoff, maybe three. Oh, I don't know. Here's where things get a bit rough gain was known to exume bodies from their graves, remove human skin and make things out of it. Oh, like the guy from silence of the lambs. In addition to the heads of the two women, he was convicted of killing being found on his property. And in his home police also found multiple human noses, nine human skin masks bowls made from human skulls. And I'm going to stop here because it gets very, very graphic. The things that he hoarded collected, categorized Pokemon cards, no, all of them coming from dead bodies. Oh very upsetting stuff. A lot of genitalia being grouped into shoe boxes. It's not a good scene. It should not be surprising to learn that Leatherface is another character often believed to be based on gain and Buffalo bill from silence of the lamps. As he just said, gain's mother was famously controlling and overbearing allowing her children only to leave the house to go to school, to prevent the influence of outsiders on her family. She also taught her sons that all women, except for herself were sex workers and instruments of the devil. She was a devout Lutheran and held considerable control over her sons. We can start to see the similarities right between baits and gains also gain. I said gains the strange controlling relationship between mother and son, especially when it comes to their interaction with perspective romantic partners. Also the condemnation of all women Bates essentially punishes himself on behalf of his mother for being attracted to crane after arrest IIN, underwent many psychological tests. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and among other things. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which obviously Norman Bates also suffers from though according to block the writer, he had already started writing the character when gene was discovered. Um, and so I'm quoting him here. He was struck by how closely the imaginary character had created resembled the real ed gain, both an overact and apparent motivation and quote block road. A fictionalized story of gain called the shambles of ed Dean, which came out a few years later in 1962. So you can check that out. If you're interested in diving, even deeper into this block has also hinted that Norman Bates is also based on Calvin Beck and Beck is the publisher of Caslow Frankenstein, which was a comic book, but I can't find more about why him and, uh, Norman Bates are connected castle
Speaker 3:Frankenstein. That's a different, that's different. That's from Frankenstein.
Speaker 2:Psycho is one of the most famous films of all time across any genre though. Speaking specifically about horror as we do here, psycho set a new precedent. It's loaded with themes and motifs packing subtleties and complexities into each frame. Hitchcock pays great attention, not only to the depth of his stories, but how he can best use cinematography to bring the audience into his film. Slasher movies, all pay homage in their own way to the shower scene in psycho and all psychological thrillers seem to STEM from this original version in some way. Any filmmaker who dabbles in the dark side of humanity? Oh, something to psycho. All right. Let's dive into our opinions here on the movies. We will.
Speaker 3:I have one more historical question. Okay. What is the definition of a psycho?
Speaker 2:Well, a psycho is a psychopath, right? And what's the definition of a psychopath. Okay. I'm going to read you the Miriam Webster definition, just like it's a bridesmaid speech. Okay. The definition of psychopath, a mentally unstable person, especially a person having an egocentric and antisocial personality marked by a lack of remorse for one's actions and absence of empathy for others and often criminal tendencies. So usually psychopaths are defined by that lack of empathy that because they like Ted Bundy, for example, right. Because they don't underst I mean, it's one thing to lack empathy, you know, and it's another, it's another thing to become a serial killer, but it's almost like this perfect, not perfect, but rare set of circumstances that, that come to be when you have somebody who has this part of their brain, right. That's not functioning in a way that other people's parts of their brain function. And then maybe they're raised in a certain environment or something happens to them. Right. And it kind of can create this psychopath or serial killer, but not all psychopaths are criminal, but usually when you have someone who does really horrific crimes like this, there's, you know what I mean? That there's part, there's the empathy part is missing. That makes a lot of sense. Oh, and one other thing too, to call out, just the idea of isolation in psycho is really important. You know, how Norman Bates is alone in this motel, essentially for years and years. It's a thing in the movie that the main highway, the hotel used to sit on a main highway, but then the highway was moved. Right. And so now people rarely go there. So it's, and he's still like changing the sheets every week. And you know, so it's like this weird thing of isolation, which is very similar to ed Dean who was totally isolated from the world. I just wanted to make sure that that, uh, similarity was called out.
Speaker 3:Some might say it drives you nuts. We all
Speaker 2:Go a little mad sometimes.
Speaker 3:Right. Okay. So, uh, I mean, now it's like the portion where we start talking about our thoughts on the films, but we've been kind of doing that throughout. Yeah. So the only thing that I want to say, cause like, okay, psycho gray movie, psycho remake, bad movie, uh, psycho too. I loved it. You didn't love it as much.
Speaker 2:I don't know how I, like, I think I liked the movie, but for me, so this is what happens.
Speaker 3:Well, hang on the, for this, I don't want to drop spoilers.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just going to say the setup of the movie.
Speaker 3:Okay. Because this, I think this is a movie that's absolutely worth watching.
Speaker 2:I agree. I agree. And there's some twists and turns and I doubt many people have seen it. Yeah. I didn't know it existed. And it's got Anthony Perkins in it and it takes place on the same set. Like it's, it's not a bad movie by any means. The part for me where I'm struggling, which is not a spoiler, is that the premise of the movie is that Norman Bates is released from the, from jail slash the hospital that he's in because he has a doctor who believes that he has made all of these strides and sort of it's, it's interesting because it's like, Oh, we've we figured out a way pastor schizophrenia. Right? And so now you can, like, these crimes were not your fault. That's very much how he's painted in the movie. Right. As like the victim of his own mental health, which I think is a very like sympathetic and progressive in some ways view of it. But I also think for the level of crimes that he committed kill seven people, you, this would never happen. Right? You would not be released in this way. And they said, because he was guilty by reason of insanity that, because now he's just quote unquote not insane that he's being released into the world. He's
Speaker 3:Done his time to society. Right.
Speaker 2:But I think, I think that part to me was jumping the shark a little. But then when you get past that and you accept the fact that this is what's happening in the movie, I agree that the rest of the movie is very good.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean the only more plausible way to get him back on the streets would be is if they like did something really stupid, like forgot to him, read a book, read his Miranda rights, you know? And it's just like a court error that gets him out. No matter what you do, putting Norman Bates back on the streets is going to seem like, um, Deus ex Mokena.
Speaker 2:Well, they put him, the thing is though they put him back into his life. Well, and that is, what's surprising, surprising. They were like, here, go live in this house. Like good luck friend.
Speaker 3:Well, th the other thing that should be noted is that we're really nitpicking the re the bits that, like, it seems a bit too much like a movie because the rest of the film seems so grounded in reality.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, again, I'm not, I'm not at all saying it's a bad movie. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3:What I'm saying is like these plot holes are only getting the light of day because the rest of the film is so strong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. And that psycho too. And I think three and four, which we still have to watch are on peacock. If you have that streaming service, which is free ad supported. So a low barrier of entry, if you want to take a look, there
Speaker 3:Are just so many twists and turns throughout this film
Speaker 2:In Sanco, too. Yeah.
Speaker 3:That even when like you and I are like calling out like, Oh, wow, this is what's happening. This is the secret agenda of these characters. And then two minutes later, like, yeah, we were right. But we're, we there's twists upon twists. Uh, so I guess it's very a Hitchcockian movie without, but it wasn't direct.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No Hitchcock wasn't involved in anything with psycho beyond the original movie.
Speaker 3:I don't think he's ever made a SQL to one of his homes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't believe that he, he did either.
Speaker 3:A lot of his films have sequels. You just got to
Speaker 2:Google. Okay. So yeah. So that's psycho to which go watch it because again, it doesn't suck
Speaker 3:Or you can really enjoy it. Like I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Psycho the remake from 1998. So we talked about it briefly. Vince Vaughn, Rita Wilson, William H Macy,
Speaker 3:Julianne Moore that. No, Julia Mara was great too. Julie Mara is great. She plays a better sister than the sister does.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Star-studded cast. But again, it was literally besides a few weird choices and things that they added, which were bizarre to me and didn't make sense. Psychologically, the film was literally, it looked like a people playing like, you know what I mean? It was like, Oh, anyway. And we had, cause we had just watched psycho. We knew it was so fresh in our minds. Like not only is the script identical, but every action of every character was pretty much identical. Know
Speaker 3:You've seen Groundhog's day. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the scene where once bill Murray is like, realizes he's stuck in the loop and he's trying to recreate the first eight that fall that makes Annie McDowell fall for him. He's just trying to recreate that like lightning in a bottle that natural spark. And he's just like going through the motions. Cause he knows it works. Yep. But it doesn't work. And like she calls him out on it because it's like, it doesn't feel right. Yeah. That's a psychoed remake. Yeah, absolutely. It, I said,
Speaker 2:It's like, it's like, if I felt like drama students learning how to be in a film by mimicking, like you don't have the, the core of it that anyway, just
Speaker 3:By the fact that these are some amazing actors. Amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's just interesting. Like visually I don't mind that. I know you didn't love it, but it, it falls flat. Like it kind of feels like what's the point of remaking it this way. Like where it's identical, like what's the point,
Speaker 3:But then like some semi forgettable characters in the first one, like the sister and the, the gumshoe, you know, the pie, the pie. Yeah. I don't know that they're forgettable forgettable, but just like, I don't think when you're talking about psycho you're like, did you, do you remember the sisters performance? Wow. That was great. Yeah. No, but then you watch Julianne Moore just like dropping fire, uh, as she just like demands answers about her sister saying the exact same.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the interesting thing too. I think she makes it work really well. Other actors don't like the, the, the dialogue seems outdated and hatch plays Marion crane. And so the, the dialogue seems outdated in some sections because it is, you know, and I think Julian Moore pulls it off where maybe others don't, but it's, it's weird. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 3:Know. Anyways, it don't watch it. It's not worth it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But it's also on Pete Huck. I think if you want to,
Speaker 3:Oh, these are all, they're all in peacock. Yeah. Except the originals
Speaker 2:Of the original, which I think is on Hulu. But anyway, I think, I think that wraps up our psycho, uh, episode. So, uh, you know, psycho, we, we did the, the episode on the Stanley hotel with the shining. These ones are, I think like really key staples when you're looking at horror. Right. And how the genre has evolved
Speaker 3:Psycho podcast. What'd she say, Bob,
Speaker 2:I'm going to get sued now. Well, thank you all so much for listening. If you have other movies, other classics that you think we should take a look at, you know, where to find,
Speaker 3:I have to be historically re revel. No, actually they don't have to be historically relevant. Cause apparently Abby can just start digging and she pulls a whole bunch of history on how I was really surprised. I didn't think that there was going to be a ton on this one. Oh, here we are. This huge episode. That's very historically relevant.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, we could do a whole episode just on Alfred Hitchcock as a person, let alone the films that he makes, you know, there, they really were so influential at the time and still to this day. So let us know what Phil.
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah. So this is, uh, as Abby Abby's next deep dive into Muppets too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So do you have any other films that are not Muppets too, that you want us to take a deeper look at? Let us know. Well, folks that wraps it up. Well, thank you so much for listening as always. You can find us at the Linda ticks project on Instagram or lunatics, project.com where you can access our films. All of our podcast episodes, all of our projects and our Patrion until next time stay safe. Stay spooky.
Speaker 1:Bye.