If you hate modern horror, blame Ed Gein, the 1940s and 50s Wisconsin murderer and grave robber.  

When Robert Bloch was looking for a suitably grisly subject for his novel Psycho, he used his Ed.  And when Alfred Hitchcock adapted it for the big “scream”, he inadvertently gave birth to what would become the modern slasher movie.

Paramount weren’t happy a star director was ending his contract with them on such a lowly (and low budget at $800,000) project.  Particularly when he was coming off the starry, high-key sheen of North By Northwest for MGM, a film that incidentally contains more deaths than Psycho.

But, Hitchcock's genius was in using a crew borrowed from his Alfred Hitchcock Presents... TV show to shoot a stylistically low-key, realistic looking movie with a big star who wouldn't make it past the halfway point.

And, casting the sensitive-faced and likeable Perkins as the young lad who covers up "mother's" grisly misdeeds played on an already paranoid country’s suspicion that no-one could be trusted. 

This mistrust runs through Psycho from the moment Marion Crane (the Oscar nominated Leigh) absconds with $40,000 of her boss’ money so she can marry her broke lover Sam (Gavin).  Sweaty paranoia is there in the film’s first big suspense scene as Marion is trailed by a nosey highway patrolman who senses something is up with the woman’s nervy demeanour. 

But, the least trustworthy people are Hitchcock and writer Joseph Stefano.  Focussing on Marion’s crime and anxiety for 46 minutes, they cruelly shift gears with that shower scene.

In under two minutes Hitchcock changed horror cinema, with only one barely glimpsed breast (not Leigh’s), no shots of the knife penetrating skin, and chocolate sauce for blood. 

Psycho’s shower murder is a heart-racing montage of over 70 quick disorientating images (borrowed from Soviet film theory, so Joseph McCarthy was right), with Bernard Herrmann’s terrifying strings-only score matching the panic and confusion on Leigh’s face.

Although storyboarded by title designer legend Saul Bass, rumours that he directed it are false.  As critic Kim Newman pointed out, you think an old perv like Hitch would have passed up seven days with a near-naked Janet Leigh?

After this the story switches to focus on Sam and Marion’s sister Lila (Miles) investigating her disappearance, a device later used by Tarantino in Death Proof.  

Luckily, Perkins’ performance as he tries to deflect the attentions of Sam, Lila, and Martin Balsam’s detective Arbogast is so magnetic Hitchcock achieves this sleight of hand.  

Arbogast’s jovial interrogation of Norman is a supreme example of Hitch’s ability in getting you to side with the wrong guy (and watch how shadows dance and twitch on Norman's face as he eats a cracker).

The single murder that follows the shower scene is a triumph of camera placement and back projection putting the audience in the hot seat.

The final twist is pop culture common knowledge, but for the three people out there still in the dark, we won't spoil it.

Sequels followed, and a TV series, and a horrible, artsy Gus Van Sant remake, but none came close to cutting this deep.

And Ed Gein?  He also inspired The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.  Not someone to take home to mother then..?

Rob Daniel