From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Psycho (1959) is a suspense novel by Robert Bloch.
Characters
in Psycho
Major
characters
Minor
characters
Allusions
In November 1957 — two years before Psycho was first
published — Ed Gein was
arrested in his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin for the
murders of two women. When police searched his home, they found
furniture, silverware, and even clothing made of human skin and
body parts. Psychiatrists examining him theorized that he was
trying to make a "woman suit" to wear so he could pretend to be his
dead mother, whom neighbors described as a puritan who dominated her son.
At the time of Gein's arrest, Bloch was living 35 miles
(56 km) away from Plainfield in Weyauwega. Familiar with
the Gein case but not the specific details, Bloch began writing
with "the notion that the man next door may be a monster
unsuspected even in the gossip-ridden microcosm of small-town
life." Bloch was surprised years later when he "discovered how
closely the imaginary character I'd created resembled the real Ed
Gein both in overt act and apparent motivation." [1]
Sequels
Bloch later wrote two sequels, Psycho II and Psycho House.
Neither were related to the film sequels. In the novel Psycho
II, Norman escapes the asylum disguised as a nun and makes his
way to Hollywood, as the world appears to have
gone crazier than him. Universal
Pictures allegedly did not want to film it because of its
social commentary of splatter films. In the novel Psycho House,
murders begin again when the Bates Motel is reopened as a tourist
attraction.
Adaptations
Film
Bates Motel Set at Universal Studios, Hollywood CA
Bloch's novel was adapted in 1960 into the feature
film by director Alfred Hitchcock. It was written by Joseph Stefano
and starred Anthony Perkins as Bates and Janet Leigh in an Academy
Award-nominated performance as Marion Crane (changed from
"Mary" for the film). Hitchcock helped devise a promotional and
marketing scheme for his film that insisted that critics would not
get advance screenings, and that no one would be admitted into the
theater after the film began. The promotional scheme also exhorted
audiences not to reveal the twist ending. Twenty-three years after
the release of Hitchcock's film and three years after the
director's death came the first of three sequels, all featuring Perkins. Gus Van Sant directed
a 1998 remake of the original
film in which virtually every camera angle and line of dialogue was duplicated from
the original. It starred Vince Vaughn as Bates and Anne Heche as Marion. It
was reviled by critics and performed poorly at the box office. The Hitchcock
version of the film, however, is often quoted as being one of the
scariest ever, making first place on the American Film Institute's list
of one
hundred most thrilling films.
References
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search