Psycho

A quote from Alfred Hitchcock. It wasn't a message that stirred the audience, nor was it a great performance. They were aroused by pure film. Hello, Sydney. It's your killer host. My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic. I'm Caroline, Scaredy Scream Queen. I'm Ian, Scary Movie Skeptic. And welcome to. What's your favorite scary movie? What's your favorite scary movie is a horror film podcast where we're on a journey to find our favorite scary movie one at a time. Whether you hate them or love them, join us and discover yours. Spoilers ahead, so plan your movie screening every weekend before the episode release. Ri, ring, ring, ring, we. Pretty good. Welcome to 2020. It's a new year and New Year, New Pod.

JK back to her old tricks. This week we're hitting a big boy. We are discussing 1960s Psycho, I believe the oldest film we have attempted to set our eyeballs on on this podcast. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Art Direction, Set Direction, Black and White, Best Cinematography Black and White, Best Director, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Marion Crane. Psycho was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who also directed Vertigo from 1958, and The Birds from 1963. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Director, including Rebecca from 1940, Lifeboat from 1942, Spellbound 1945, and Rear Window from 1954. He was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Oscar in 1968. Psycho was written by Joseph Stefano, who has written many episodes of The Other Limits in the 60s in the TV movie Psycho for the Beginning.

Psycho is based on the novel by Robert Bloch. And finally, I think one of the most recognizable pieces of Psycho is its score composed by Bernard Herman. He was already a renowned film composer, including having an Oscar for his work and all that money can buy from 1941 when he was brought onto Psycho. He also composed the theme song for The Twilight Zone. This movie stars Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. Norman Bay, more or less. Yeah. He was in Psycho 2 in 1983, Psycho 3 in 1986, and he also directed Psycho 3, which is kind of cool. And he was also in Psycho 4 from 1990. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Friendly Persuasion from 1956.

And was a queer man. He had a relationship with Rudolf Nereev. Ooh, dansa. I know. I put that note in just for you. And he actually died in 1992 from AIDS-related illnesses. But wow, way to bring it down, Caroline. This whole movie, I was just thinking, oh my god, how cute is he? Adorable. I know. I mean, minus the murder, I wouldn't have said no. Yeah, I mean, if he wasn't crazy, he would be a catch, small business owner, very kind. Picture this. You're in your motel room, you turn around, you see a hole in the wall with an eyeball watching, and you just go, Oh, why don't you come on over, Norm? Alright, alright. Moving on.

Um, we also have Janet Lee, who plays Marian Crane, a big draw for this movie, apparently. She was in Little Women in 1949, Angels in the Outfold. Outfield. Angels in the Outfield from 1951 and Bye bye Birdie. Bye bye 1963. Wait, who was she in Bye Bye Birdie? I don't know. I haven't seen that. I love that movie and musical. Well, you can Google it on your own time. Um, she also appeared in The Fog from 1980 and Halloween H2O from 1998 with her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis. Pew, pew, pew, pew. That's cool. So it runs in the fam. Yeah. Um, she actually died in 2004 after a long fight against vasculitis. Mmm. Janet Lee played Rosie DeLeon and Bye Bye Birdie.

Oh, she's like one of the main characters. So you should have known. The IMDB summary reads: a Phoenix secretary embezzles forty thousand dollars from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. Um, spoilers. Yeah, way to ruin it, IMDB. It's not like we've had sixty years. The Rotten Tomatoes critic score is a blazing ninety-six percent. Whoa! The audience score comes in just under that at ninety-five percent. Wow. Are you sure that's right? The uh critics consensus is quote, infamous from its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre. Because Psycho has filmed with tact, grace, and art, Hitchcock didn't just create modern horror, he validated it.

Wow. What? What's so funny about this? I don't know what she's laughing about. I you said infamous infamous for its shower scene, and I was about to lean in and say, same. Oh my god. Yeah, subscribe to our Patreon if you want to see that. For the right price. So, as stated, after Alfred Hitchcock unfortunately bit the dust and died. His birthday was the same as my mom's. Oh wow. Yeah. Savage. So unfortunately, after he died, they went on to make more psycho movies because he did not want that ish. There were three direct sequels, a spin-off TV movie called Bates Motel from 1987, and a quote, prequel TV show called Bates Motel from 2013, and it fucking slaps.

Yeah, that was a series you made us watch an episode, and then they didn't let it be a little bit more than a little bit more episode. Well, because I've seen it, I said, I think you'd like this. Watch it on your own time. These were only able to be made after Hitchcock's death in 1980. Oh! And there was a shot-for-shot remake from 1998 starring Vince Vaughn. Looks like a bummer. Haven't seen it. Before we started this movie, I made sure to tell you that Janet Lee was a big star. So people came to the theater because they were ready to see Janet Lee in a movie. Well, psych, this movie was shocking. Shut up. Psych Oh.

They pulled a scream. Yeah, they pulled a scream and they killed off Marion Lee. Marion Crane in 40 minutes. There was an hour left in that movie. Yeah, there was. So this movie was very shocking for its time, and it also had a huge ordeal being made. So we'll get to that a little bit later. Before we talk about any of that ish, I want to know, straight out the gate, what do you think about Psycho? Are you psycho for Psycho? I really enjoyed it. I was a little bit disappointed that I nailed the plot twist at the end as a joke early on in the movie. Yeah. Yeah. And Parker just laughed at me and then, surprise.

It happens. I guessed right. I actually saw that coming too. Yeah. Um initial thoughts. Uh, you know, it's been a long time since I actually got a little shut eye in on a movie. Um, this one was one of them. Really? Yeah. It was tough. I was trying my hardest. I think I love the fashion in this movie. Everybody, every all the dresses. I was like, hell yeah, I want to see more people wearing those. They're beautiful. I've seen better costumes in old movies. Wow, damn. I think the black and white takes it away from me. I'm drawn into the color. I think the black and white actually in this movie was lovely. No, I think it was lovely.

I mean, for costumes specifically, I was a little. I was so frustrated when when she made such a fuss at the hotel or motel when uh when Norman brought dinner, and she talked about it like he had really gone through some lengths and on the platter. Got in a whole fight with his mom. We're like three slices of bread. Yeah, she did have a very small, I mean, she's skinny. I knew then this movie was going down. I think I should get on that diet because I'd like to have the same waist that she does. She also took tiny bites and chewed for like 10 minutes. Yeah, like a bird. I think you're just uh seeing what you're supposed to see.

Good observation. This movie starts, and we have a little sexy time with Marion right off the bat. And I was just so like, come on, Marion, stop being a desperate diva. Because he clearly did not want to marry her, and she'd just be like, please marry me, and he'd be like, Oh, I mean, here are five reasons why I shouldn't. Were you humiliate humiliated for her? I didn't quite follow that sequence to be honest. I wasn't sure what was going on. Their relationship seems complicated to me. Mm-hmm. Like long distance. Because I thought that he like really loved her towards the end, but then I you bringing up this scene again made me just rethink everything.

Yeah, it is strange because he does he goes through quite a few lengths for her at the end, but he is very much just like, hey, crazy crazy lady, get away from me. I just want a bone. He just wanted some action. So then we get our famous Hitchcock cameo when they when Marion goes to her office, and Alfred Hitchcock is just chilling there outside the window. And psych not only is Alfred Hitchcock there, but his daughter is the other secretary at Marion's office. So you get a two for one double whambo. Interesting. The other thing I would like to bring up from their time at Marion's office is I'm dying of thirsteroni. Been there. Man, that guy, what a douche.

He was ready to squeeze Marion's cranes. Hell yeah. But unfortunately, he leaves her$40,000 to take to the bank. He's an idiot. And you know what she doesn't do? Take that money to the bank. He's an idiot. She's on the road. Here's my question, though, for you people. So we see Marion driving in the car. She's got Sam's voice going around in her head. And the first time I saw this, I was like, oh, well, that's she's just going to go see him. Obvious. But then this happens two more times. She drives away in her new car and she hears all of the voices in her head discovering that the money isn't there, that she doesn't come home talking to the car salesman, talking to the police officer.

And then you'll notice at the end of the movie, Norman sitting in the interrogation room, his mother's voice speaking in his head. So I wonder, do you think we're hearing something that's actually happening? And that's like plot filling us in on what's happening while she's gone? Or do you think she is imagining what is happening while she's away? And that leads into her kind of guilt to want to return the money later. What do you think? I think I would have liked it to be what her thoughts were, but I think it was just a tool to let us know what was actually happening. Here's a conspiracy. Don't lay it on us. What if Marion actually has always been a con and wasn't in fact going to see him?

Sam and was actually trying to con Sam at the beginning. And she's just a con artist. Maybe. But they all paid. That first scene, she was like, I pay too. And he's like, I pay. And she was like, no, I pay. He was like, uh. Yeah, I pay. I could see that. Suck on. I don't know. I don't know though, because she was super paranoid. And she, that interaction with her and the cop, she was just like, she would have been better at it. And the her boss at the what was that place? Like in the middle of the year. Oh, 10 years. Yeah, she had worked for that guy for ten years. So yada yada yada, all this drama with the police officer, what we all came for.

Marion arrives at the Bates Motel. And you know what I wrote my notes? I wrote, Normie, so sweet. He looks so cute in his sweaters. I did think he bears a resemblance to Ian. Okay. Don't ruin things for me, Caroline, please. So moving on from that, the first clue that we're given is he's like, Marion, I brought you some dinner. And she's like, Oh, I sure am hungry. Why don't you come into my bedroom? And he looks at her for like ten whole minutes and then says, Why don't we go into my office to eat it instead? So that's kind of our first clue that Norman does not want to put himself in a sexual situation that he'll feel uncomfortable in.

I mean, he seemed like he wanted it to start out. He was pretty flirtatious. Said every frat guy ever. I'm talking about a man here, okay. He was flirting, and then she Caroline, why don't you not judge him? He invited her to dinner at his house out in the middle of nowhere at a creepy motel. Yeah, well, his mom was home, so what were they gonna do? His mom's always home. I wrote down a few things about this dinner that they have together. One, he says. Well, a boy's best friend is his mother. Agree or disagree, Ian. I'm your best friend. But I actually really enjoy this conversation that they have about Norman saying that he's trapped in his circumstances.

I thought it it kind of set the scene for the sad tragedy that is Norman's life. Because you know what? It doesn't seem like he likes his mother very much, or maybe a little too much. But he clearly wants to get out. And you know what he says? A son is a poor substitute for a lover. Ian, agree or disagree? Agree. One other quote that I want to bring up from this dinner scene is one repeated in my favorite film, Scream. He says, We all go a little mad sometimes. Scary. And then classic rookie mistake, Marion. She says, My name is Miss Crane, and that she's headed back to Phoenix. She does all this stuff trying to m put on this Mary Samuels from Los Angeles thing, and then just gives herself away right away.

You know, so if she is a con man, then she sucks. She had a change of heart. I guess. And Norman, he just seems so sweet. Then we get Norman sneaking a peek on those titalones, and then a bigger peek because somebody sneaks in to her room while she's taking a little rinse in the shower, and we get probably I mean, I would say one of the most famous movie scenes in history. What? Yeah, whether you like it or not, that shower scene, I have seen that many times before I actually watched this movie. I have to say, with what they were working with, it was pretty artistically done. You're telling me you have never seen that shower scene.

Never. I think that that's you because I truly think that's one of the most famous movie moments in history. I have some fun facts about you. Get out of here, grudge. So here's a fun fact for you. This shower scene in the movie is under three minutes long. It included over 70 different camera setups and 50 cuts. That's not why I would qualify it as good. No, no, no. I'm just saying that's a fun fact. That's crazy. It is out of control how much time they put into this shower scene. And it it still looked like she missed knife. There were some funny scenes. I liked when the knife just appeared in front of her belly button and then cut away.

The stabbing noise was no impact. There is no Show me the penetration. Penetration. Well, the stabbing noise was created with a melon, and the blood was chocolate syrup. That's what you can do when it's black and white. Yeah. So talk to me, guys. Talk to me, talk to me, about what you think about Marion dying so early in the movie. Because we're led to believe this is our final girl, if we're looking at, you know, a slasher movie, air quotes. I think she's a pretty rounded and sympathetic character, and so it's shocking that she's slaughtered so early on. What'd you think? I I knew it was coming because she got to the motel pretty early on in the movie, and that triggered in me, like, oh, this motel is gonna be the rest of the story.

How is she gonna last that long in this portion of the movie? I feel like we had a good amount of background on her, so I felt fine with her leaving. It wasn't if it would have happened a little bit earlier, I would have been shocked. But it seemed like it was somewhere in the middle. But the thing is, is that everything leading up to this says that she's going to be like our last one standing. And so I think maybe that's why it could have felt long to you, Ian, or maybe because it didn't feel a little long, is because it feels like you've watched a complete movie when she dies, and then it's just not over.

So I would agree with that. I was watching an interview with the screenwriter. When he when Stefano pitched his ideas for the script, he didn't have a lot of experience. And Hitchcock was like, I'm not gonna work with someone who does not have experience. But he won him over because he proposed a trick to make the audience think. That the movie is not about Norman, but about Marion. So when that halfway twist comes that Marion's arc is finished and that she's dead, it's revealed that this was just this just served the purpose of getting us to Norman. And Norman is actually the pro not protagonist, but kind of the main central character of the film. So it's kind of funny, you know, we usually have like an opening scene to our slasher movies where somebody dies, and this time they just made it 40 minutes long.

I also read that the scene where Marion is on the floor and the camera zooms out from her eyeball was very difficult for them to get because she wanted to blink. Her eye moved. Did you guys see that? I saw her throat move. Oh. I was watching her eyeball and it moved. Just a twitch in death. So Norman's sad. He cleans it all up, but what he doesn't know is that there is 40,000 buckaroonies in that newspaper. And he just shoves it into that massive sinkhole with everything else, including Marion. And I think that's something else that's kind of spooky, is that all in this one moment, he just wipes away like her whole existence. She's just gone.

And he didn't even get the money for it. Don't run away, kids. Any thoughts on that sinkhole? A little poopy? Convenient. Yeah. Convenient for a killer. I mean, he was very methodical of like cleaning everything up. So right from that scene, I was like, okay, this has clearly happened before in the past. How many times have you just come across a sinkhole in your life? I haven't spent very much time in California, so. But also like, how convenient for him. I'm sure the first time that this happened, he was like, hey, I could use that back there. Yeah, and you'll notice at the end when we have this explanation scene that we can talk about later, they say that there are two missing girls, and that he was like, Yeah, I think Norman did those two.

So it does seem like this was not his first hurrah. And he killed his mom and her boyfriend. Revealed that pretty soon, Parker. Oh, sorry. Well, I mean, they said that, you know, at the end, I guess. So all this nonsense with his with uh Marion's sister Lila and her boyfriend Sam Loomis, who you might recognize that name as uh Dr. Loomis in Halloween, or Billy Loomis from Scream. Wow. Everybody's trying to get their psycho money and cash it in. Something that I liked in the hardware store before we kind of get to Sam and Lila is there's a woman that says she's looking for some uh what do you call uh insect killer? She's looking for some insect killer.

And she says Yeah, insecticide. She says, Insect or man, death should always be painless. A commentary on their own movie within their movie. The brilliance of Hitchcock. So all this stuff. Uh Arbogast. What a name. I know, and I like when the sh they go to the sheriff and he's like Arbogast. Uh he is the other main death in this movie, is Detective Arbogast. He goes into the Bates residence to try and find that mom, and he found her. She came out, killed him. When I watched this on the airplane last week, I jumped. When she came storming out of that room and we're watching from above. Possibly my favorite moment in this whole movie is Arbagast flying backwards down the stairs.

And he's like smoothly, just down the stairs. Yeah. Movie magique. Magic. Well, my favorite moment from this movie is the couple, Lila and Sam, so not a couple, fake couple, because they're turning into the con men now. They show up at the hotel, and the shot of Lila walking up the lawn towards the Bates house, I think is really beautiful where it's like focused on her face and it's switching between the house and her like walking up the lawn. Very beautiful. I also love the dialogue of Sam and Norm. He's like, wow, could get pretty lonely around here. Would drive a man crazy. Yeah, he's like, what would be nice? Forty thousand dollars would be nice.

This kid has a future as a detective. Let me tell you. Well, Norman, suffice to say, catches on. And he's like, Where's my mom? Or not where's my mom? Where's your girlfriend? Runs up to the house. She has found Mrs. Bates in the fruit cellar. And let me tell you, she's not alive. She looks like that fish from SpongeBob. A little ripe fruit down there. Chocolate. Selling chocolate. I was that one that invented chocolate. That's what she looks like. And then Norman runs in with a wig and a and a robe on, looking kind of just happier than I've seen anyone look in my life. Yeah. He was just like, ooh, another lady to murder. The thing that I was joking about when Norm walks up the stairs and he's really s'ing those hips.

That really got me and uh led me to my early conclusion of the ending. Well, the reveal I think is kind of cool when she spins around the corpse, she screams, she slaps the light, and it starts swinging and making this kind of cool light effect, and then Norman kind of ruins it. But I thought it was cool until he ran into the room wearing his uh drag. That's what I should do for Halloween. Be Norman as Mrs. Be Norm as Mrs. Bates. And then I'll be Mrs. Bates as Mrs. Bates. Dead. Yeah, you'll be the crusty corpse. Yeah. Well, right after this, that I think would have been a pretty solid ending to the movie.

But instead, we go to a place where in classic like mystery crime thriller like Agatha Christie form, they made it weird. We got somebody who was like, let me tell you everything that happened. And she said, Did he kill my sister? And he goes, Did he kill my sister? Yes. And no. Tell me more. And then let me go on to be creepier than him in my explanation about him. A good fist slam on the table. I know. He was very animate. Riled up by psychology. He was like, finally, my big break in a movie. Yeah. That is what we call overacting. Well, I do like the moment right after when Norman's sitting in the chair and you hear his internal dialogue as his mom.

Creepy smile at the end. Yeah. That was lovely. I liked that a lot. Um, so something right off the bat that struck me was that one of the detectives says, so he's a transvestite. And it's like, come on, guy, get woke. And I actually like, I mean, it could be a little woker, but I like that this detective is like, actually, no. He has been abused for his entire life and has this crazy complex with his mom, and he just can't separate reality from what's going on in his brain. So I think that's kind of an important separation to make is that this is not, I mean, trans people have not had very good histories in horror.

But this movie, they were like, listen, we're supportive. That's what they're saying in my brain. Yeah, I don't know if they're actively supportive. We're supportive, and we want to clarify that this is not an issue of gender politics. This is an issue of mental health. I did think that it was pretty progressive of them to go into that. Totes. Hitchcock was already really popular before Psycho. Maybe this is the first title that jumps to your brain hole when you think of Hitchcock, but he'd already created Rebecca, Dial In for Murder, Rear Window, and Vertigo, and had his own TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. When he was ready to make a new movie, he had a really trusty assistant named Peggy Robertson, and she presented the story of Psycho to Hitchcock when she read a review of the novel in a magazine and was like, hey, here's a movie that you should make.

So he liked her a lot and was like, I'm gonna do it then. So he headed straight to Paramount to get the rights. And they were like, Huh, no. It may seem silly now because Psycho doesn't really feel that far off from the movies that I listed a second ago that he'd already made. But they were like, This movie is tasteless, uh, it's too violent, too sexual, we're not gonna make it. And Hitchcock said, Well, what if I shoot it for a much lower budget than you usually give it, g uh give me? I'll make it in black and white, and I'll use the crew for my TV show. And they were like, No, still no, we don't want to do it.

So then he said, and they also told him that their soundstays were booked up, which was false, so that he couldn't use their uh their premises for the Bates Motel. So he said, What if I funded it myself and you just distribute it? And they still were like, eh, I don't want to, but they did it anyway. So Alfred Hitchcock, uh, his production company that he owned paid for this movie themselves. He really wanted to get Psycho made. In a documentary about the making of Psycho, his daughter said, I cannot uh his daughter said that he said that he could not make the picture in color because it would be too boring, and that he specifically wanted to keep it under one million dollars.

Uh, I think that's her just trying to be like, he's a genius, and instead he was like, Oh, I want to make it, but you know, whatever. His other reason for wanting to make it black and white is that he thought it would be too grotesque for the shower scene to be in color because of all the blood. And he said he wanted to pay tribute to a film he liked a lot called Les Diaboliques. French. I don't speak it. So this movie took a lot of work to get made, and Hitchcock was like, I really want to make it, and he did. So you know what, guys, persevere. Follow your passion. I mean, it's the same with us.

We started our version of the Blair Witch Project about two months ago, and we're just funding it ourselves. And now you're just listening to ghosts. We're all dead. Yeah, actually, this podcast is just mini snippets of our Blair Witch project. That's what we do. We don't have full-time jobs, we just are making the Blair Witch Project. I guess all you need to follow your dreams is a lot of money so you can make your own movies. To this point, movies in America were frequently about morality, or at least had a moral order. The hero or heroine was rewarded or protected for their actions. Not only was psycho shocking because Janet Lee was top build in the marketing, but because her arc is one of redemption, she's like, I stole this money, but I'm gonna give it back because I'm a good person.

I'm gonna go right down on this notepad 40,000 minus 700, because that's hard math. She was ready to give it back, and then she gets killed. All that growth for nothing. So Psycho is likely responsible for the more fluid and unpredictable turn in storytelling that gripped films of the 70s. Don't know. Wasn't there? Well, yeah, they were a little more uh uh less predictable because uh, you know, it wasn't this heroes are always going to win mentality. So let's talk a little more specifically about horror. Pre-60s, most of the popular true horror I specify because they were all those crime thrillers that Hitchcock was making, but this one was considered, he advertised it as a horror film.

Most of the true horror films were monster movies. They're about man's battle against a larger evil, usually symbolic of the fears of the time. Think Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, Nosferatu, The Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Jekyll and Hyde, etc. Although not so different from the previous films Hitchcock had made, Psycho changed the genre because not only did it shock for the reasons I mentioned a second ago, but the villain is irrefutably human. Norman Bates started a shift to explicitly man v man horror that was previously considered too disturbing for our sweet little brains. So he was like, let's get physical. Also, think about the times when this was happening. America had experienced a lot of violence in a little period of time.

World War I, World War II, Korea, all happened within half a century. So 1960 falls at the very beginning of the Vietnam War, when the national awokeness of the unnecessary violence of war, i.e. man, was getting going. So maybe Psycho was a very progressive film pointing out, yeah, violence exists and it's stupid. Let's end the war. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. My kind of last uh little slab of facts for you is Psycho, the movie, is based on Psycho, the book, which is based on a true crime story. Wanna hear it? Yeah. Yeah. Woo! Psycho is based on the the butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gean. Ed Gean lived in Plainfield, Wisconsin, with a very domineering mother.

Sound familiar already? Her whole life goal was to instill in him one thing that women are evil, lustful creatures. So far, not wrong. Yeah, actually. So after the death of Ed's father and the suspicious death of his brother, Gean and his mother spent many years in isolation before she died in 1945. So who knows what they were doing in those years alone, but it seems like a lot of that time was spent indoctrinating him into thinking not very nice things. So Gean was learning the craft of taxidermy. And what or whom better to practice on than the corpses of sinful vile women? It is estimated that Edgean robbed the graves of over forty women to practice various forms of his art, including turning heads into bowls for soup.

He hung stuffed heads on his wall, he kept a box of severed noses and lady privates under his bed, and even created his own clothes out of human skin. From what I've read, nipples featured heavily in these fashion pieces. It also seems that Gean was testing his skills as a chef as well because cannibalism became part of his MO. And what's the point of being a chef without sharing your creations? As thanks for jobs he would do throughout town, he was a handyman, and of course, a babysitter, Gean would gift his employers what he called venison. A true renaissance man. A man of many skills. Now this is where things get spooky. In 1954, Gean went to a tavern to pay Mary Hogan a visit.

He murdered her with a shotgun, and after he took her back home, transformed her parts into furniture. But in 1957, a mere three years later, he strikes again. Bernice Warden got the short end of the stick this time. Gean made some classic mistakes here though. Warden's son was a sheriff's deputy. He'd noticed Ed hanging around his mother's hardware store lately, and really got some clues after his mother went missing, and he found blood all over her store in a receipt written for Ed Gean. Ed. I know. Rookie mistake. You're just like Marion. Warden's body was found hanging upside down in Gean's barn, gutted and headless. It wasn't until uh 1968 actually, so eight years after the release of Psycho, that Gean was tried and found guilty for first degree murder because he had been deemed unfit to stand trial.

Insanity. But he freely confessed to the two killings. He claimed to not know how many women he'd killed. So over the years, many disappearances from this time were pegged on him. We may never know how many lives he truly took. At least he was resourceful with bodies. Yeah. Little kitchen table leg here, a little leather for the couch. Now, obviously, I've stated this was the inspiration for Psycho, but you may think this sounds like some other movies we've watched. I.e. Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And one that Caroline, I know you've seen, but Ian, I don't know, have you seen this? Uh, Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Well, those are the three big pieces of pop culture that have borrowed from Ed Gean, and raises an interesting question that true crime people have been debating for a while, and that's this whole thing of should we be giving these horrible men the press?

That's why I think it's curious that Psycho the Book was written solely about Norman Bates. I believe Marion's story takes only two chapters out of the whole book, and they shifted this movie to at least give her a good chunk of the time, even though ultimately it is still just about Norman. Um, when you said we were watching Psycho, part of me got it confused with American Psycho. Yeah. Different. Very different. Yeah, very different. Still fun. Alright, last thing, I took a screenshot of this horror by the numbers. $806,947 is the estimated budget of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho from 1960. This is from the Los Angeles Times. $40,000 what Anthony Perkins was paid for Psycho. Nice. $25,000 what Janet Lee was paid for Psycho.

$40,000 the amount that Lee's character Marion Crane stole in Psycho. Interesting. Yeah. I know she was in less of the movie than Anthony Perkins, but that's a lot less money. So woman. Yeah, I know. They don't need money. They're just here for us. Men. Men. Oh, sorry, it's that black Christmas spell hitting me again. Oh my head. So to wrap up, what would you say your most memorable murder of Alfred Hitchcock psycho is? Definitely, definitely detective Arbagast. Same. That flyback down the stairs, you just can't beat it. Okay, well you're both wrong. It was Marion Crane. That was so good. Nope. Nope. It was good. It was good. The majority, the eyes have it. It's detective.

Eyes? Marion Crane's dead eye staring us from the screen. What would you say on a scary scale? One to five. You would rate Psycho. Oh, uh scary? Yeah, uh three. I would have to give it a two. Yeah, I think I'm gonna give it a two as well. Now, would you give Psycho a smash or a slash? I would have to give it a slash. Come on, I'll give it a smash. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna give it a smash as well. You know, they say that Psycho was the, you know, grandfather of the slasher movie. Because it thrust us into a more violent time for movies and started this whole like you have a killer and he's gonna kill some ladies.

Pretty cool. Uh, I don't know if I think it's much of a slasher, but you know, it does its job. So, what would you say is your favorite scary movie? The Shining! Oh, I would have to say rare exports. And mine is still Black Christmas 1974. Next time on what's your favorite scary movie, we're going to be hitting it again. We are uh going to the theaters to see the new Grudge 2020. Pretty excited. And if you want to hear more about our thoughts on the grudge, we just put out our first Patreon episode about 2002's Jew on The Grudge. So if you want to get the full story on the A Ridge and the new, then you should head on over to patreon.com slash scary moviepod to get the whole story, all the juice.

While you're waiting for that next episode, you should head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and a review. Five stars preferable, if you know what I'm saying. My name is Parker Heron. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Parker Delray. My name is Carolyn. You can find me on Instagram at Carol Manifesto. My name is Ian. You can find me on YouTube and Twitter at Ian Hoyt. And look for the whole crew on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at ScarymoviePod. You can email us with all of your thoughts and ideas at ScarymoviePod at gmail.com and make sure to check everything out at scary moviepod.com. And don't forget to head to patreon.comslash scary moviepod to get your fix of everything.

What's your favorite scary movie?