1960- Mother! Oh GOD Mother! BLOOD!

After a woman embezzles money from her boss she runs away into the countryside in a panic, stopping to spend the night at a roadside motel, The Bates Motel, she checks in... But never checks out. It's a small, family business as you can tell by the name. The young and handsome albeit fidgety Norman Bates runs the cabins with his mother, their house on a hill overlooking the motel rooms. He's a very kind and welcoming man, but all is not as it seems. The woman is murdered in her motel room whilst taking a shower by a woman in a dress, presumed to be Mrs. Bates, Norman's mother. After the killing we hear Norman within the house screaming at what he's see his mother do. Distraught he disposes of the body in a local lake, the rest of the film is a mystery as the now murdered woman is searched for and eventually traced to the Bates Motel whereupon we learn of Norman's psychosis and the truth of his murders. Mrs. Bates is dead, has been dead for ages, Norman has kept her corpse within the basement of their family home for years, he killed her and struck with guilt upon doing so he developed a split personality, Norman Bates, and his Mother, two in the same. After a psychotic breakdown Norman loses control of himself and becomes so insane he BECOMES his mother entirely.

One of the first and most noteworthy of the 'slasher' genre, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is just a masterpiece, though not my favorite of his works (that goes to Rear Window) it's one of his best and I can't find a flaw in it. It's immensely well shot and written the twist though everybody knows nowadays, is a huge surprise especially for the time it was made. Norman Bates is a fantastic character and deserving of his status as a horror icon, showing a simple everyday human being with a twisted mind can be more disturbing than hockey masked supernatural killers and the like. Tomorrow's upload, will be another down to Earth killer, no supernatural stuff yet.