Psycho

What can or needs to be said about Psycho in 100 words? That anyone who hasn’t seen it should drop this magazine and go, because it constitutes one of the most playful, primal experiences the medium has to offer? (You never forget your first viewing.) That, given the way it upends expectations, few films in history could have been as exciting to see in original release? That anyone who self-identifies as a cinephile should watch it at least once a year? That it’s part of the most remarkable run of films any director ever had (consecutively and in just five years, Hitchcock made Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds)? That, to paraphrase Hitch, it brings murder into the home as provocatively as any movie in his body of work? The film is being re-released for its 50th anniversary, but that seems a tad inappropriate for something so timeless.

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