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Midnight Marquee (Sep/2008) - Psycho... Most Influential Modern Horror Movie?

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Psycho... Most Influential Modern Horror Movie?

There's nothing like a good debate to get the juices flowing. And Gary J. Svehla knows how to spark more debates than all the 2008 presidential candidates put together. Most recently, he compiled a controversial list of the 13 most influential horror movies: Frankenstein (1931), King Kong (1933), The Black Cat (1934), Cat People (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), The Thing (1951), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1956), Horror of Dracula (1958), Black Sunday (1960), Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Exorcist (1973), Halloween (1978) and Ringu (1998)

This list sparked several debates at once. The longest had to do with a particularly glaring (to some) omission. First, contributor Mark Clark crossed swords with Gary, followed by Brian Smith, Arthur Lundquist and Steven Thornton. Bryan Senn was on hand to cheer on the troops; Anthony Ambrogio did his diplomatic best to straddle all fences; and Jonathan Malcolm Lampley, Neil Vokes and Cindy Collins Smith all added their 10 cents' worth. (That's two cents' worth, adjusted for inflation).

Who won? That's for you, the reader, to decide...

Mark: I was completely baffled when Gary left Psycho (1960) off his list of "Groundbreakers: The 13 Most Influential Horror Films" (Midnight Marquee 75 [2006], pp. 5-15). I mean, it's one of the most influential films in the history of movies, period. Then I figured that the only possible explanation was that Gary considered it a "thriller" but not a horror film, although I would have considered Gary far too bright to fall for that old canard. The way I see it, Psycho is not only a horror film but also one of the quintessential modern Gothics -- an archetype.

Gary: Mark, Psycho is definitely a horror film, and I always considered it one. The film made my short list of the 13 most influential horror movies, but I cut it for a very sound reason.

As I defined in my introduction, an influential film is one that shaped or determined many other films that followed in its wake. Influential movies are not necessarily great or archetypal, but they do create a sub-genre or a new way of doing horror that many others follow.

Psycho -- what sub-genre or movies did it inspire? Perhaps Amicus and Hammer's psychologically based horror films (almost all of them so vastly inferior that any influence is overshadowed by their artistic failings).

I see Psycho as a singular film experience, one that stands alone as a classic. What Hitchcock achieved is on a level so much higher than the best of the psycho films that followed. Even films such as Scream of Fear (aka Taste of Fear [1961]) and Paranoiac (1963) pale by comparison. These movies (and all the other inferior ones) simply copied the idea of the unidentified psycho who is revealed at the very end, but not much else.

Arthur: Gary -- "Psycho...what sub-genre or movies did it inspire?" How about the entire oeuvre of Brian De Palma?

Gary Arthur, come on. That's not correct! Vertigo (1958), Rear Window (1954) and any other number of Hitchcock films inspired De Palma, not just Psycho. True, Psycho's influence is there...but De Palma was most inspired by the entire body of Hitchcock's work and not Psycho alone!

Arthur: Okay, let's talk about specific De Palma Psycho knockoffs. Killings in Sisters (1973) and Carrie (1976) use Psycho death-music. Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and Body Double (1984) re-do the shower scene, as does Dressed to Kill (1980) -- with a shower scene and an elevator-as-"shower-stall" scene. Hell, Dressed to Kill is practically a Psycho remake, from killing off the main character to cross-dressing killers to the psychologist's explanation at the end.

Most importantly, no Hitchcock film is as ruthless in making us care for a main character and then heartlessly killing him/her off, as Psycho. That approach ties together Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie, The Fury (1978), Dressed to Kill, Body Double, etc. Indeed, it is practically the man's modus operandi.

Gary: Yes, the man's entire early career was one long love fest with Hitchcock, and Psycho was at the forefront. You mention Sisters, Dressed to Kill, etc. But is paying homage (and Obsession [1976] is to Vertigo as Sisters is to Psycho) the same thing as being influential? I can see people defining it both ways.

Arthur: I would not define all those moments "homages." By the time of Dressed to Kill, I think they become downright plagiarism.

Mark: Let me piggyback on Arthur's comments and count the ways that Psycho inspired several sub-genres. First of all, it kicked off a whole raft of pseudo-Psycho thrillers, not only including the long string of Hammer black-and-white thrillers from Scream of Fear on but also sundry other knockoffs like Homicidal (1961) and the 1962 Caligari. This wave of psychological thrillers led to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), and that in turn kicked off the whole Horror Hag sub-genre.

Gary: Mark, you create a very liberal line of influences. I take total exception with the Southern Gothics, the so-called Horror Hag movies. I think that What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? spawned movies such as Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) and the rest. I don't see Psycho influencing them (although there is blade imagery in Charlotte). I see them as movies that attempted to revitalize the fading careers of formerly classy Hollywood female stars. The only influence from Psycho that matters here is the image of the mummified face of Norman Bates' mother. Think Joan Crawford!

Mark: Psycho was an even more widely influential overseas. Its echoes can be heard in scores of Euro thrillers. The Italian gialli would probably never have emerged if Psycho hadn't paved the way.

Gary: Good point, especially as it applies to Dario Argento's early movies. But were the gialli influenced by Psycho or by Hitchcock's entire oeuvre? True, many of these films feature fiends with blades and walking wounded with deep psychological scars. Psycho influenced them, of course -- but so did Rear Window, Vertigo and other Hitchcock visions.

Mark: And the American slasher film wouldn't have taken shape without the gialli (and Psycho) as forerunners. Not to mention the raft of Hitchcockian thrillers that have aped Psycho over the years. Or here's another measure: How many horror films feature young women murdered while bathing?

Gary: Mark, are you suggesting that every movie made after 1960 featuring a fiend wielding a knife was "influenced" by Psycho? My heavens, the Val Lewton production The Seventh Victim (1943) features a woman terrified and threatened in the shower, a sequence that many argue influenced the similar sequence in Psycho. And a shadowy fiend pursues the heroine with a knife, as he waits hiding in the shadows. The imagery of the naked nubile female, vulnerable and alone in the bath, comes directly from Victorian literature and lives on, especially, in the movies. What Hitchcock added to the mix was the phallic knife. But is every twisted fiend with a blade "influenced" by Norman Bates? Many film noir entries feature psychopaths armed with knives, and I believe these films ...

(c) Midnight Marquee

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