Psycho

For this week I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. This film is a classic and, in many ways, the cornerstone for horror films. Like most horror stories, it begins normally enough. The characters live normal lives and have normal troubles. As Nickel says in Horror and the Idea of Everyday Life the characters we see are motivated by universal motives: money and love, for example. Marion Crane is compelled to steal $40,000 and flee for these two reasons. The characters in the movie, while investigating Marion’s disappearance operate on the assumption that the same motives prompted her death or kidnapping. That the murder of Marion Crane had no such cause is the basis of what makes Psycho so unsettling a movie. Though deplorable, had Marion Crane’s murder been motivated by greed, it would have been comprehensible. Norman Bates does not bend to any of the obvious human motivators and it is in this way that it becomes evidenced to us that Bates is an incomprehensible character, and thus a monster.

Nickel says that Psycho is so important to horror because it “offer[s] no moral reassurance that humans can dispel or effectively fight against the threats [it] present[s]” (19-20). I want to focus on this statement because I think it is the crux of a good and successful horror story. I also think that it helps explain why, as Nickel says, Carroll’s notion of the monster is far too narrow. Carroll’s definition of a monster lies in its fictionality. For this reason, he dismisses Psycho as a horror film. There exists no monster; Norman Bates is human, albeit an insane and murderous one. 

Norman Bates is monster because he is separate from our notion of humanity. He cannot empathize with us. Because Norman is a psychopath he is characterized by a lack of empathy and a lack of remorse. He cannot be reasoned with or persuaded to feel guilt or sympathy. Bates’ disposition is very abnormal and falls outside the realm of our everyday encounters. We, as humans, expect and desire to connect with others on an emotional level. When that emotional plane is inaccessible, it is as if we are encountering someone inhuman. Thus, at least in terms of our discussion of horror, Norman Bates is a monster.

In fact, what makes Norman Bates such a terrifying character is his failure to fit neatly within Carroll’s idea of the monster. The most worrisome aspect of his character is his superficial humanity. When we first encounter his character with his gangly limbs and large ears, he strikes us as boyishly eager and definitively unthreatening and perhaps even sheepishly charming. Of course, the reality is that he is not anything he seems to be, and this is what makes him truly scary.

In encountering Carroll’s monsters we know we are dealing with something outside the realm of humanity. Monsters are terrifying because they are unknown to us. We have never encountered them and are not sure how to defend ourselves against them. Norman Bates is the same way. We could not hope to understand or reason with him; he is foreign to us. The defining difference here though is that while Carroll’s monsters appear foreign to us, Norman Bates does not.  At least in encountering the supernatural we know we do not and cannot understand them. Norman appears like us and we expect him to be like us. The fact that he is not makes him doubly removed from our understanding. Our very lack of knowledge is concealed from us.

This breakdown in appearance has populated a host of horror movies in the past decade or so. Movies where aliens or monsters appear to be human, and thus deceive and destroy humanity play on the same fear Alfred Hitchcock exploits in this movie.

The character of Norman Bates, who suffers the delusion of possessing two personalities, also raises questions pertaining to our first week’s topic, identity. The shrink who talks to ‘Norman’s mother’ claims that, “Norman Bates no longer exists.” It was however his body and his diseased mind that committed at least six murders. Who then is held culpable? Was Norman Bates acting of his own volition or does his insanity free him from responsibility. I think further of discussion of this movie will be extremely helpful in tying together our past weekly themes.