Psycho: 50th Anniversary Edition

Alfred Hitchcock's low-budget shocker starring Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, a nervous mama's boy running a family hotel on a desolate back highway, and Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, a novice thief fleeing from Phoenix who is caught in a storm and unwittingly checks in (and out), is the granddaddy of all modern horror and psycho-thrillers. While unlikely to have the impact it did in 1960 when it caught America by surprise (not only had a leading lady never been killed in the first act of a film, but the brutality of the meticulously shot and edited shower scene—a tour de force of suggestion—stunned most viewers), Psycho remains a gloriously seedy masterpiece of mood and pacing. Here we witness the impeccable craft of master filmmaker Hitchcock, who uses the sordid atmosphere of the black-and-white B-movie aesthetic to shake the expectations of an audience accustomed to his sexy whodunits and Technicolor confections. Sporting a high-definition remastered image and new DTS-HD 5.1 sound, Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Hitchcock scholar Stephen Rebello, a feature-length “making-of” documentary, the 2008 featurette “In the Master's Shadow: Hitchcock's Legacy,” two studies of “The Shower Scene,” excerpts from François Truffaut's 1962 audio interview with Hitchcock, archival newsreel footage, and stills galleries (production, ad art, and posters), plus a new featurette on the soundtrack. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)