MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > "Psycho" and "Halloween"

"Psycho" and "Halloween"

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
16 replies | jump to latest

Well, its that time of year again. October and Halloween. Which means the movie "Halloween" -- the 1978 original -- gets broadcast.

And this year(2018), it means a movie called "Halloween" is also in theaters.

Its got real bona fides: Jamie Lee Curtis is in it, look peaked and wrinkled and gray -- yet rugged. Ready to do battle with The Shape, or Michael Myers.

It think it is interesting that they have just gone ahead and called it "Halloween." For it is not a remake -- it is a sequel. Given that the producers tell us it is meant to ignore every other sequel to Halloween ever made, it really should be called "Halloween 2 Redux." But that wouldn't play. (Keep in mind that Joe Stefano wrote Psycho IV as if none of the other sequels had happened, either. Norman only had his famous six original murders to his name in Psycho IV, not others.)

I haven't seen the new "Halloween" yet, but I am told that I am going to. The only two Halloween movies I have ever seen are the original in '78, and the original Halloween 2(set in the small Haddonfield hospital the same night as the original.) And that's it.

I recall the release of "Halloween" in 1978. I recall thinking it was a low budget "nothing" of a movie(in terms of print ads), and I had no urge to see it. Donald Pleasance? That's all they had in it? Smacked of a quick paycheck job for him.

But I noticed things. Donald Pleasance was playing "Dr. Sam Loomis." Hey, that's John Gavin's name (witty, I thought - it would have been more fitting to give Pleasance the name Arbogast, but probably too "on the nose." Better to cast the name against type.)

And then my local newspaper ran an AP photo that placed -- side by side -- a photo of Janet Leigh screaming in the shower in Psycho with daughter Jamie Lee Curtis screaming in Halloween -- "Daugther of Psycho Star in New Slasher Movie," or some such.

Best: I was home one night watching TV fairly late when there was a massive, loud pounding at the front door. Investigating, I asked who it was , through the door. It was a young female relative, yelling "Let me in! Let me in!" I opened the door and she practically knocked me over with it, ran in locked the door. As this happened, I could see a car out on the street burn rubber and take off.

Me: What's the matter?
Her: I've just seen the scariest movie I've ever seen in my life. I was too afraid to walk from the car to the door. I ran. (Her girlfriend had peeled out.)
Me: What was the movie?
Her: (Gasping) Halloween.

Now, my attention was truly there. And word got out that it was making money. So I went and joined the throngs.

I can't say that "Halloween" felt like a better experience than Psycho. But it has grown on me over the years. In re-broadcasts, I can see the clarity of the color of the film(a lot of blue), the sense of autumn and nightfall that creates a mood as the film heads into its scary night.

The most terrifying scene remains: Jamie Lee, banging on the door to get into the house as Michael Myers keeps coming -- but SLOWLY. She pounds. He walks. Closer. She pounds. He walks. Closer. She POUNDS. He walks, closer. It scared me and amused me at the same time.

Personally, the big letdown for me with Halloween remains the ending in which Jamie Lee keeps stabbing Myers, then dropping the knife and just sitting there beside him...as he comes to, and starts the pursuit again. As I recall, this happens like three times in a row. I lost interest in the film at that point. It was ridiculous. I was also not impressed when Michael was shot multiple times and...disappeared. A supernatural killer? Lacked Hitchcock's need for plausibility(in Psycho, at least.) And evidently Jamie Lee has guns to the gills in the new Halloween, to shoot Michael with -- but what will THAT matter?

Some like to call "Halloween" "the first slasher film," but no, I think that honor goes to Psycho. Arbogast is slashed -- in the face. And though Marion and Arbogast are mainly stabbed, they are stabbed over and over with a big knife and that's a slasher film to me.

What "Halloween" did was to "re-vitalize" the slasher film. After a decade of Satanic and occult horror movies(Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen), plus a big detour into animal violence in "Jaws," here was a movie that went "back to the basics" -- a psycho with a knife , stabbing people. People will always relate to the real monsters of modern life that are our psycho killers (though with Michael's supernatural aspects, I don't feel he quite fits that bill.)

But also STRANGLING people, I might add. At least two of the victims are strangled, not slashed or stabbed. Thus "Halloween" is an ode to Frenzy as much as it is to Psycho.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

This: Halloween has gotten a lot of mileage -- including the new poster -- out of the masked blank monstrous face of Michael Myers. Its a William Shatner mask, we are told, but its sure hard to find Captain Kirk in there. Rather, its the face of a Frankenstein-like monster, mottled and oversized and mean.

But what of the "Michael Myers" of Hitchocck's Psycho. Mrs. Bates. Funny how little she actually appears in the film, and how we can barely get a read on her when she does. And yet: she's terrifying, close-up with shadowed face and furious knife-wielding anger in the shower scene; and she's MORE terrifying when she comes stomping out of her bedroom in a weird robotic lurch and slashes Arbogast. I suppose the problem is: while Michael Myers wears a mask (as does Jason in the Friday the 13th films other than the first one, where the MOTHER is the killer, as Scream reminded us) -- Mrs. Bates wears a face -- the face of Norman Bates, the face we cannot be allowed to see to the end.

It ends up leaving Mrs. Bates the Killer as a kind of phantom in Psycho. When she does her Michael Myers thing, she is very scary. But we don't ever get to see her face til the end.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And this: I once noted the creepy little shot Hitchcock put into the aftermath of Rusk's murder of Brenda Blaney in Frenzy. As he steals cash out of her purse and her half-eaten apple off the desk, Rusk backs up to look briefly at the corpse of Brenda -- the woman he has just brutalized, raped, and strangled. Rusk looks upon his horrific handiwork with a look of...nothing. Blank faced. And only for a moment, as if he can't be bothered to give Brenda a moment more of his time. And then he walks out of the office. Its very chilling...a portrait of a psychopath.

When I wrote this shot up in some post, I was reminded by another poster of a similar shot in Halloween -- Myers, having stabbed a babysitter's boyfriend and pinned him like a butterfly to the kitchen wall, stares at HIS corpse for much longer than Rusk looks at Brenda's corpse. Michael stares at his victim, tilts his head back and forth -- at least CONTEMPLATES what he has done. But then he moves on, too.

I would say that the lingering shot of the killer looking at his victim's corpse in Halloween is much more remembered than Rusk looking at Brenda's corpse.

But I've personally always remembered Rusk's look...

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Speaking of Psycho, I recall a film studies magazine article comparing Psycho to Halloween and making an interesting point -- Psycho had more BLOOD in it that Halloween. Compared to Psycho, wrote the critic, "Halloween barely has an ant's eyelash of blood in it." I've always felt that the blood was more implied in Psycho than shown -- Hitchcock got a lot of mileage out of that slash to Arbogast's face, to the two gouts of blood spilling around Marion's feet in the shower, and to the blood that manifested -- in the tub, on the floor, on Norman's hands -- during the clean-up.

But its not like Psycho was THAT bloody. Still, I guess Halloween wasn't very bloody at all. It was interested in shocks, not gore.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

@ecarle. I've been listening to a 'deep dive' series of Podcasts on Halloween here (I still have one ep. to go! The first four eps are definitely worth listening to...):
https://art19.com/shows/halloween-unmasked
The series host got access to Carpenter, Curtis, the overall producer Yablans, and almost everyone else who's still alive.

Yablans had the basic concept - Babysitters stalked and murdered on Halloween - plus he also had a bunch of other stipulations for Carpenter including 'no blood/gore', and there must be a staircase 'because Staircases are scary' (as, Yablans says, the Arbogast murder taught us), and also the idea to get Curtis for her exploitable-in-advertising and good-for-free-publicity connection to Psycho. But Carpenter brought a lot to the table too. The podcast gives you a good feel for how both the film and its warm reception came together by a mixture of accident and many skilled hands.

p.s. The podcast has the full story about the mask - the crew bought it in a store sold *as* a James T. Kirk mask.... but it didn't look much like Kirk because the face mold was taken from later pudgy Shatner in a movie called The Devil's Rain! (IIRC it was also Shatner after he'd been 'melted' a bit by the aforementioned demonic rain.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Yablans had the basic concept - Babysitters stalked and murdered on Halloween - plus he also had a bunch of other stipulations for Carpenter including 'no blood/gore',

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Well, there you go...I guess "no blood and gore" was very much intentional. Its funny...I didn't even think about it, given how brutal the attacks on Michael's sister and the boyfriend, were. I guess that's why the film has two stranglings. I also suppose that Yablans wanted a younger audience -- but it was rated "R" right?

As a matter of "taste," I'm reminded that the producer of Animal House wanted no vomit shown when Flounder threw up on Dean Wormer..."imagine the grossness but don't see it " was his motto. Both Halloween and Animal House were 1978 movies -- both big hits. Maybe the producers was on to something with less gore and vomit.

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and there must be a staircase 'because Staircases are scary' (as, Yablans says, the Arbogast murder taught us),

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Yes indeed....unbeaten for HOW that staircase murder transpired -- the climb, the attack on the landing, the long fall(I love it) and the finishing off on the foyer floor.

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and also the idea to get Curtis for her exploitable-in-advertising and good-for-free-publicity connection to Psycho.

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Yes...that AP wire photo comparison of mother and daugther really got me interested in the film.

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But Carpenter brought a lot to the table too.

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Style, camerawork...music!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The podcast gives you a good feel for how both the film and its warm reception came together by a mixture of accident and many skilled hands.

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As the best films do...no matter what level of budget. Right decisions made on the spur of the moment are as good as great planning.

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p.s. The podcast has the full story about the mask - the crew bought it in a store sold *as* a James T. Kirk mask.... but it didn't look much like Kirk because the face mold was taken from later pudgy Shatner in a movie called The Devil's Rain! (IIRC it was also Shatner after he'd been 'melted' a bit by the aforementioned demonic rain.)

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Wow. That spells it out:

James T. Kirk mask(not a William Shatner mask -- I mean, who would buy THAT?)
Older pudgy Shatner(young Shatner as Young Kirk always looked to me like pudge was "on the way, just years from now" -- especially in those tight pajama top shirts; James West/Robert Conrad, he was not.)
Melted face from The Devil's Rain...

....why the mask barely looks like Shatner at all.

PS. There was a good joke in "Baby Driver" last year when a member of a crew of bank robbers instructed to get "Michael Myers" masks for the job...got MIKE MYERS(Austin Powers) masks instead.

[–] ProductionNow (1072) 6 years ago

The eventual supernatural element is the the thing I did not like. And naturally to set up an opportunity for a sequel. And this "can't kill the Boogeyman"? sounded odd. But, another great scene was Curtis feeling secure with the doors locked..until she notices the curtains blowing, indicating the sliding-door open.

However, so-called slasher films could be dated back to the obscure gorefests starting in the early 60's which somehow were not banned, but shown in theatrical venue by whatever theaters allowed it. So is there really a big difference between a film that revels in gory killings vs. "slasher" films? It sounds like unless those films were prolific and widely-distributed, they dont' count.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The eventual supernatural element is the the thing I did not like. And naturally to set up an opportunity for a sequel.

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Yes, I suppose both elements bugged me at the time. Psycho "ends conclusively"(in that classic shot in the jail cell.) Not like that stopped the sequelmakers.

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And this "can't kill the Boogeyman"? sounded odd.

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I've often pointed out that the "Boogeyman" or Shape or Jason in the Hockey Mask creature concept separates away from Psycho in that we have BOTH a "Shape"(Mrs. Bates in killing mode) AND a fully-fleshed out character(Norman Bates) in Psycho, thereby giving the Boogeyman a psychological, human basis in Psycho -- a character (Norman) that other characters can talk to. When Mrs. Bates is killing(granted, only twice but spectacularly so), she is as merciless as Michael Myers or Jason.

Hitchcock himself nailed it when, describing the Arbogast murder one of the 100 times he did so, he said of Mrs. Bates "a monster -- a female monster -- is waiting at the top of the stairs." A monster. The psycho killers in Psycho, Halloween, and Friday the 13th ARE new versions of old monsters(Michael and Jason with a Frankenstein Monster's gait, Mrs. Bates with the Wolf Man's split personality sharp-teeth/sharp-knife fury). Meanwhile, Norman Bates when in his black sweater (especially by the swamp after burying Arbogast) conjures up some of that Cabinet of Dr. Caligari look.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

But, another great scene was Curtis feeling secure with the doors locked..until she notices the curtains blowing, indicating the sliding-door open.

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Well, Curtis managed to finally get through that front door with The Shape in pursuit, but as I recall -- the house was full of windows. Easy enough to enter. Still...perhaps the Shape likes to play fair...a sliding door is "legitmate entry." (Note in passing: Psycho never had to confront the silly reality of a house with plenty of windows for a killer to break -- Mother kills in much more practically plotted ways.)

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However, so-called slasher films could be dated back to the obscure gorefests starting in the early 60's which somehow were not banned, but shown in theatrical venue by whatever theaters allowed it. So is there really a big difference between a film that revels in gory killings vs. "slasher" films? It sounds like unless those films were prolific and widely-distributed, they dont' count

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I expect that you are speaking of "Blood Feast" and other color gore romps by Herschel Gordon Walker(was that his name?) I found a quote once by Walker that he felt Htichcock had really pulled his punches in Psycho so as to be able to get it released in "regular" movie houses, whereas Walker's ultra-gore in color could never get such distribution.

Fair enough. I think we ARE talking about slasher movies that got big distribution and were seen by millions. Hitchcock released Psycho using Paramount's distribution system and made millions. Rosemary's Baby(Paramount), The Exorcist(Warners) and Jaws(Universal) were all studio releases.

But Night of the Living Dead had to go the "local distribution route," practically from town to town. And I don't recall "Sisters" being shown at the first run multiplexes in my town.

Back in a day I can remember, we all knew the "quality movie houses" versus the somewhat rundown theaters that got second run movies and first run "schlock."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I tell you -- I have no idea WHERE Blood Feast was actually screened. Drive-ins? Grindhouses(the Times Square crumbum theaters immortalized by QT and RR?)

BTW, given that Psycho was a "negative experience" in my young life -- a horror movie that I was forbidden to see -- something like Blood Feast was almost like really bad snuff film pornography in my circle of experience. Never should be seen.And while I am sure I can stomach it now, I have no interest in seeing it.

Psycho remains such a weird, ever changing experience. The fun dramatics of Norman exchanging lines with Arbogast are very much in the 'Old Hollywood" tradition of crackling dialogue and interesting characters, it is almost beside the point that their verbal duel ends in what was once nightmare-inducing horror. There's a disconnect between the "regular" parts of Psycho and the horror parts. At least there is today. I expect in 1960, the Norman/Arbogast sparring took place in the context of an audience so shaken by the shower murder and so terrified in dread as to what would happen next that...it was NOT a "regular" dialogue sequence.

[–] ProductionNow (1072) 6 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

There's a disconnect between the "regular" parts of Psycho and the horror parts. At least there is today.
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Yes, a disconnect. Psycho seems like a thriller , with heck, some graphic heinous murders for good measure.

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Ha. Yep. Well, that's certainly how it plays today. All this "regular 1960 drama" for most of the picture and then -- wowza! -- those screeching murders.

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But a thriller, first.

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Yes, very much a thriller. But also a horror movie. And also a monster movie(Mrs. Bates when killing, is a monster.) And also a Gothic. And also a black comedy. And a little bit, a STRAIGHT comedy(there are some one-liners and deadpan comedy bits.) And also a sad tragedy.

Psycho is, wonderfully, a hybrid movie. I think that's part of the reason it is so unforgettable.

But I must admit, given how much of it is drama and thriller, it is interesting that it CAN get play on Halloween. I ascribe that mainly to The House.

And that first 30 minutes just with Marion -- really fights the horror. Even in 1960, critics noted, "Psycho starts slowly but builds to a peak of excitement."

And as for the murders(and the fruit cellar), the 1960 Newsweek review of Psycho took note that they were "spaced apart."

The review ended with a tag-line: "Summing Up: Sporadic Shocks."

Back to that opening 30 minutes with Marion. I expect that this section, more than anything else, killed Psycho with 1998 audiences when Van Sant released his remake. From about Jaws on(maybe earlier), we've had our shockers OPEN with a killing to get the ball rolling immediately. Psycho didn't do that. Makes it great in certain ways("Marion's story" IS great). But makes it hard to sell as a shocker.

[–] ProductionNow (1072) 6 years ago

Back to that opening 30 minutes with Marion. I expect that this section, more than anything else, killed Psycho with 1998 audiences when Van Sant released his remake. From about Jaws on(maybe earlier), we've had our shockers OPEN with a killing to get the ball rolling immediately. Psycho didn't do that. But makes it hard to sell as a shocker.
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Couple of possibilities: With me, I'm naturally prejudice in favor of the original's opening due to my age, since Psycho was one first shockers I watched, or that Janet Leigh reels me in; Anne Heche does not. If the remake starred another actress, I still wouldn't know if the first 30 mins would be as entertaining as the original. Janet Leigh's early scenes are too cemented.

[–] ProductionNow (1072) 6 years ago

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[–] ProductionNow (1072) 6 years ago

I expect that you are speaking of "Blood Feast" and other color gore romps by Herschel Gordon Walker(was that his name?)
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Herschel Gordon Lewis. He would also make some non-horror films, some akin to soft porn later in his "career". His bigger budget gore-film Two Thousand Maniacs actually received fair reviews, since it had more of a plot/ narrative. He died recently, only 2 yrs ago

There was also The Brain That Wouldn't Die.. and still hasn't, having become a cult-film. I think it's one of those films that needed a bigger budget, but nonetheless isn't a bad film. It was censored, since I believe it was made in 1959 but didn't get the green-light for release until 1961, and still likely cut. Two bloody scenes stand out: the assistant getting his arm ripped off by the MAN behind the door, smearing blood all over the wall--and the MAN taking a bite out of his oppressor's neck and spatting it on the floor. Starring Jason (Herb) Evers who would continue his career; and Virginia LEIGH, who would not.

[–] ProductionNow (1072) 6 years ago

I've often pointed out that the "Boogeyman" or Shape or Jason in the Hockey Mask creature concept separates away from Psycho in that we have BOTH a "Shape"
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So, I'm out of touch. There is a saying or buzzword "The Boogyman?" I figured it solely for Halloween..