I remember the first time I ever watched, "Psycho," I was maybe, 8 years old, it was broad daylight, sometime in the early afternoon , I was watching it in the families kitchen, sunlight streaming,& radiating, filling the room, I WAS TERRIFIED!!!!! I'm not a horror movie fan, by any stretch of the imagination. This is probably, the only qoute/ unqoute "slasher," movie I've ever bothered to watch. The movie makes me thirsty, for more Hitchcock, not "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." ( The guy, (Ed Geins) that Norman Bates is based upon is actually a pretty mild killer, all thing's said. I'm not even sure if he qualifies as a serial-killer. The murderer that "Uncle Charlie," from, "Shadow of a doubt." ( a pretty mild Hitchcockian murderer ) is based upon had 26 ( I believe,) lives to his totals, (I believe) in a two-three month period. "Uncle Charlie, " ia almost like a Uncle from a Nancy Drew novel, Norman, you bring your loaded 45 with you whenever you take a shower. Hitchcock as I wrote in another film review, loved to upcart expectations. His killer's were attractive, even charming, often urbane, & sophisticated. This is your dream-boat except he was produced in the lowest bowels of Hell.Norman Bates is the exception to the Hitchcock rule, he isn't urbane, or blessed with the gift of gab, he isn't intellectual, or particularly good with the ladies. Quite, the opposite rings true. Norman is shy, retiring, curious,humble even. Norman is Hitchcock's first killer of the TV-age. He looks like he belongs in a public-service ad. He could pass for a freedom rider, a folkie, or one of JFK's coming peace-corp's volunteers. He's the All-American boy of the early TV-age. His first victim, Marion Crane also, is dissimilar from the debutante you normally run across in a Hitchcock. She's extraordinarily beautiful, true, but she's a White-collar working-class woman. She's involved in an affair, she's not above lying, larceny, or using her beauty as a weapon, & as an advantage. But, Hitch, misleadingly, encourages you to empathize with Marion, root for her inspite of her shortcomings. She's portrayed (fantastically) by a very popular, beloved actress of the era.( Janet Leigh) unlike, the typical "Slasher movie prototype Marion isn't some obnoxious, solipstic, self-involed narcissistic, who garners little to no sympathy from the audience. She's likeable, relatable. She is completely redeemable. Unlike her daughter Jamie-lee-Curtis 20 years later in her slasher movie portfolio, Marion is not going to survive the night. Back in the 1960's, at the tail-end of the Hayes code censorship, audience's were set-up to believe that Marion loses her life because of her sinful laspes in reason.Not quite. Marion does not die because of or for her sin's. There were serial-killer's before the release of, "Psycho, " obviously, but this movie more or less informed a mass-audience. The age of the serial-killer had been born. I do have one gripe concerning, "Psycho," I know the film was released in 1960, & you could only go so far, but, if you stab people with a foot-long butcher knife, you're gonna leave blood stains everywhere, & sorry but, industrial strength Borax is not going to make that mess disappear.