This Shocking Classic from Alfred Hitchcock is Leaving Netflix Soon; Don’t Miss It
Slashers aren’t my personal favorite sub-genre—they’re high up there—but I do consider them to be perhaps the most significant of the horror family for one particular reason…at one point or another, just about every teenager encounters them. Everything from Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street to more recent fare such as the Fear Street trilogy, these films about teens confronting sex, drugs and death, they speak to a pivotal moment in our lives that allows them to resonate during a crucial age. Of course, it helps that they also tend to be pretty damn fun.
Every generation has that handful of slasher films that were important to them. I grew up in the 90s, so the big one for me was Scream, Wes Craven’s brilliant meta movie that managed to be scary while poking fun at the formulaic tropes that had developed over the years. None of these films would be what they are if not for the foundational landmarks that came before them, one of them being Alfred Hitchcock’s classic shocker, Psycho, currently streaming on Netflix.
What’s Psycho about? Per Netflix:
In Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece of suspense, a young woman on the run with stolen cash checks into a creepy motel run by proprietor Norman Bates.
For their column at Dread, The New Flesh, Sam Moore wrote, “Not much about ‘Psycho’…has aged poorly. The director’s craft continues to offer new things on repeat viewings; the performances are uniformly strong. Anthony Perkins’ Norman in particular is fascinating in his easy charm, and the relationship it has with his dark impulses. The (in)famous shower scene remains one of the best killings in the history of horror.”
Since I first laid eyes on Psycho, not one trip into the shower has gone by without the stabbing sense that someone is sneaking up to the curtain, gleaming kitchen knife held high in the air. Hitchcock’s masterpiece of suspense did for the bathroom what Jaws did for the ocean. Often imitated but never replicated, it’s still just as shocking over six decades later.
At the time of release, Hitchcock insisted that patrons not be let into theaters after the film started so that they would experience it in full, but luckily for you, you can watch Psycho any time you want on Netflix. You’ll want to hurry though, because it checks out of the service on August 1st.
Are you a fan of this Hitchcock classic? Let me know on Bluesky @werematt.
One of the most iconic horror movies is about leaving Netflix. Don’t miss it!
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