''Psycho'' is a 1959
horror novel by American writer
Robert Bloch. The novel tells the story of
Norman Bates
Norman Bates is a fictional character created by American author Robert Bloch as the main antagonist in his 1959 thriller novel '' Psycho''. He has an alter, Mother, who takes from the form of his abusive mother, and later victim, Norma, wh ...
, a caretaker at an isolated motel who struggles under his domineering mother and becomes embroiled in a series of murders. The novel is considered Bloch's most enduring work and one of the most influential horror books of the 20th century.
The story was famously adapted into
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
's
seminal 1960 film of the same name, and also loosely adapted into the ''
Bates Motel'' television series (2013–2017). Bloch later wrote three sequels, which are unrelated to any of the film sequels.
Plot
Norman Bates
Norman Bates is a fictional character created by American author Robert Bloch as the main antagonist in his 1959 thriller novel '' Psycho''. He has an alter, Mother, who takes from the form of his abusive mother, and later victim, Norma, wh ...
, a middle-aged bachelor, is dominated by
his mother
''His Mother'' is a 1912 American silent film produced by Kalem Company. It was directed by Sidney Olcott with Gene Gauntier and Jack J. Clark in the leading roles. It was one of more than a dozen films produced by the Kalem Company filmed in Ir ...
, a mean-tempered,
puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...
ical old woman who forbids him to have a life outside of her. They run a small motel together in the town of Fairvale, but business has suffered since the state relocated the highway. In the middle of a heated argument between them, a customer arrives, a young woman named
Mary Crane.
Mary is on the run after impulsively stealing $40,000 from a client of the real estate company where she works. She stole the money so her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, can pay off his debts and they can finally get married. Mary arrives at the Bates Motel after accidentally turning off the main highway. After checking in, she accepts Bates's invitation to have dinner with him at his house, an invitation that sends Mrs. Bates into a jealous rage; she screams, "I'll kill the bitch!", which Mary overhears.
During dinner, Mary gently suggests that Bates put his mother in a
mental institution
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...
, but he denies there is anything wrong with her; "We all go a little mad sometimes", he says. Mary says goodnight and returns to her room, resolving to return the money so she will not end up like Bates. Moments later, however, a figure resembling an old woman frightens Mary in the shower with a
butcher knife, and then beheads her.
Bates, who had passed out drunk after dinner, returns to the motel and finds Mary's bloody corpse. He is instantly convinced his mother killed her. He briefly considers letting her go to prison, but changes his mind after having a nightmare in which she sinks in
quicksand
Quicksand is a colloid consisting of fine granular material (such as sand, silt or clay) and water. It forms in saturated loose sand when the sand is suddenly agitated. When water in the sand cannot escape, it creates a liquefied soil that los ...
, only to turn into him as she goes under. His mother comes to comfort him, and he decides to dispose of Mary's body, belongings, and car in the swamp, and go on with life as usual.
Meanwhile, Mary's sister,
Lila Lila or LILA may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Lila'' (album), debut album by American country music singer Lila McCann
* ''Lila'' (movie), a 1968 sexploitation film
* The Meaning of Lila, a comic strip written by John Forgetta and L. A. ...
, tells Sam of her sister's disappearance. They are soon joined by Milton Arbogast, a private investigator hired by Mary's boss to retrieve the money. Sam and Lila agree to let Arbogast lead the search for Mary. Arbogast eventually meets up with Bates, who says that Mary had left after one night; when he asks to talk with his mother, Bates refuses. This arouses Arbogast's suspicion, and he calls Lila and tells her that he is going to try to talk to Mrs. Bates. When he enters the house, the same mysterious figure who killed Mary ambushes him in the foyer, and kills him with a razor.
Sam and Lila go to Fairvale to look for Arbogast, and meet with the town sheriff, who tells them that Mrs. Bates has been dead for years, having committed suicide by
poison
Poison is a chemical substance that has a detrimental effect to life. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figuratively, with a broa ...
ing her lover and herself. The young Norman had a
nervous breakdown
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
after finding them and was sent for a time to a mental institution. Sam and Lila go to the motel to investigate. Sam distracts Bates while Lila goes to get the sheriff—but she actually proceeds up to the house to investigate on her own. There she finds various books on
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
ism,
abnormal psychology
Abnormal psychology is the branch of psychology that studies unusual patterns of behavior, emotion, and thought, which could possibly be understood as a mental disorder. Although many behaviors could be considered as abnormal, this branch of psyc ...
,
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
, and
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814), was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer famous for his literary depictions of a libertine sexuality as well as numerous accusat ...
, in his bedroom. During a conversation with Sam, Bates says that his mother had only ''pretended'' to be dead, and had communicated with him while he was in the institution. Bates then tells Sam that Lila tricked him and went up to the house and that his mother was waiting for her. Bates knocks Sam unconscious with a liquor bottle that he has been drinking from. At the house, Lila is horrified to discover Mrs. Bates' mummified corpse on the floor, in the fruit cellar. As she screams, a figure rushes into the room with a knife—Norman Bates, dressed in his mother's clothes. Sam regains consciousness, enters the room and subdues Norman before he can harm Lila.
At the police station, Sam talks to a psychiatrist who had examined Bates, while the county highway crew is out dredging the swamp to uncover the automobiles, revealing the bodies of Mary and Arbogast; a
media frenzy
Media circus is a colloquial metaphor, or idiom, describing a news event for which the level of media coverage—measured by such factors as the number of reporters at the scene and the amount of material broadcast or published—is perceived to ...
imagines countless additional victims to be uncovered if the swamp is further drained, but "the newspaper writers didn't have to foot the bill for such a project." Sam learns that Bates and his mother had lived together in a state of total
codependence
In sociology, codependency is a theory that attempts to explain imbalanced relationships where one person enables another person's self-destructive behavior such as addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achiev ...
ever since his father deserted them when he was still a young child. Along the way, introverted, awkward, and filled with seething rage, Norman became a secret
transvestite
Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional, or ceremonial reasons. The term is considered outdated in Western ...
, impersonating his mother. A bookworm, he became fascinated with the
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
,
spiritualism
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...
, and
Satanism. When his mother took a lover named Joe Considine, Bates went over the edge with jealousy and poisoned them both,
forging
Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer (often a power hammer) or a die. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which i ...
a suicide note in his mother's handwriting. To suppress the guilt of
matricide
Matricide is the act of killing one's own mother.
Known or suspected matricides
* Amastrine, Amastris, queen of Heraclea, was drowned by her two sons in 284 BC.
* Cleopatra III of Egypt was assassinated in 101 BC by order of her son, Ptole ...
, he developed an
alternate personality—his mother, who is as cruel and possessive as the real Mrs. Bates had been. He retrieved her corpse from the cemetery and preserved it and, whenever the illusion was threatened, would get drunk, dress in her clothes and speak to himself in her voice. The "Mother" personality killed Mary because "she" was jealous of Norman feeling affection for another woman.
Bates is declared
psychotic
Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...
and put in a mental institution for life. Days later, the "Mother" personality completely takes over Bates's mind; he virtually ''becomes'' his mother. "She" blames Norman for the murders, and resolved to stay quiet and still in order to show Heather’s doctors at the institution that she "wouldn’t even harm a fly".
Allusions
In November 1957, two years before ''Psycho'' was first published,
Ed Gein
Edward Theodore Gein (; August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984), also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, ga ...
was arrested in his hometown of
Plainfield, Wisconsin
Plainfield is a village in Waushara County, Wisconsin, United States. The village is located almost entirely within the Town of Plainfield. A tiny portion extends into adjacent Town of Oasis. The population was 897 at the 2010 census.
Histor ...
for the murders of two women. When police searched his home, they found furniture, silverware, and even clothing made of human skin and body parts. Psychiatrists examining him theorized that he was trying to make a "woman suit" to wear so he could pretend to be his dead mother, whom neighbors described as a
puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...
who dominated her son.
At the time of Gein's arrest, Bloch was living away from Plainfield in
Weyauwega. Though Bloch was not aware of the Gein case at that time, he began writing with "the notion that the man next door may be a monster unsuspected even in the gossip-ridden microcosm of small-town life". The novel, one of several Bloch wrote about insane killers, was almost completed when Gein and his activities were revealed, so Bloch inserted a line alluding to Gein into one of the final chapters. Bloch was surprised years later when news of Gein's living in isolation with a religiously fanatical mother came to his attention. Bloch "discovered how closely the imaginary character I'd created resembled the real Ed Gein both in overt act and apparent motivation".
Sequels
Bloch wrote two sequels, ''
Psycho II'' (1982) and ''
Psycho House'' (1990); neither was related to the film sequels. In the novel ''Psycho II'', Bates escapes the asylum disguised as a nun and makes his way to
Hollywood.
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
allegedly did not want to film it because of its social commentary on
splatter film
A splatter film is a subgenre of horror films that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of wikt:gore, gore and graphic violence. These films, usually through the use of special effects, display a fascination with the vulnerability of the h ...
s. In the novel ''Psycho House'', murders begin again when the Bates Motel is reopened as a tourist attraction.
A fourth installment, titled ''Robert Bloch's Psycho: Sanitarium'' written by
Chet Williamson, was released in 2016. The book is set between the events of the original novel and ''Psycho II'', recounting the events which took place in a state hospital for the criminally insane where Bates is a patient.
Adaptations
Film
Bloch's novel was adapted in 1960 into the
feature film
A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...
by director
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
. It was written by
Joseph Stefano
Joseph William Stefano (May 5, 1922 – August 25, 2006) was an American screenwriter, known for adapting Robert Bloch's novel as the script for Alfred Hitchcock's film '' Psycho'', and for being the producer and co-writer of the original ''The ...
and starred
Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 – September 12, 1992) was an American actor, director, and singer. Perkins is best remembered for his role as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense thriller '' Psycho'', which made him an influential ...
as Bates and
Janet Leigh
Jeanette Helen Morrison (July 6, 1927 – October 3, 2004), known professionally as Janet Leigh, was an American actress, singer, dancer, and author. Her career spanned over five decades. Raised in Stockton, California, by working-class parents, ...
in an
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-nominated performance as Marion Crane (changed from "Mary" for the film, as there was a Mary Crane in Phoenix at that time). Hitchcock helped devise a promotional and marketing scheme for his film that insisted that critics would not get advance screenings, and that no one would be admitted into the theater after the film had begun.
The promotional scheme also exhorted audiences not to reveal the twist ending. Twenty-three years after the release of Hitchcock's film and three years after the director's death came the
first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
of three
sequel
A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same ...
s, all featuring Perkins.
After ''
Psycho III
''Psycho III'' is a 1986 American slasher film, and the third film in the ''Psycho'' franchise. It stars Anthony Perkins, who also directs the film, reprising the role of Norman Bates. It co-stars Diana Scarwid, Jeff Fahey, and Roberta Maxwell. T ...
'', there was also a television pilot named ''
Bates Motel'', in which Bates briefly appears played by another actor. It is not in continuity with the final sequel ''
Psycho IV: The Beginning''.
Gus Van Sant directed a
1998 remake of the original film in which virtually every camera angle and line of
dialogue
Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is c ...
was duplicated from the original. It starred
Vince Vaughn
Vincent Anthony Vaughn (born March 28, 1970) is an American actor.
Vaughn began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 comedy-drama film '' Swingers''. He has appeared in ...
as Bates and
Anne Heche as Marion Crane. It was reviled by critics
and performed poorly at the
box office
A box office or ticket office is a place where ticket (admission), tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a Wicket gate, wicke ...
.
A "contemporary prequel" television series, ''
Bates Motel'' was developed by
Carlton Cuse
Arthur Carlton Cuse (born March 22, 1959) is a screenwriter, showrunner, producer, and director, best known for the American television series ''Lost'', for which he made the ''Time'' list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. ...
,
Kerry Ehrin
Kerry Anne Ehrin (born October 8, 1960) is an American screenwriter, showrunner, and producer. In 1990, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for her work as a producer on the American Broadcasting Company, ...
, and
Anthony Cipriano
Anthony S. Cipriano (born August 1, 1975) is an American-born writer and producer, currently based in Los Angeles. He is best known for creating the A&E drama-thriller series '' Bates Motel''. Cipriano is also an Independent Spirit John Cassav ...
. Starring
Vera Farmiga
Vera Ann Farmiga ( ; born August 6, 1973) is an American actress who is best known for portraying paranormal investigator Lorraine Warren in the Conjuring Universe films '' The Conjuring'' (2013), '' The Conjuring 2'' (2016), '' Annabelle Co ...
as Norma Bates and
Freddie Highmore
Alfred Thomas Highmore (born 14 February 1992) is an English actor. He is known for his starring roles beginning as a child, in the films '' Finding Neverland'' (2004), '' Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' (2005), '' August Rush'' (2007), and ...
as Norman Bates, the series ran from 2013 to 2017.
References
{{Authority control
1959 American novels
Fiction with unreliable narrators
Psychological thriller novels
American thriller novels
American novels adapted into films
Matricide in fiction
Novels about serial killers
Novels set in hotels
Novels set in California
American horror novels
Simon & Schuster books
Novels by Robert Bloch
Roman à clef novels
Dissociative identity disorder in popular culture
Cross-dressing in literature
Psycho (franchise)