Psychos the world over today put their stabbing, slashing, and head-drilling on hold this weekend to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1960 shocker, which starred Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh - the mother of 80s scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis.
Psycho set the benchmark for horror movies on its initial release, and remains a virtual 'how-to' manual for budding movie makers everywhere. Alfred Hitchcock once referred to the movie as "my little joke".
Although to be honest there's nothing superficially funny about pickling your mother's corpse or stabbing strange women to bits in the shower, or about the Oedipus Complex, or about cross dressing serial killers.
We encountered one psycho - who had hung up his meat cleaver for the weekend - on Brighton beach. The man, who asked to be referred to as 'Psycho-Dalek' was wearing a leather apron and carrying a cordless drill and a sink plunger. (Go figure.) He said:
"I've given up me usual weekend of slaughterin' virgins in Satanic blood rituals in order to pay me own lttle tribute to Mister Hitchcock. I seen Psycho when I was little more than a nipper, an' it had a disturbin' effect on me. Committed me first murder when I wuz nine. Battered a prozzie ter death wiv a skittle. Been doin' it ever since. I love Psycho, me."
Quite.
Editor's note - The woman who got stabbed up in the notorious shower scene was not Janet Leigh, but a woman named Marli Renfro, who was Janet Leigh's body-double. Marli Renfro apparently led a very interesting life. And that's true that is because it said so in The Times. Although why Janet Leigh needed a body-double is anybody's guess. Maybe she was shy. Maybe her body was crap. Maybe she had stretch-marks or something. Who knows?
More as we get it.
