Alfred Hitchcock and
the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello is the book on which the upcoming
film Hitchcock is based. Starring
Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as Hitch and his wife Alma, respectively, I
was very excited when I saw the first trailer for the film. I then made the decision
to read Rebello’s book before seeing the movie. That might have been a mistake…
but more on that later.
As the title of Rebello’s book might suggest, this is an
overview of the making of Psycho.
Stephen Rebello begins at the most logical place: with a brief overview of the
gruesome Ed Gein murder case. If you have no idea who Gein was, consider
yourself lucky, because this might well be the most heinous killer I have ever
heard of. The things he did with the corpses of his victims made me sick to the
stomach, and I have no idea how I managed to get through such a brief summary
of the case; I can’t imagine what a more in-depth look at the crime would read
like.
