Why Couldn't They Make it Better?

Although the excitement I had initially felt upon viewing the trailer was gone, I was simply too interested to not see Hitchcock, a new movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as legendary director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville. I had major fears about this film, having read the book on which it is supposedly based, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello. Yes, you read that right. Supposedly based. Because I did not see a film equivalent of Rebello’s book. What I saw was speculative fiction that didn’t even have the guts to be entertaining enough to justify my $10.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. What I just wrote is unkind and unfair to the movie, and I could give it a humiliating review, but what good will that do? It’ll make me seem like an immature loser, and I’m sure Anthony Hopkins won’t lose any sleep over it. The above sums up my overall opinion for those of you who have never read Robert Bloch’s Psycho or who have never seen the Hitchcock film. If you are one of those people, I have two things to say to you:

(1) Shame on you! Go watch it now!

(2) Turn away now, because the rest of this review will assume you are familiar with the story. It’s too good for me to spoil it to anyone unfamiliar with it.

Dr. Hollywood: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Misleading Speculative Fiction

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.