Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is given $40,000 by a client at work and is told to take it to the bank, but she leaves town with the money... Starting to act obviously strange, she attracts the attention of a policeman. Then, to cap it all, she trades in her car for a used one in ultra quick time... What is going through this broad's mind? She stops at the Bates Motel for a night of rest - don't get in the shower, love.

She is greeted by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) a nice but lonely sort with an apparently bossy mother. He offers Marion sandwiches and milk. He leaves her room. When Marion gets in the shower, mother comes down to slash her to bits...

"I have never been able to take a shower without locking the bathroom door, especially in dimly lit privately owned motels with wobbly doors! Although why Marion didn't grab mother's stabbing hand I will never know. Too busy screaming I suppose... "

"I work for a water company and if there is one thing that annoys me about customers it is when they flush writing paper down the toilet like that. I personally think she got what was coming to her."

Marion seems to have decided that she is to go back home and to own up for her embezzling. She tears up a letter and flushes it down the toilet. She is then murdered in the shower and buried in a bog in her car. A seemingly perfect murder...

But Marion has a sister, Lila, and, along with Marion's lover, Sam, they go back to the Bates Motel after a private detective reports Marion was last there. Sam keeps Norman occupied while Lila takes a look around.

Lila finds that Norman's mother is actually a skeleton with a wig on. Norman eventually realizes Sam is up to something and attacks him. Norman runs to find Lila, dresses up in wig and dress and comes to attack her. (The hairs are standing up on the back of my neck as I write this... Just checked nobody's come up behind me... OK... continue...) This is really scary stuff. Sam comes too and manages to overpower Norman before Lila's screams fail to stop Norman slashing her to bits...

We find at the end that Norman killed his mother and her lover 10 years ago. Thus ending the mystery... Norman is his mother... eeek eeeek eeeek.... etc...

"Well, if the woman up there is Mrs Bates, who's that woman buried out there in Greenlong Cemetery?"

"Wow! as hot as fresh milk!"

"How did you know she didn't make any phone calls?"

A genuine bonafide horror/thriller classic. This movie still scares the willies and it is utterly watchable. The tension is truly remarkably built. If you get the opportunity to watch this movie with the risk of someone actually coming up from behind to attack you in a mock-friendly way then I thoroughly recommend it!

Sinister, strange, and the conclusion utterly utterly terrifying.