PSYCHO

Part of Weekend Classics: Mother’s Way

Phoenix secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) embezzles $40,000 from her employer and goes on the run, plagued by a guilty conscience. Later that night, groggy from her long drive, she reluctantly stops at an unassuming roadside motel run by a very peculiar young man named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) and his domineering mother. With this simple set-up, pitch-perfect performances, and a masterful command for creating suspense, director Alfred Hitchcock laid the groundwork for what would eventually become one of the most popular, yet critically reviled genres of the 1980’s, the slasher film.

See also: GREY GARDENS (Sun, May 10 | Wed, May 13)