Psycho

This book is an absolute classic, and spawned an equally classic movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The reason why I love Psycho so much is that it brought horror away from the traditional Gothic haunted house and castle settings right into the modern world. And if you add the aspect of mental illness in the chilling form of the Norman Bates character, then you have a horror story that becomes all too real, all too unsettling. We are not dealing with ghoulies and ghosties here, but with a deranged killer harbouring a split personality, whose warped mentality has often been… show more.

A classic movie and a classic book. Norman Bates is one of the most compelling fictional characters (yes, I know he was based on an actual person) to me. He’s a bit more pathetic in the novel, and we get a better insight into his deranged mind. Norman and his mother are quite the duo in this book, and this is a fairly short, quick, and captivating read. Like the original movie, there are sequels to the novel that don’t really do it justice in my opinion. 

First up on my list is the book that inspired what would be considered one of the first “slasher” blockbusters. Deviating a bit from the Alfred Hitchcock film, Bloch’s Psycho is much closer to showing what a serial murdering psychopath would actually look like. Where the film was limited in censorship, Bloch threw everything out on the table. In the book, Norman Bates is not some unassuming young man with mother issues; he is an overweight loner whose sexual repression plays a much larger role in the story and its subsequent outcome. Both book and film are classics in their… show more.