Opinion on Psycho (1960) and related work
- Remake: Santa Sangre (1989)
Psycho (1960
)
Alfred Hitchcock (director).
References here: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Repulsion (1965), “Phantasms” (1993), Snakes on a Plane (2006).
‣ Santa Sangre (1989)
Seen in 2017.
Jodorowsky takes all the illogical turmoil that Hitchcock refined into Psycho and simply dumps it onto film untreated. There are moments of effective, more or less intentional comedy here: Orgo resembling Orso(n Welles), Fenix burying a body in glitter boots, the explicit imitation of The Invisible Man (1933), Fenix as a luchador, the shy apothecary coming to visit at the climax etc. However, only the elephant burial, being well paced, is truly strong as a combination of raw psychological force and “third cinema” symbolism. It doesn’t carry the film alone.