Hitchcock

98 minutes   Certificate 12a

Director: Sacha Gervasi

Screenplay: John J McLaughlin Based on the novel by Stephen Rebello

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson

The film is based on the novel by Stephen Rebello ' Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho'

In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma, are at the top of their creative game as filmmakers. However there are disquieting insinuations about it being time to retire. To recapture his youth's artistic daring, Alfred decides his next film will adapt the lurid horror novel, Psycho, over everyone's misgivings.

Unfortunately, as Alfred self-finances and labours on this film, Alma finally loses patience with his roving eye and controlling habits with his actresses. When an ambitious friend lures her to collaborate on a work of their own, the resulting marital tension colours Alfred's work even as the novel's inspiration haunts his dreams.

Psycho is almost certainly Hitchcock's best-known film. Produced on a constrained budget of $800,000, it was shot in black-and-white on a spare set. The unprecedented violence of the shower scene, the early death of the heroine, the innocent lives extinguished by a disturbed murderer were all hallmarks of Hitchcock and have been copied in many subsequent horror films.