Psycho (film) - Plot

Plot

In need of money to help her divorced boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin), Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a secretary in Phoenix, Arizona, steals $40,000 from one of her employer's clients and flees in her car. En route to Sam's California home, she parks along the road to sleep. A highway patrol officer awakens her, becomes suspicious of her agitated state and begins to follow her. When she trades her car for another one at a car dealership, he notes the new vehicle's details. By the time Marion returns to the road, there is a heavy rainstorm which prompts her to spend the night at the isolated Bates Motel rather than drive in the rain.

The young owner Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) tells Marion he rarely has customers because of his location along an older, less-traveled highway, and mentions he lives with his mother in the grim-looking house overlooking the motel. He then shyly invites Marion to have supper with him. She overhears Norman arguing with his unseen mother about his supposed sexual interest in Marion, and during the meal, Marion suggests he institutionalize his mother, making him become aggressive. He admits he would like to do so, but does not want to abandon her.

Marion resolves to return to Phoenix to return the money. As she undresses in her room, Norman watches through a peephole in his office wall. After calculating how she can repay the money she has spent, Marion flushes her notes down the toilet and begins to shower. Suddenly, the shadowy figure of a woman enters the bathroom and stabs Marion to death. Norman finds the corpse, and immediately assumes that his mother committed the murder. He cleans the bathroom and places Marion's body, wrapped in the shower curtain, and all her possessions—including the money—in the trunk of her car and sinks it in a nearby swamp.

Shortly afterward, Sam is contacted by both Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) and private detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam), who has been hired to find her and recover the money. Arbogast traces Marion to the motel and questions Norman, who lies unconvincingly about Marion having left weeks before. He refuses to let Arbogast talk to his mother, claiming she is ill. Arbogast calls Lila and tells her he will contact her again after hopefully questioning Norman's mother. Arbogast enters Norman's house and is attacked by the same female figure who killed Marion, who slashes his face with a large kitchen knife, causing him to fall down the stairs, and then stabs him to death. Norman confronts his mother and urges her to hide in the cellar so no one can find her. She rejects the idea and orders him out of her room. Against her will, Norman carries her down to the fruit cellar, though the viewer is not shown Norman's mother in full.

When Arbogast does not call Lila, she and Sam contact the local police. Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers is perplexed to learn Arbogast saw a woman in a window, and reveals that Norman's mother had died ten years earlier. Norman had found her dead alongside her married lover; an apparent murder–suicide. When Chambers dismisses Lila and Sam's concerns over Arbogast's disappearance, the two decide to search the motel themselves. Posing as a married couple, Sam and Lila check into the motel and search Marion's cabin, where they find a scrap of paper with "$40,000" written on it. While Sam distracts Norman, Lila sneaks into the house to search for his mother. Sam suggests Norman killed Marion for the money so he could buy a new hotel. Realizing Lila is missing, Norman knocks Sam unconscious and rushes to the house. Lila sees him and hides in the cellar where she discovers the hideous mummified body of Mrs. Bates and screams. Seconds later, Norman rushes in, wearing his mother's clothes and a wig, and carrying a knife. Sam arrives just in time to overpower Bates and save Lila.

After Norman's arrest, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Fred Richmond (Simon Oakland) tells Sam and Lila that Mrs. Bates is alive in Norman's fractured psyche. In life, Norman's mother was a harsh and overbearing woman who had forbidden Norman to have a life that did not involve her. After the death of Norman's father, the pair lived as though there was nobody else in the world, in an unhealthy state of emotional co-dependence. When his mother found a lover, however, Norman was consumed with jealousy and murdered both of them. Wracked with guilt, he tried to "erase the crime" by bringing his mother "back to life" in his mind. He stole her corpse and preserved the body, and developed a split personality in which the two personas — Norman and "Mother" — coexist; when he is Mother, he acts, talks and dresses as she would. Marion is revealed to have been Mother's third victim, the first two also having been attractive young women; Mother is as jealous of Norman as he is of her, and so "she" kills anyone he feels attracted to. His psychosis protects him from knowing about other crimes committed after his mother's death.

Norman sits in a cell, his mind dominated by the Mother persona. She says that she will prove to the authorities that she is harmless by refusing to swat a fly on Norman's hand. He then forms a smile. Marion's car is recovered from the swamp.