Psycho: Often Imitated Never Duplicated

 Like almost everyone I know, I've seen Psycho many times before, and each time I've seen it the first thing that comes to mind is how often scenes from this film have been replicated throughout pop culture and entertainment. When thinking about this, the most prominent example that comes to mind is a Hitchcock dedicated episode of one of my favorite shows Psych. While this has absolutely nothing to do with the movie itself, the final act of the episode is full of recreations and homages to different Hitchcock films, mainly Psycho. It's very obvious why they chose Psycho as the episode's main inspiration but something that I never noticed until now is they not only took inspiration from the films as a whole but they used the films as a whole to further plot points and foster characterization. While the episode doesn't really capture all of the essences of a Hitchcock film, it does impressively use his style and work as a device to move their plot across and provide new depth into their already well-established characters. In the last act of the episode, the main crew chases down a serial killer through a lot full of different set pieces and props from Hitchcock's most famous films such as Vertigo. The killer gave each member of the crew characters from these films to portray as they venture through the lot to find him. The character assignments were used as a way to convey to the audience the killer's perceptions of our group of protagonists and the set pieces are there to further immerse our group in their respective roles. By doing this, the killer not only penetrates the mind of our hero's but of the viewers as well. This in turn allows the viewers to access a new perception of our protagonists. The aforementioned chase is filled with constant homages to Hitchcock's work that adds a classic Hollywood thriller feeling to it and by the time the episode cliffhanging ending has wrapped all the viewer is left with a familiar uneasy feeling. In the end, it's really interesting how important Hitchcock's work is to all forms of viewing entertainment and how his work has gone so that his individual works themselves can now serve as their own characterizations and plot points.