10 Legendary Films You Never Realised Were Based On Books

10. Psycho – Based on Psycho by Robert Bloch

Upon its release in 1960, Psycho provoked outrage among many critics for portraying violence and depravity in a way never before seen in American cinema. Audiences were much more positive towards the film, however, and it soon grew in standing until it became the horror genre titan that it is regarded as today. But it may come as a surprise to many that the gruesome plot was not an invention of the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock.

Psycho is quite a faithful adaption of author Robert Bloch’s 1959 book, with both the famous shower scene and the twist regarding Norman Bates’s mother taken directly from the original text.

The biggest change came in making the Norman of the novel, an overweight and balding middle-aged man, into a younger and more attractive individual. Both Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano felt that this made Norman initially sympathetic to the audience and, therefore, made his murders feel all the more shocking.

Bloch published a sequel to the book, Psycho II, in 1982. This irritated Universal since they were planning to release an unrelated sequel to the film, also called Psycho II, the very next year. Bloch ignored their protests and published his book anyway. Whether it’s better or worse than the controversial film sequel is a matter of some debate.