10 Movies That Changed The Genre They Were Made In
5. Psycho
Hitchcock impacted the horror/thriller genre in such a significant manner that you have to look at the genre before and after Psycho to fully understand its evolution. Before the movie came out the predominant monsters in horror flicks were your classic Hammer style creatures like The Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster and, of course, Dracula. Afterwards slasher flicks came of age and began to dominate the horror landscape.
Psycho took the idea of the classic monster out of the supernatural and into the physical realm. By casting the clean cut Anthony Perkins as the slightly awkward, yet seemingly harmless, Norman Bates, Hitchcock gave audiences the fear that evil could live right next door to you. After all, Bates doesn't look any more menacing than anyone else in the film. For all audiences knew Marion Crane was meant to be the antagonist given the amount of emphasis placed on her thievery early in the narrative.
However, the most important way that Psycho changed American horror forever is with the chilling way Hitchcock chose to end the movie. It wasn't enough for him to suggest anyone can be the evil force in a horror film, but he took it one step further by ending with Norman having become progressively more psychotic than he was in the first act.