Game #28: Psycho

The Mother of All Drinking Games

Take a look at the above image. Now imagine seeing that after downing five-plus mixed drinks in the course of two hours. We nearly wet ourselves.

We continue the movie classics binge we've been on lately with one of the most famous horror movies of all time, and probably the first movie you think of when you hear the name "Hitchcock." Psycho is such a diabolically good movie. Every second is so carefully plotted. Every beat is lived through. Not all that much actually happens during the movie, but every scene forwards the plot and builds an increasingly high level of intrigue and tension. And let's not forget the transformation the movie goes through at its halfway point, bringing audiences the most memorable and most often parodied twist cinema has ever seen.

You would think that knowing what's going to happen would make a movie LESS scary. Far from it; our apprehension only grew thicker. The alcohol managed to dull our senses, but it only sharpened our screams.

Yeah. Our neighbors hate us.

"(Get Away from Me, You Drunken) Psycho": The Rules

There's a mixed drink called the "Raving Psycho," which we helped ourselves to during the movie. You can make one yourself with vodka, triple sec, lemon-lime soda and lemon juice. Adjust the recipe according to your taste for the sour.

Dijan de Nero points out that you can also drink Bloody Marys. Fitting, because of one scene in particular.

Just don't let it wash down the drain later.

Easy Mode
1. Drink for title drops. That's every time someone says "Psycho".
2. Drink when they drink
3. Drink for daddy issues.
4. Drink every time someone asks a question.

Medium Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink for every thirty seconds that passes without a line of dialogue. That's ONE drink for EVERY thirty seconds.

Hard Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink whenever the main theme plays. It's not the screeching violins.
2. Drink for mommy issues.

Remember, THIS is Mommy.

The Players

Our onscreen players for this game are Krissy (me), Big Moose, and Bumble C. We started our night with a rousing game of Mumbledepeg. Minus the knife. We're not THAT mad.

Our offscreen players include...

Some Guy: Lost big time at Mumbledepeg (Medium)
Shirley Whiskas: Blames this movie for her unorthodox fantasies (Hard)
Dijan de Nero: Wonders if "Star Wars" would look as good in black and white (Hard)
Velma Jenkies: Had work in the morning (Hard)
Champjagne Austgin: Thought the dresses were actually brightly colored (Hard)
Levi: Proud to have had Anthony Perkins bat for his team (Hard)

Out of all the games we've made, this is the first one for a horror movie. I wish we'd done it sooner. There's no better mixer for any liquor than fear.

Question Time

I almost had a riot on my hands with this game, for the first time since The Simpsons. There was some confusion over my medium mode rule about the thirty seconds of no dialogue.

"Don't worry guys," Some Guy assured the rest of our group, "She doesn't mean drink for EVERY thirty seconds."

I explained to Some Guy that this was exactly what I meant.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" he sputtered.

Watching this movie again made me realize just how good it is, and how difficult it is to make a game for. It's a seamless work of film that knows how to manage its time, which is very rare, especially in the horror genre. The characters all have motivation for what they do, and nothing extremely silly is repeated. This movie is a trope-MAKER, not a trope-user, and as such doesn't rely on established convention to move things along.

Furthermore, like Memento, this movie comes VERY close to not using any of the three base rules. The thing that gets us this time is the Daddy Issues rule; Marion's hunky boyfriend Sam is stuck paying off his father's debts, which makes him unable to take a wife, which makes Marion desperate, which causes her to steal $40,000. The whole movie happens because of Daddy Issues, so I can't give it a pass.

You ruined everything, you big, sexy...oh, I forgive you.

It was all very frustrating. I needed at least two big rules that could work in a variety of situations, so I decided to make use of two of the movies greatest tools: time and suspense. The Silence rule gave us something to drink for when the characters were working through problems, and the Question rule filled in the rest of the space while still allowing us to engage with the dialogue. Really though, as Dijan de Nero pointed out, you could play the game with JUST the question rule and come out of it buzzed.

We got drunk very quickly. I started my timer right away at the very beginning of the movie. This segment gave us six drinks right off the bat.

"That's not a scene!" Levi argued. "That's the opening credits!"

"Krissy doesn't play fair," cautioned Big Moose. "Krissy plays drunk."

Damn straight, I do.

Ooh, Twist!

When most people think of Psycho, even if they've never seen the movie, they think of this scene.

What most people don't realize is that this scene happens forty minutes in, and at this point the audience has been following that girl in the shower for almost an hour, assuming that she's the main character. The first half of the movie is straight Noir, a psychological thriller about a desperate woman running from the law after foolishly stealing a large sum of cash. What makes the shower scene brilliant is that it comes out of nowhere; the violence is so sudden and, dare I say, casual, that we're shocked even more by Marion's death than we would have if she had been presented as a victim to begin with. Audiences in 1960 had absolutely no idea where the movie was going after this scene. You simply can't recreate that.

"Think about it," Big Moose sighed as Marion drove into the Bates Motel. "You're watching this for the first time and assuming SHE'S the psycho."

"Wait," put in Bumble C, "How is she NOT the psycho?"

We stopped talking. Bumble C had not seen this movie before, like most of us in the room. But somehow, some way, she was completely unaware of the major twist of this movie. The name Norman Bates meant nothing to her. She didn't associate anything with the sound of screeching violins. She just DIDN'T KNOW.

The rest of the movie became about keeping the rest of the plot from Bumble C. Of course she asked questions; we'd often squeal during inopportune moments, but refused to elaborate. We wanted things to unfold as naturally as possible. And when Norma Bates' corpse was finally revealed to the camera after everything we saw, the look on Bumble C's face was priceless. We came as close as we possibly could get to seeing a 1960 audience reaction shot.

Mind you, knowing the twist doesn't make this movie any less scary. Just ask Champjagne Austgin.

"My throat hurts from screaming"-Champjagne

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds

The above title was given to Norman Bates by tvtropes.org, labeling him as an outwardly harmless and sympathetic character who is responsible for the misery of everyone else in the movie. A fitting title indeed. As soon as Norman Bates came on the screen, we began to gush.

Ohmygod, LOOK at him.

This is the most drastic change Hitchcock made from the original book. In the novel, Bates is in his early forties and is described as homely, and a little on the fat side. He fits the profile of what we associate with sociopaths. Hitchcock made Bates much younger, aging him down to his mid-twenties, and gave the part to Anthony Perkins, convinced that the audience needed to sympathize with this man before seeing him for the depraved mind that he was. And it works, completely. We fell in love with Norman's shyness, his stutter, his frank awkwardness in interacting with the world around him. We saw a little bit of passion in him when he spoke of institutions, as well as compassion when he talked about his ailing mother. His positive traits made it easy for us to gloss over his taxidermy hobby and his blatant mommy issues (drink!). He's just a little weird, we think, right before we see him try to stab a girl in the heart with a knife.

Most of us felt a vague sense of shame at our attraction to Bates. Not Shirley Whiskas. She didn't cite Bates' more fey qualities as the ones that turned her on, either.

"I like a man who's able to be dominant," she said dreamily.

"A man who dresses in his mother's clothes is not a Dom," Levil laughed.

Unless he's Dom to a very specific kind of Sub.

Let's give Hitchcock credit where credit is due; this is a very attractive cast of actors. He knew exactly what audiences wanted to see on the big screen, and made changes as necessary. 

Although, he could have gone further with the sexual tension between Sam and Norman, if you ask me.

Hi-Jinkies

We had to take a break halfway through the film. We'd been playing way too hard. As people came back in from my balcony to resume the movie, we noticed one definite straggler in the group: a drunken Velma Jenkies.

"Velma," I called, "What are you doing?"

He poked his head through the doorway and replied, "I'm yelling at passerby."

Guys, remember to invite a friend like Velma to your house when you play these games. You won't regret it. 

"My nipples are so hard I could rob a bank." -An out of context quote by Velma Jenkies

The Results

After the movie, we played another round of Mumbledepeg. We were a little shakey from the experience, but performed at about the same skill level. "About" being the key word.

I'm incredibly proud of this game. The difficulty levels are perfectly split up, and I'm hard pressed to think of any other rules I could add. Here are some other options, though, if you'd like substitutions or add-ons. 

Drink every time a character is alone on screen.

Or at least every time a character THINKS they're alone. This rule pairs nicely with the thirty seconds of silence rule.

Drink every time a character asks a rhetorical question.

This softens the blow of the question rule. Or you could reverse it, and make it every question EXCEPT rhetorical ones. They'd probably end up evening out.

Drink for every scene in which no music is playing.

Suspense is the key ingredient for any horror flick. Usually music can help achieve this feeling, but Hitchcock proved that sometimes silence works just as well. 

Thanks for playing with us, everyone! Next week we're watching another classic, starring a certain actor we've swooned over before.

No, Rick, here's looking at YOU.

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For Your Inebriation is written by Krissy Pappau (Hollis Beck). Video footage is taken by Pooh Daddy (Vincent Graham) and edited by Seb (Amy Yourd). All "Psycho" images are owned by Paramount and Universal Pictures.