The Film:
This chilling and suspenseful tale recounts the crimes of a cross-dressing recluse who enjoys tormenting innocent people.
The Book: Remember how Hitchcock was called a genius, because of the amazing twist in the story, namely that (WARNING: 47- year-old spoiler ahead) the main character gets killed not long into the film? Yeah, he didn't come up with that. It was first written in the book, of the same name, by Robert Bloch. So .... why do people remember the film and not the book? Well, mostly because.......
.....We don't care how many times you write the words "stabbity, stab, stab, stab" on the page, it just doesn't have the same effect as it unfolding in front of you. No, not even if you pay an orchestra to follow you around and make the shrieking violin noises.
Bloch wrote a sequel, called Psycho II (you don't often see novelists just stick a "II" at the end of their sequels, do you?) which the studio hated and refused to adapt to film, despite its awesome cover.
Instead they followed up the classic with a series of cheesy sequels in the '80s that were totally unrelated to his book. The studio reportedly didn't invite him to any of the screenings, in a great example of Hollywood's "What-have you-done-for-me-lately" attitude.
Most of the previous words - were "borrowed" from... CLICK HERE.