HorrorYearBook.com – Published by Gary Gaymon
That man in high-heels just tried to kill me!!!
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho not only jumpstarted the modern horror film, it also introduced a new kind of villain to movie audiences – the transexual killer. The climactic image of a crazed, knife wielding Norman Bates, dressed up like mommy was a perverse shock for the conservative movies audiences of the early sixties. Infused with the kind of psycho-sexual undercurrents that shockmeister filmmakers love to exploit, the Trans-Killer sub-genre grew out of the matchbook psychobabble on serial killers that began to proliferate after Psycho’s success and the sensational true life crimes of crazy fuckers like Ed Gein and the Zodiac Killer. So movie villains of classic bygone horror films, the mischievous dandies, megalomaniacal super villains and supernatural creatures , were no longer effective. The modern day boogeyman was the next door neighbor that volunteered at the church picnic but kept a collection of prostitute torsos in his basement freezer. This idea of the duality of the psycho killer is what Psycho wrought and it is what the Trans-Killer sub-genre is, essentially, powered by. What better way to dramatize the split mind of the psychopath than to have a killer who cant even reconcile their own gender.