Editing Robert Bloch (section)

===''Psycho''===
Bloch won the [[Hugo Award for Best Short Story]] for "That Hellbound Train" in 1959, the same year that his sixth novel, ''Psycho,'' was published. Bloch had written an earlier short story involving [[dissociative identity disorder]], "The Real Bad Friend", which appeared in the February 1957 ''Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine'', that foreshadowed the 1959 novel ''Psycho''. However, ''Psycho'' also has thematic links to the story "Lucy Comes to Stay". Also in 1959, Bloch delivered a lecture titled "Imagination and Modern Social Criticism" at the University of Chicago; this was reprinted in the critical volume ''The Science Fiction Novel'' (Advent Publishers). His story "The Hungry Eye" appeared in ''Fantastic'' (May). This was also the year in which, despite having graduated from painting watercolours to oils, he gave up painting completely.<ref name="Graeme Flanagan 1979, pp. 6-12"/>

[[Norman Bates]], the main character in ''Psycho'', was very loosely based on two people. First was the real-life [[serial killer]] [[Ed Gein]], about whom Bloch later wrote a fictionalized account, "The Shambles of Ed Gein". (The story can be found in ''Crimes and Punishments: The Lost Bloch, Volume 3''). Second, it has been indicated by several people, including Noel Carter (wife of [[Lin Carter]]) and [[Chris Steinbrunner]], as well as allegedly by Bloch himself, that Norman Bates was partly based on Calvin Beck, publisher of ''[[Castle of Frankenstein]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bmonster.com/horror29.html|title=THE ASTOUNDING B MONSTER - HORROR|website=www.bmonster.com}}</ref> Bloch's basing of the character of Norman Bates on Ed Gein is discussed in the documentary ''Ed Gein: The Ghoul of Plainfield'', which can be found on Disc 2 of the DVD release of the remake of ''[[The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film)|The Texas Chainsaw Massacre]]'' (2003). However, Bloch also commented that it was the situation itself – a mass murderer living undetected and unsuspected in a typical small town in middle America – rather than Gein himself who sparked Bloch's storyline. He writes: "Thus the real-life murderer was not the role model for my character Norman Bates. Ed Gein didn't own or operate a motel. Ed Gein didn't kill anyone in the shower. Ed Gein wasn't into taxidermy. Ed Gein didn't stuff his mother, keep her body in the house, dress in a drag outfit, or adopt an alternative personality. These were the functions and characteristics of Norman Bates, and Norman Bates didn't exist until I made him up. Out of my own imagination, I add, which is probably the reason so few offer to take showers with me."<ref>Robert Bloch. "Building the Bates Motel". ''Mystery Scene'', No 40 (1993):19, 26, 27, 58.</ref>

Though Bloch had little involvement with the [[Psycho (1960 film)|film version of his novel]], which was directed by [[Alfred Hitchcock]] from an adapted screenplay by [[Joseph Stefano]], he was to become most famous as its author. Bloch was awarded a special [[Mystery Writers of America]] scroll for the novel in 1961.

The novel is one of the first examples at full length of Bloch's use of modern urban horror relying on the horrors of interior psychology rather than the supernatural. "By the mid-1940s, I had pretty well mined the vein of ordinary supernatural themes until it had become varicose," Bloch explained to [[Douglas E. Winter]] in an interview. "I realized, as a result of what went on during [[World War II]] and of reading the more widely disseminated work in psychology, that the real horror is not in the shadows, but in that twisted little world inside our own skulls."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.darkecho.com/darkecho/horroronline/bloch.html|title=DarkEcho/HorrorOnline: Robert Bloch: Behind the Bates Motel|website=www.darkecho.com}}</ref> While Bloch was not the first horror writer to utilise a psychological approach (it originates in the work of [[Edgar Allan Poe]]), Bloch's psychological approach in modern times was comparatively unique.

Bloch's agent, [[Harry Altshuler]], received a "blind bid" for the novel – the buyer's name was not mentioned – of $7,500 for screen rights to the book. The bid eventually went to $9,500, which Bloch accepted. Bloch had never sold a book to Hollywood before. His contract with [[Simon & Schuster]] included no bonus for a film sale. The publisher took 15 percent according to contract, while the agent took his 10%; Bloch wound up with about $6,750 before taxes. Despite the enormous profits generated by Hitchcock's film, Bloch received no further direct compensation.

Only Hitchcock's film was based on Bloch's novel. The later films in the ''Psycho'' series bear no relation to either of Bloch's sequel novels. Indeed, Bloch's proposed script for the film ''[[Psycho II (film)|Psycho II]]'' was rejected by the studio (as were many other submissions), and it was this that he subsequently adapted for his own sequel novel.

The film ''[[Hitchcock (film)|Hitchcock]]'' (2012) tells the story of Alfred Hitchcock's making of the film version of ''Psycho''. Although it mentions Bloch and his novel, Bloch himself is not a character in the movie.