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60 free Psycho trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
51 free Psycho trivia questions with answers. Psycho changed what a Hollywood thriller was allowed to do: it killed its star before the halfway mark, put a flushing toilet on screen for the first time and made a generation nervous about motel showers. This quiz covers the whole story of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film, from Robert Bloch's novel and the Ed Gein case that loosely inspired it, through the shoestring black-and-white shoot, the chocolate-syrup blood and Bernard Herrmann's all-strings score, to the box-office records, the ratings fights and the sequels, the 1998 remake and the Bates Motel TV series. It starts with easy questions any casual viewer can answer and works up to production details only real Hitchcock obsessives will know. Every answer has been checked against the film's documented production history and primary references, so you can trust the answers when you settle an argument. Good for a movie night, a Halloween party or a film-club warm-up. No signup, no cost — just 60 questions and the answers.
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Q 01Which author wrote the 1959 novel that Psycho was adapted from?
Robert Bloch
Hitchcock bought the rights for just $9,500 and reportedly had his assistant buy up copies of the book so audiences would not learn the twist.
Q 02The character of Norman Bates was loosely inspired by which real Wisconsin murderer?
Ed Gein
Both men were solitary killers in rural isolation with domineering dead mothers, and both kept a room in the house as a shrine to her.
Q 03How much cash does Marion Crane steal from her employer?
$40,000
The money ends up sinking into the swamp with her car, and neither Norman nor his mother ever knew it was there.
Q 04In which city does the film open?
Phoenix
A helicopter shot descending into the hotel window was planned for the opening but proved too shaky and had to be spliced with studio footage.
Q 05The Bates Motel sits a few miles outside which fictional California town?
Fairvale
The A&E series Bates Motel later relocated the family to White Pine Bay, Oregon, and set the story in the present day.
Q 06What hobby does Norman describe to Marion over dinner in the motel parlor?
Taxidermy
The stuffed birds looming over the parlor are the film's quiet hint that Norman, not his mother, is the one doing the killing.
Q 07What is the surname of the private investigator hired to recover the money?
Arbogast
His murder on the staircase required an overhead camera rig on pulleys that took weeks to build and test, all to hide the killer's face.
Q 08Where in the Bates house does Lila discover the mummified body of Norman's mother?
The fruit cellar
The reveal needed a spinning chair, a swinging light bulb and a lens flare to line up perfectly, and Hitchcock demanded retake after retake until they did.
Q 09According to the local sheriff, how did Norman's mother die ten years earlier?
Strychnine poisoning
The sheriff describes it as a murder-suicide involving her lover, which is why he assumes the woman in the window cannot be her.
Q 10Besides saving money, why did Hitchcock choose to shoot the film in black and white?
To keep the shower scene from looking too gory
The monochrome also let the crew use chocolate syrup for blood, since it photographed with a more convincing consistency than stage blood.
Q 11Roughly what was the film's production budget?
$807,000
The whole crew cost about $62,000 because Hitchcock borrowed most of them from his television show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Q 12Instead of his usual $250,000 director's fee, what did Hitchcock take for making the film?
A 60% stake in the negative
The gamble paid off spectacularly: he personally earned more than $15 million from the film.
Q 13Who wrote the screenplay?
Joseph Stefano
He had only one film credit before this and was in therapy about his own mother while writing the script; he later wrote the TV prequel Psycho IV.
Q 21The three-minute shower scene took roughly how long to shoot?
One week
It was filmed December 17–23, 1959, after the star had postponed twice, once for a cold and once for her period.
Q 22What is the title of the 2017 documentary devoted entirely to the shower scene?
78/52
The numbers refer to the sequence's 78 camera setups and 52 cuts, and the film features Guillermo del Toro, Jamie Lee Curtis and Danny Elfman among its talking heads.
Q 23Which model has been identified as the star's body double for parts of the shower scene?
Marli Renfro
The star insisted for decades she did the whole scene herself; two of the wrong answers here were actually the doubles for Norman, since Perkins was away in New York doing a Broadway show.
Q 14The look of the Bates house was modeled on a painting by which American artist?
Edward Hopper
The painting, House by the Railroad, depicts a real Second Empire home in Haverstraw, New York.
Q 15Which snacking habit of Norman's was an improvisation by the actor playing him?
Eating candy corn
The leads were free to improvise as long as it did not require moving the camera.
Q 16Who composed the film's score?
Bernard Herrmann
The composer refused to cut his fee for the smaller budget, and Hitchcock nearly doubled his salary after hearing what the music did for the shower scene.
Q 17The score was written for which kind of ensemble?
Strings only
The composer saw the single tone colour of an all-string ensemble as the musical equivalent of the black-and-white photography; Hitchcock had actually asked for jazz.
Q 18What percentage of the film's effect did Hitchcock later credit to the music?
33%
He originally wanted the shower murder to play with no music at all until the composer insisted he at least listen to the cue.
Q 19What was used as blood in the shower scene?
Chocolate syrup
It photographed better in black and white and ran with a more realistic consistency than stage blood.
Q 20How was the sound of the knife entering flesh created for the shower scene?
Stabbing a melon
The BBFC still required cuts to the stabbing sounds when the film first reached British cinemas.
Q 24Where does Hitchcock make his traditional cameo?
Standing outside Marion's office in a Stetson hat
The wardrobe mistress said he picked that scene so he could appear alongside his daughter Patricia, who played Marion's office colleague.
Q 25In the original trailer, which actress appears in the shower in a blonde wig instead of the star?
Vera Miles
The trailer is mostly a jovial studio tour with Hitchcock almost spilling the plot, backed partly by music from his comedy The Trouble with Harry.
Q 26What unusual policy did Hitchcock impose on cinemas showing Psycho in 1960?
No one admitted after the start
Theatre owners feared it would kill business, but by the second day they had long queues; Clouzot had tried the same trick in France for Les Diaboliques.
Q 27Psycho was the second highest-grossing film of 1960 behind which epic?
Spartacus
It remained the most commercially successful film of Hitchcock's whole career.
Q 28Hitchcock later swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV show for 150,000 shares in which company?
MCA
The deal made him the company's third-largest shareholder and, in theory, his own boss at Universal.
Q 29How many Academy Award nominations did the film receive?
4
The nods included Best Director and Best Supporting Actress; it won none.
Q 30Which award did Janet Leigh win for playing Marion Crane?
Golden Globe
She was also Oscar-nominated for the role, and for the rest of her life received disturbing fan letters about Marion, one so grotesque she passed it to the FBI.