Our Current Vintage Poster Exhibit

PSYCHO KILLER, QU’EST-CE QUEC’EST?

A vintage poster exhibit from writer & collector Barry Yuen, on display through Fall 2024.

The line quoted above is from the Talking Heads song “Psycho Killer.”  It feels apt, since the public seems to have a fascination with Psycho Killers.  The names of some fictional killers have become household names, like Hannibal Lector,  Dexter, and Norman Bates.   Hitchcock’s movie PSYCHO (1960) is probably the grand-daddy of all psycho movies that we see today.  Hitchcock’s achievement with PSYCHO was to demonstrate that a “monster” didn’t have to look like a monster, but could exist in the same room with us, unsuspected.  It planted the seed in the audience’s mind that yes, you too could be the victim of a psycho killer.  I’m not including PSYCHO as part of this exhibit, since it’s been covered in our previous Hitchcock exhibit, but I  acknowledge it’s influence on the whole Psycho Killer genre. So instead, let’s see how the  Psycho Killer genre continued to proliferate in the decades that followed.  Of course, this is only a small sample of what’s out there, and I’m not even including some of the more famous examples, since they’ve become so familiar their edge has worn off, like HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13th. So, during the chilly month of October, follow me along this blood-strewn path and let’s see where it takes us…